It’s another Expert Briefs, where I ask really smart business owners to answer your burning questions.

The next question is submitted by Kelly McCausey:

“I got busted by a subscriber for offering a discount because she thinks it is training my peeps to wait for them.

So, how do you create a ‘special offer' without lowering the value of the offer??”

I think you'll find the responses interesting.

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Lynette Chandler of Tech Based Marketing says:

This question is so timely because one of my goals this year is to not give discounts but to pile on the value instead. Some I've thought up for our WordPress Plugins that you can Resell (plugins with PLR rights) are:

1. Provide an unreleased (or never sold) plugin for purchasing a plugin during the promotional period
2. Get a bonus reseller tools add-on package when you buy during the promotion
3. Get X amount or percentage of store credits when you buy 2 plugins

Of course, I'm always looking for more ideas and can't wait to read this post to add to my list.

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Kevin Riley of Blogpreneur Training says:

I occasionally have sales on my products, but only on occasion and for a limited time. For example: Every year, I have my Jack O'Lantern Package at Hallowe'en. For that, I bundled a few products that complement each other (put them inside a Jack O'Lantern) and put the whole package on sale at a super-discounted price. However, it's only on sale for a few days (this year, I believe it was only 2-3 days), and if they miss they would have to wait another year. I don't think that many are going to wait a full year for something they need now.

I also give some purpose to my sales.

For example: Right now, I'm running the Cabin Fever sale. Since I saw so many of my Canadian and American (esp. northern states) friends complaining about the snow, cold, etc. on Facebook, I decided to do something with that. Since people are stuck indoors during the winter freeze. I thought, “Why not use that time to build an online business,” and created a massive 90%+ discount package for the Biz-Builder Challenge. I regularly sell this package for $197, but I decided to sell it for only $1 per lesson (or $36). And, as soon as the snow goes, so does the sale. Now, anyone missing this sale is not going to be waiting for another sale on this product, because it most likely will never happen.

So, does a sale devalue a product? Does seeing your favourite doughnut shop have a one-week “Buy a dozen doughnuts at 1970s prices” (or other such sale) make you not want to buy their doughnuts at full price ever again? Does getting a half-price movie ticket during “Oscars Special” lower the value of the movie or make you not want to pay full ticket price next time?

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Tiffany Dow of Squidoo Quick Commissions Guide says:

I’ve had the same thing happen to me. I periodically host $1 PLR sales (per pack, not per page), and I had 1-2 affiliates get annoyed by them but what it all boils down to is only *I* know what helps and hurts my business (and affiliates), so I stand by the sales as I want to run them.

I think it would matter whether or not your normal offers are overpriced. Because (in my case) the PLR is sold at such a good rate normally, people don’t have to “wait for a special” – they buy year-round and when it’s on sale. If I had priced my products too high, then yes, maybe people would be trained to wait.

Most of my affiliates appreciate being able to offer their customers a great deal – and those are the kinds of people I’m doing it for – people who are thinking about how they can serve their audience (by finding them a deal), not the ones solely in it for money and nothing else).

I know as an affiliate myself, I always appreciate it when I can let my list know about a discount and help them save money.

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David Perdew of NAMS says:

She may be right. Sales do train people to wait for discounts. But that's not the point.

They also motivate people to go to the store…and BUY lots of stuff NOT on sale. That's why every store always has a sale of some sort going on.

If they have a sale on jeans, they want you to buy full price shirts. If they have a store-wide sale, they want cash to meet a quarterly report or some other reason.

That's the point of a sale, right… So, when you see something from me on sale, you'll also see other stuff not on sale and we sell a lot of that too.

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Nicole Dean of .. here! .. says:

So  many thoughts. And, my friends are so smart. 🙂

I run special offers frequently, but I'm always mindful of a few things.

1. Will this undervalue what my loyal customers (especially members) have already paid?

2. Will this undervalue fast action takers and make them second-guess their purchases with me? Or will it solidify that they want to jump on offers that I mail?

What I tend to do is to release products at a “Fast Action” price to get my most loyal people to buy quickly (and they do). Then, I raise the price once, twice or more, depending on what I've added to it. And, anything I add, I give my original customers whether they were smart and paid $10 – or whether they waited and paid $97.  I think that's fair and it reinforces that taking action quickly is rewarded – at least by me.

Here's an example from CoachGlue.com

If I do a sale, like Kevin demonstrated, later, I try to make it a bundle that brings in at least one or two new things. For instance, at CoachGlue.com we do bundles frequently.

BUT – in those bundles, we'll include some tools, maybe a plugin, a bunch of content, and then something else that may have been released by us elsewhere – and we price it at a really great deal.

What this does is to get people who've already purchased several of the items in the package to buy a second time because the other items included are such a great deal. It's a win-win. And that's what matters.

We'll also do a re-release of a product that we've already sold and add a special plugin (usually one of Lynette's that we get with resale rights) so that people who didn't buy before are encouraged to get it the second go round.

This keeps our customers happy, our affiliates thrilled, us well-fed, and everyone feeling like they got a great deal.

Where can you get products to ADD value to your existing programs?

1. CoachGlue.com Templates – these were designed to help you to add checklists and all kinds of fun stuff to beef up your uniquely you programs. You'll even get PowerPoint slides in most packages so that you can quickly and easily create webinars to add more value to your products.

2. If you want to add cool affirmations and personal development stuff to your programs, check this out. Personal Development Content

3. Lynette's plugins – get these with resale rights and add them to your programs. I did this at BlogCPR.com and people love them.

Warmly,
Nicole Dean