Many organizations run occasional promotions so that they can attract new customers or encourage existing ones to return. These promotions usually come around every now and again – like Black Friday, Cyber Monday or Valentine’s Day. However, these events give businesses just a short amount of time to promote limited time offers before shoppers move on to another retailer. As a result, some retailers may find themselves missing out on potential sales.
As a result, many companies are turning towards more creative marketing strategies in order to remain competitive in an increasingly saturated advertising market. One example is the use of influencers. Instead of relying only on paid advertisements where the consumer has little to no say on what products they will receive, marketers are taking advantage of social media sites such as YouTube to create videos about their brands.
However, in the online world, limited time offers can run “evergreen” aka, continuously, as they are seen once by first-time shoppers and then disappear from their screens. Limited-times offers work well for online shoppers because they provide them with a compelling incentive to buy by creating an urgent need.
When an offer is made available at a certain date or within a certain timeframe, it becomes more appealing to potential buyers because they’re afraid to miss out on something good. In order to make sure your business gets maximum exposure using time-limited offers, you’ll need to learn how to use them to your advantage. Here’s the lowdown on how you can use these deals to your advantage when creating promotional material.
1. Use Limited Time Offers Strategically
If you are running an online shop and you are using quiz funnels then you need to make sure that when a quiz taker finishes he will be presented with an outcome – with a recommended product that matched his answers.
It is recommended at this very moment to present a discount as an incentive with a limited time (i.e. in the next 5 minutes) and then when the clock hits zero, even if he has saved the page in his bookmarks he won’t be able to see this offer again.
If you are not using quiz funnels and you simply taking advantage of seasonal holidays for limited time offers, you’ll also want to make sure that you’ve planned your promotions properly. While some retailers choose to run promotional activities simultaneously over several days, others prefer to restrict them to specific dates and times. By doing this, you can limit the number of products that go unsold while ensuring that your brand stays visible to consumers.
2. Promote Multiple Products at Once
It’s worth mentioning that not all limited-time offers are created equal. Some may offer substantial price reductions for items that are not selling fast. Others don’t really care so much and they do wide-site sales just to increase their sales and cover their current expenses.
Sometimes, it is worthwhile to bundle many products together and make a “pack” a “bundle” or a “kit” and then reduce the price for purchasing the entire thing. Customers will recognise this as a value for money and most of the time will purchase it especially if you add a limited-time promotion there.
Another example is your company may offer a free shipping deal to customers who order two or three items at once or you may offer an additional product at a discount when a customer buys something and tie that into a limited-time offer – i.e. “Thank you for purchasing our past spoon, get the wooden spoon tray to rest the spoon when mixing your pasta, at a 20% off – a great value for money! Available only for the next five minutes”.
These types of offers work best because the customer has already shown interest in buying from you by visiting your website, so the next step is to reward them for doing so.
3. Tie Your Deals Into Social Media Posts
Creating limited-time offers is one thing – promoting them is what makes them successful (but you already knew that, didn’t you). Tying your limited-time offers with social media posts is currently one of the best free ways to promote them. Many companies engage with users via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok allowing them to share information regarding the sale and communicate with fans about upcoming offers.
Here is how to do it:
a. Set Up Social Media Channels for a Limited Time Sale
Set up a separate Twitter handle and Facebook page for your limited-time promotion. On your social media pages, you can tell followers about your promotion for only a certain amount of time, letting them know exactly when and for how long things will last.
This kind of communication with customers is key to keeping them interested and coming back for more. You also get to build excitement around your special event before it happens.
b. Create and Promote Limited-Time Offers Using Multiple Platforms
Promoting your sales through multiple platforms allows you to reach out to different audiences and spread your message across various networks. For example, if you sell products on Amazon but also offer discounts on your website, you can run ads targeting both sites promoting your deals. Then at the end of the promotion, you evaluate which medium and sales channel was more effective and adjust accordingly next time.
Also, try to make sure that different promotions go live at different times so that your audience sees something fresh every day.
3. Use Social Media Posts to Tie Your Sales To Customers’ Lives
Tagging a repeat, loyal customer in a photo posted during a special promotion is a fun way to connect with your clients. Showing them that you’re thinking of them helps build trust and loyalty. It also encourages them to come back to your store or shop again.
