Create Promotions

Create promotions to sell more. It’s a simple, yet highly effective strategy that increase sales and profits when used properly. Still you can’t just throw offer a random discount, or bonus and expect it to make you money.  In fact misusing promotions can lead to lower perceived value, not to mention a lack of sales.  Here are some ideas for different promotions you can easily implement and how to use them.
Before you create your sales page and/or sales letter, you should be thinking about motivators beyond the products benefits that will persuade people to take action. The most common enticement you see is a discount with deadline. I’m sure you have been offered a discount on a product or service that asks you to “buy now.” There’s a reason for that – it’s an effective sales tool. I would also like to talk about some less common motivating tools that you can use to increase your sales:

Early Bird Discount Promotion

The early bird promotion is not as popular as the standard discount because it requires a little more planning on behalf of the seller, but it can be very effective. One of the reasons it works so well is that the discount is legitimately justified. Only people who purchase in advance and within a defined time frame are given the discount (think Christmas supplies in July), since the discount is limited to a time frame when it is obviously a less attractive time to buy providing the discount does not damage the perceived value as much as a traditional discount may.

Pre-order Discount Promotion

Pre-order discounts are offered to clients who order your product before it is available to them. This is a great way to guarantee you will have sales for a new product, collect revenue to pay for expenses and create a buzz about your new release. The pre-order is also a solid justification for a discount, as it makes sense to most people that they should receive a price break for parting with their money without the instant gratification of the product.

Traditional Sale Promotion

As mentioned before, these are the most popular types of promotions and can be used for any reason – a holiday, limited inventory, personal event/accomplishment, seasonal change, new client, loyal client, client who hasn’t purchased from you in a while. You name it. These types of promotions do not require a lot of planning and can easily be added at the last minute. You must be extremely specific as to when the sale ends and make sure that the information is posted throughout your marketing material. As a general rule of thumb, you want to make the deadline two weeks or less from the time your client receives the message. They can be effective at generating additional sales and are a great tool but they do have the potential of depreciating the value of your products over time and you do run the risk of “training” your clients to “only buy on sale.” I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use traditional sales. I just want you to be aware of all of the factors so that you can create the most effective marketing program possible.

Limited Bonus Promotion

You can dramatically increase the reasons to buy by providing valuable bonuses that your clients really want, but they still might not purchase immediately and miss out all together if you don’t give them a reason to act quickly. Here are a few ways to limit bonuses to light a fire under them:
• Bonuses provided to only the first X people to purchase/subscribe/enroll. Call or e-mail to check if there are still bonuses available.
• If you order before “INSERT DATE” you will also get the following… If you order after “INSERT DATE” the bonuses will not be included or bonuses may expire one at time until none of them are available.
• “If you upgrade your purchase today you will receive the following bonuses…” This offer is referred to as an upsale and I believe is best when made immediately after the original purchase is completed. By waiting until the original purchase is complete you are able to focus on selling only one item at a time instead of trying to validate the benefits of each option simultaneously.

Don’t want to deal with all of this?

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Want to read more articles on related topics?

Try 5 Ideas for Promotional Email Messages
Check Out How to Create a Landing Page or Squeeze Page to build your prospect list.
Read Landing Page Give Away to learn how to create an effective “free gift” for your landing page.