Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premiere online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP Social Media Training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. Today we're talking about marketing your discount codes and special offers. So we've all seen it. We have all seen the, Buy Now at the best price ever. This offer only lasts for the next 10 minutes, etc. Right? Creates a bit of urgency, creates a bit of, oh, it must be interesting because if so many people are buying this thing and that's why the price is going up in 10 minutes, then I should really check it out. Now exaggerating maybe with the 10 minute thing, but we could be talking about early bird discount codes. Where else have you seen it?
Melanie
Well, I've seen this sense of urgency when people are trying to close the doors of maybe a marketing webinar or a special event. I can understand that, you know, relevance, weight, time, that's all very important. And unless you give a sense of urgency, people are in the middle of doing something. They're driving somewhere, they're going shopping or walking around a shop or a store. And so unless you tell them that you need a response to this in a timely fashion, they're just going to put it off.
Esther
Yeah. And we're not saying there's anything wrong per se about doing it. What we're saying today is that it's the false urgency that is misleading and wrong. So for example, I've been on websites recently where it says, One day only, such and such is on sale and best offer, and all the words that you can think of to describe this urgency for buying this product or paying for this service. But you log in the next day and it's exactly the same. Or you go on to a website, I've gone into a website recently where 20 minutes, you have 20 minutes to lock in a discount code, but if you refresh the browser, the 20 minutes starts all over again. So I saw recently from a legal perspective called SPARQA, S-P-A-R-Q-A Legal, that they're now starting to clamp down on these misleading urgencies in places like Woucher, which is an online discount brand. It's basically like you can go there and buy anything for up to 75%, 80% off or whatever. But there are some of the main ones. With being so big, they are seen more for doing this because lots of people are online seeing, oh, well, it says that this offer ends on such and such a date at midnight, but you go in the next day and the offer has refreshed.
Melanie
So you think it's cheapening? People aren't actually believing this, so they're not enacting. We just need more people to mean what they say. Maybe you haven't sold enough tickets. We get that. But instead of, say, keep on doing it, people are going, Oh, my God. I got to do this by tomorrow. And then they open up their phone the next day and they're like, What?
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
Oh, well, I've got another couple of days. Maybe think of another shock tactic that can motivate people. Maybe you can suggest an affiliate code instead of a discount so that they can earn more from it in a different way. Or maybe you can say those who signed up previously, if you sign up in the next five days, you'll get a free e-Book or a download or something, something you don't really need to give any huge amount of time or effort to. Once you've done it, it's created. Then anybody after that will still get the discount, but they won't get the download. There's still ways of pushing people down your funnel, but you're not having to keep on continuing this extended offer.
Esther
Yeah and I think too, what really irks a lot of people is, for example, the early bird. The early bird ends at such and such a time and such and such a date. And then that's all well and good. Say it does end and officially the website does say that it's no longer valid. But then two weeks later, an even better offer comes on the table. So it's like, two for the price of one at the early bird price, for example. That would just annoy me. That would be like, Well, I got in at a time that was supposed to be early bird. Sometimes it just makes me think that the promoter is a bit desperate and it gives the vibe of, Well, if they haven't sold enough tickets, just how bad is the event going to be? Or how little information or value are they actually going to give if they're having to go down this route of discounting and discounting and discounting continually? It is perception. Perspective.
Melanie
You can't just think it's always going to be new people that come across your website or your special event. It could be a past client and they're like, What? Again? One thing I've been saying a lot recently, Esther, and I think I've not really appreciated it until the last couple of weeks is we are in the business of managing customers' expectations. These expectations can go up and down. And we can be disappointed by going to one event and like, Oh, well, I wasn't expecting that. And then your opinion drops for any other events you go. You don't expect as much. We can't help what past experiences our clients have had. None of us can. But we can try and meet or even surpass expectations for them when they come to us.
Esther
Absolutely. And when you are marketing your event or your product or service, by all means, you can use these early bird tickets or reduce discounts and et cetera. But don't overuse it either. Know your value. We've talked about this recently too. Know your value, know how much you deserve to be getting for your time. If you want to give it away for free for the first five people, do that. But stick to your guns and it's only the first five. If those five seats fill up within 30 minutes, charge a nominal fee, charge a bit more. There's other people that I know of that were selling 100 things and the first person could buy it for one dollar, for example. The second person bought it for two, three, four. That's perfectly viable as well because then...
Melanie
That was awesome. You told me that earlier this year. That was such a cool idea.
Esther
it's a really good idea. Obviously, there's plug ins and there's apps for doing all these things. You don't have to manually sit there and go, What number person was this now? But that's almost like a better sense of urgency to go, Oh, I wonder how much I can get it for. If I can get it for a fiver, then I'm all for it. If you're unlucky enough to get in last, then you're like, Oh, well, it's good for them that they filled up all the spaces and they were able to sell the 100 tickets. You're still going to get exceptional value from people that you know give exceptional value.
Melanie
But then you'll know that's meeting... You know that that person offers that thing and they'll want to get in there first the next time.
Esther
Absolutely.
Melanie
They want to ring that notification bell or see all posts so that they don't miss out next time.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
That's a great example.
Esther
But it's when, like you were saying for memberships, that they open their doors for a certain period of time and only for this period of time it's going to be something with a 7 at the end because that's always the price, isn't it? It's like $47.27, something, $97, only for this limited period of time. And then they turn around, like three, four months later, and they open the doors again, but it's now instead of 47, it's now 27. You go, Well why did I pay more? Why am I paying more? Surely they should be increasing the price the next time they open the doors. So be very careful.
Melanie
Well, yeah, you do have to be very careful. There's one person that I bought into as a membership that was like, I think it was 27 a month or something like that. Or maybe even cheaper, it might have been 22. I think it was 22 a month. Because that I bought at that time, it was 22. Then each month, new members would go up. It would go up 23 the following months, 24 the following months, 25. So similar. But it would be exactly... Obviously, the longer the membership has been open, there'd be more value.
Esther
Yeah, of course.
Melanie
Because they keep on putting new trainings in, new courses, new downloads. But to get in there and be first, you'd get all of that anyway at a cheaper price. So it's really explaining why that price is that price and for how long. And if you get in early, you'll get all these benefits anyway.
Esther
Absolutely. You could end up, it's called grandfathering, getting in at the ground floor and maybe there's not a lot of things going on. There's not much in terms of value in the membership, but you have locked in that price and you will get everything else from now on for that price. You and I are both members of digital women and we got it locked in at a price that has not come back around again because it was when it was started.
Melanie
We were early adopters.
Esther
Yeah. And there are people that should be valued for that, for believing in you from the early stages. Also, be careful of these online claims guys of this will work and you don't need anything else, whether it's from a service business or a product business. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Melanie
We're not cynical at all, are we?
Esther
Well, we've been around the block. Not saying we're old, but we've been around the block. But just be aware that these things, they are starting to clamp down on them. If you are going to going to be promoting your product or service in one of these ways, they are starting to clamp down and somebody could report you because there are a lot of people out there with very little else to do and they like to just make life harder for small business owners. Stick to your guns, stick to what you know, stick to your value and your costs and you will fly. Okay? And on that note, we wrap it up and say bye bye for now and we'll be back next week with more Monday Morning Marketing. Until then, bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye guys. Have a great week.
In all the chats we were having about discussing this, you didn't mention half of those suggestions.
Esther
It comes to me in the moment.
Melanie
This is why we don't rehearse.
Esther
Exactly. If we did, it would be so boring.