Here is how to do it:
Step 1: Create Your Photo Album With Tags
Let’s assume here that you’ve already created an album on Facebook called “Customers,” but let me explain first the process of tagging your customers’ faces and adding custom text to every image in the album.
First, log in to Facebook, click on your “Customers” album and hit the Edit button so you can view the images and comments.
Step 2: Next, select a group of six to 12 images that represent your best day’s sales activity and upload them to your computer.
Step 3: Drag the images onto a blank background (you can use a white background or another color if you prefer) and place them in order. Finally, click Save and continue editing your album.
Now that you’ve uploaded your photos, it’s time to add tags for every face in the pictures. To do that, go to the Tools tab and click on the Tag People icon.
Enter a name for each customer; make sure the names are meaningful and descriptive. Click Add Person and enter additional information about the customer, including gender, date of birth, location, occupation, etc.
Finally, after saving your changes, click Share now to publish your album.
Step 4: Post a Picture and Tag Customers
Now, it’s time to actually tag your customers! Select a picture from the album you just created and edit it to fit the desired look. When done, save the edited image.
Go to your Timeline and click Post Now. Scroll down to find the Manage Tagged option, and click it.
Under the section titled “Create a new tagged photo”, click Use Existing Photo and browse to the saved image you just edited.
Click Use As Tagged Photo and proceed to type the appropriate tag for every customer. If necessary, zoom in to read the description and change its font size.
Once you’ve finished typing out all the tags, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Done Editing. Finally, click Save Changes.
4. Add Content Related to Your Promotion
Not all content needs to revolve around making money. You can still add value to your fans and followers by sharing helpful tips and tricks, answering questions, talking about customer service experiences, or anything else related to your business.
For example, let’s say that you sell vitamins, i.e. vitamin D. You could create a blog post around all the benefits of vitamin D and then the link to your quiz or a promo. Prospective customers who actually read the entire blog post (you can see that through Google Analytics) have more chance of taking the quiz that is embedded into your article and then ending up buying the limited-time offer, rather than those that didn’t.
This way, you can measure how content plays a role during promotions vs normal time and how content contributes to limited-time offers vs normal sales.
5. Pay Attention to Customer Reviews
Showing appreciation for reviews left by happy customers is another way to build rapport with your audience. When you see negative reviews, respond promptly and honestly, explaining what happened and what you plan to do in order to address issues.
Offer a discount or a free product in order to redeem your brand in your customer’s eyes.
6. Share Exclusive Photos & Videos With Fans
For some reason, posting exclusive photos and videos makes people feel like you care about them. They’ll be even more likely to buy from you knowing that you put effort into building relationships with them. Plus, they’ll be able to relive the experience later whenever they’re feeling nostalgic.
7. Send limited-time offers to your email list
This is a biggie. We see, time and time again, even with small lists of around 10,000 people that limited-time offers convert around 10-15% depending on the product, the discount or the type of promo that is sent.
The best time to do this is on weekends, but in reality, if you are running a quiz funnel, anytime will do – it all depends on the size of your email list. In our experience, lists with over 10,000 people work best.
If you run a quiz funnel, you have two options:
– Run the discount immediately after the welcome email
– Run the discount at the end of the workflow
We totally prefer the latter as we use the workflow to build a product and brand awareness (DigitalMarketer.com calls it indoctrination, but we hate this word), explain the brand values and present reviews, customer testimonials on the way and THEN send them the limited-time offer.
One of the best ways we found of doing so is to have a countdown timer within the email which really adds to scarcity and urgency factors. In fact, we saw more conversions when we did have the countdown timer, rather than when we simply stated it.
IMPORTANT- Always, always include a P.S. in your emails previous to sending the limited-time offers via email. This preps the reader and sometimes they are eagerly awaiting the email to take the offer. If you send the email with a discount without the warning (the P.S.) your chances of getting the sale are less |(unless you run the offer for a few days).
Speaking of days, not everyone is ready to buy when you decide to sell. This is why it is important, apart from prepping the recipient to remind the customers with two or three emails that the offer continues and that they will miss out on X day unless they act now. Works most of the time 🙂
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