Who doesn’t love a good deal or sale? Nothing beats the awesome feeling of getting an amazing deal.
But save the deals for Black Friday and your next trip to the mall. Because discounting your services is a recipe for long-term struggle in your business. You’re not Walmart, and nor should you be the low cost leader in your industry.
So, how can you sell out your services and do discounts the right way so you sell out? How can you be strategic about what you offer so there’s a master game plan that makes that discount more of a long-term investment in your business growth?
The good news is you can offer discounts and still be profitable. It’s all in how you work the plan so you drive sales, engage new audience members, or keep your existing customers happy.
Here are a few winning examples of how you can discount things the right way:
Use Intro Pricing
When you’re first offering a service or program for that matter, you’re starting something new. Which means you have a few key objectives, which is first and foremost to test out your concept to ensure it’s a good use of your time and energy.
Plus, you want to build up the reputation for what you’re offering along with testimonials from happy customers as much as possible.
This is why an intro price can be so compelling.
Having a discounted intro price lets you test your concept and get paying customers in the door, while reducing the risk to would-be clients that are sitting on the fence.
It’s a win-win for everyone involved.
When I first introduced the Business Accelerator (now retired from my line up), I offered a discount to people in a shared networking group. I knew they were my ideal client and this helped me drive faster sales and increase my time to market. Instead of having to hustle to fill spots, I was able to get booked up and then let my work speak for itself.
The result was that I had happy clients who referred their friends and colleagues and I refined my process so that when it was time to go full price I knew exactly what to do.
When you’re rolling out a new service, set a goal of how many sessions you’ll book at the intro price and then increase the price. Once you’ve done 8 or 10 session and you’re booking up, you know you have a winner!
First-Time Buyer Discount
I’m sure you’ve subscribed to a magazine as the result of an enticing discount to help get you to sign up, or even joined a membership program with a $1 trial.
The goal here is simple. You want to get first timers in the door so they can experience your product or service.
In an online-based business, look for ways you can provide a first-time customer discount. That may be a promo code for $50 off your signature service when they sign up for your email list or identifying who on your list has never purchased from you and creating a special offer just for them.
If you have a high quality product or service, you’re more likely to get them to continue doing business with you once you get past that first purchase, so play with how you can move visitors or subscribers into actually buying.
Creating Urgency with a Price Increase
Sometimes you’re going to have something that isn’t moving as fast as you’d like, so you may need to get creative with your marketing to make your offer more enticing.
Perhaps your intro price is going away for good or you’re raising the price on your service. This is a great time to let your tribe know so they can get the best possible deal. I’ve seen this strategy be extremely effective for one of my clients who was raising the price of her signature service by 50%. She set a one week deadline, marketed it for that week and booked up more than 10 spots at the soon-to-be retired price.
Be mindful of how you use urgency to sell your services as you don’t want to constantly be coming up with a time-limited offer as your audience will likely become immune. (It’s the “boy that cried wolf” of online marketing!)
Be Smart About How You Discount
Our pricing tells a story. So when you’re thinking about how to use a discount to sell out your services, get smart about how you do it. The ideal is that you incorporate that discount into your pricing so it looks like a steal.
For example, maybe you’ve figured out that you can charge $497 for your signature service and still be extremely profitable. But you want to be able to do a campaign so you can offer an intro price. Instead of coming out of the gate and pricing it at $497 and offering $100 off and cutting into your profit, look at how you can price it higher at the regular price and have $497 be the discounted one.
I’d love to hear how you’ve been able to sell out your services. What pricing strategies have worked for you? Dish up the dirt in the comments below.
