Question: What is one unique promotion strategy that I can use to drive up sales temporarily without impacting the perceived value of my product/service?
Create a Product Launch
"Create a product launch by offering a new version or a special bonus bundle. The strategy builds excitement (offline and online) leading up to a big sales event. Make the special offer limited (either by quantity or time), and make it available to the public all at the same time. In our experience, a good product launch can make more money in one week than the prior three-plus months combined."
@CharlesGaudet
Create Exclusive Offers, Not "Sales"
"Offer improved packages at normal rates, or indirectly discount the package by including additional payment flexibility, but never lower the price. If you are seen as a company that plays with price, customers will wait to order until things are on sale. The value in their minds will have already been reduced to the lower price."
@Brenomics
Create a One-Time Offer
"Immediately after people sign up for our services, we present them with a one-time offer that upsells our paid services at a great price. By positioning it as an impulse buy (low price, no-brainer) and making it clear they won't be able to receive the same offer in the future, these offers convert tremendously well."
@FreeEbooksNet
Take Advantage of an Upcoming Holiday
"Any relevant holiday can become a reason to offer something for a limited time or with a special discount. It's a simple strategy, but picking the right times to go all out based on more broadly relevant themes can help push consumers to purchase."
@thederek
Offer a Gift With a Purchase
"Assign a value to a gift, and include the gift with a purchase at a certain dollar amount. For example, one of my clients produced throw blankets from her famous tri-blend fleece material. She offered it for sale on her site to assign value and then included the throw blanket on any purchase over $125. It was a really effective strategy, especially during a gift-giving season."
@BrettFarmiloe
Create a Culture of Scarcity
"Scarcity -- it’s a Robert Cialdini principle. You don’t want to adversely affect the value of your service by wholesale discounts across the board or something like that. But if you limit your discount offering to, say, a certain period of time, like around a holiday or a special event, that can certainly boost sales because then people know the deal expires, and it creates a culture of scarcity."
@mmogill
Push AdWords
"You can push AdWords traffic to a special sale page that nobody from your main site can access. It's a great way to push out inventory without hurting your perceived value online."
@johnrampton
Create a Hard Deadline to an Offer They Can't Refuse
"Create a hard deadline that offers a deep discount to only a small subset of prospects that are the least likely to become customers. Make the discount so attractive that they cannot say no. You will generate additional revenue from prospects who otherwise wouldn't have spent money with you while preventing others in your sales pipeline from knowing about the promotion."
@jkrums
Tap Into a new Market
"If you're prepared to do some additional marketing, offering your product or service to a new market can provide a sales boost. My favorite strategy is to release a free whitepaper describing how a new market can use the product in question and push it out to the relevant publications in that space. For relatively little cost, I can get a boost in sales numbers."
@thursdayb
Position Yourself as an Expert in Your Field
"Aside from the normal coupon, sale or referral strategies, there are some less common ways you can accomplish this. One is offering to be a speaker at a convention or a chamber of commerce meeting. Establishing yourself as an expert in your field can open up new audience opportunities in a great, natural way."
@quote
Create a Two-Step Checkout Process
"Getting bargain shoppers to become value shoppers is the goal of any company when marketing a product or service. However, your competition is only one click away, and they have a discount running on Groupon right now. In order to combat lowered perceived value and still get the customer, I recommend creating a two-step checkout process."
@adamroot
Host a Webinar
"Host a webinar on how your product can help your audience. At the end of the webinar, offer a one-time 50-percent-off discount to webinar attendees only."
@risk
Offer Samples to Bloggers
"Identify top bloggers/influencers in your space, and offer them a free sample of your product. Their followers will appreciate seeing an honest review, and some will hopefully end up buying your product (or at least signing up for your email list to start)."
@joshaweiss
Change Your Pricing Model
"Rather than drop your price, change the payment options to be more favorable for the client. Change upfront fees to be distributed on a monthly basis, give a discount for a long-term commitment, or shift the unit groupings to create something that doesn't affect the unit price, but creates a more favorable incentive for a customer to act now."
@trevorsumner
Bundle Products and Services
"It can be tiered pricing or volume-incentive. Consider possibly bundling less popular products with more popular products at a discounted rate."
@sambahreini
Use Promo Codes
"Create promotion codes, then hand them out to business partners, bloggers or influencers. If it's not coming from you, it won't look like a blatant discount, but rather an insider hookup from the other entity they follow. Not only can this generate sales for you without looking desperate, but it will also make your partners look good for being able to offer valuable hookups."
@andykaruza
