Challenges involve consumers taking specific action to win something from your brand, usually a discount or free product. Challenges often take place over social media, where a brand may ask followers to share its content on their own profiles to make entries into the competition.

Flash sales are short-run sales where businesses, often ecommerce and retail, offer discounts on products and services for a short period. This can inspire a sense of urgency within audiences, and can significantly boost sales if users want to take advantage of a discount before time is up.

Promotional products such as clothing, pens, or gear are novel and can add an element of delight in the right circumstances.

However, as mentioned earlier, they may not hold much sway during the actual purchasing decision. Free trials give users complete access to products and services for a limited time without payment. The goal is for users to realize the benefit you bring to them and convince them to make a purchase when the free trial period runs out.

The most significant reason why consumers in the U. abandon their carts is due to high, unexpected extra costs like shipping. Buy one, get one free BOGO is when a business offers an additional free product to inspire customers to purchase an initial product.

Customers like receiving free things, so offering a free product can inspire them to follow through with a purchase. If you have a suite of products that add more value together than standing alone, bundling them for a discounted rate can make your offer more attractive. This would appeal to prospects concerned about value and weighing their options with your competition in mind.

Add-ons are a bit more flexible than bundles, as removing them won't affect payment terms. With that in mind, this route is great when needing to provide extra value without risk. You might include throwing in a premium feature only available at a higher tier or giving them "extra" of something that otherwise has limits.

Subscriptions are a sales promotion as products are often sold at a lower rate if a user subscribes to a plan. If a customer were to simply buy the product or service each time they need it, they would end up paying more for the overall subscription cost.

For example, if you offer a free trial size item with every purchase, a customer in your loyalty program may be enticed to buy because they want to try something you offer without having to pay for it.

Similarly, an extended payment term is another way to handle price objections and is a good choice for high-ticket sales because it makes the sticker price a little less intimidating. All you have to do is spread out payments over a period that makes sense, like 3 months. By providing extended-use terms, you give the prospect more time to consider your solution's value before extracting value payment renewal from them.

In the right situation, this builds confidence in your product and builds rapport. The average cart abandonment rate is As a result, a valuable sales promotion idea is to send abandoned cart promotions.

In practice, you can track when customers abandoned carts on your site, and follow up with a promotional email with a code or discount to incentivize a purchase follow through.

A great way to run a sales promotion is to partner with an influencer and leverage the relationship they have with their community.

To add further incentive, the influencers you partner with can share a unique code or affiliate link that gives audiences a discount if they use it to make a purchase.

Swag is a promotion you provide to sow good will, interest, and loyalty. The word free in itself does all the talking and entices customers.

Take a look at this classic example:. Read more: Social Proof: 8 Ways to Use it to Get More Sales! Building suspense for an offer is a great way to evoke curiosity among customers. This is what American Eagle does too! When they send offers to their subscribers via emails, their subject line simply reads:.

Take a look at the newsletter that follows:. This can build more anticipation and leads your customer to the website. The CTA here emulates the same feeling as opening a present. Amusing technique, right? An effective loyalty program is a smart investment and a gift that keeps on giving!

You can create VIP programs that are activated once a customer attains a certain amount of points based on their orders. So every time current customers refer you to a friend, you offer them discounts. This is what a referral program is all about.

This ensures that customers are motivated enough to actually recommend you to friends in exchange for discounts, offers, etc. Lifestyle discounts are specific discounts that only apply to a particular profession, age group, or demographic. It is generally associated with an ID.

They are commonly available for students, teachers, seniors, etc. Check out how Apple has a separate lifestyle discount for students, teachers, staff, etc. You can offer such deals all year round like Apple, or limit it only for certain occasions. The choice is all yours!

Read more: 15 Sales Tactics to Generate High-Quality Leads! If you want to make more space in your inventory or sell off seasonal stock like winter clothing, Christmas decorations, or more a clearance sale is a way to go!

Since clearance sales are generally tagged along with discounted prices, customers love it just as much! Check out this email sent by American Eagle for their clearance sale:. If a prospect wants to become a customer, you need to make sure their experience is fulfilling.

The first-order discount is the impression you want to and should set! For instance, an airline company can double loyalty points for the flights taken between February 1 to February If you're looking to get more exposure for your business, consider using a contest or giveaway on one of the most popular social media sites or on your own website.

Make sure you have a dedicated landing page for the purpose of the contest or giveaway. This is where people will enter their information once they are interested in your offer. You can offer a gift card with a popup to prevent the prospective buyer from leaving without a conversion and encourage them to keep in touch with your brand by entering their email address.

Your existing audience is your best resource when it comes to spreading the word about your giveaway. The audience you've already built through your social media presence includes the people most likely to support your giveaway.

So, it makes sense to use this resource as much as possible to encourage participation. Contests are also sales promotion methods in which you offer a prize to the qualifying contestants.

They are interactive ways of connecting with your audience. You can increase your leads and boost your online presence by simply conducting these contests. Event-based contests are very popular among marketers since people are more likely to show interest in your brand if you offer them to win a gold necklace for Valentine's Day.

Everyone wants to be treated like a VIP. Just because you're not a celebrity or wealthy doesn't mean you can't get the VIP treatment! With ecommerce, this is especially true; most online shoppers buy from the same few sites regularly. Since many people make purchases online, they tend to stick with the same shopping sites.

No matter what you decide on, make sure that your promotion includes persuasion triggers such as scarcity and urgency.

Using persuasive triggers is a powerful way to increase your sales, but it's important to balance the amount of scarcity and urgency you use. This will help you avoid scaring away visitors with too much pressure, while still providing enough incentive for them to take action on your offer.

Even loyal customers love time-limited sales. In the best of cases, clever timing can get customers into the habit of buying from your store regularly.

People respond very well to exclusive offers because they feel like they are one of the privileged few who get access to the deal. In addition, this is one of the effective methods of lead nurturing. One of the less intuitive ways that time-limited deals can boost sales is through stopping cart abandonment.

This is because a time-sensitive offer encourages customers to take immediate action—leading people to move their mouse away from the exit button and towards the checkout process. This means more sales for your business. Here are some ways that you can apply these powerful tools to your business:.

Free shipping is an incredibly powerful incentive for encouraging new and existing customers to make a purchase. For example, 1 Body uses an exit-intent popup that offers free shipping specifically when customers are about to abandon their carts. You would only take on the added expense of offering free shipping at the time that a customer needs a final push to make the decision and complete a purchase.

This would not affect customers who want to move directly to the checkout page. The fifteen-minute countdown clock also leads to more sales by establishing a very limited period of time that the offer is valid for. Sending out free samples and products also helps with customer retention.

People feel valued and like the opportunity to try out products that they may end up loving and then decide to buy in the future. The addition of a countdown timer is a great way to get customers to act fast. The sight of a timer ticking down, second by second, is one of the best psychological triggers that can be used to create a sense of urgency.

Seasonal sales are a natural place to use limited-time offers to boost sales because they have a built-in expiration date. The Halloween Giveaway in the example below is over once the calendar passes October 31st.

When you consider the huge interest that customers have during certain holidays Christmas and Black Friday —the two biggest , you can see why seasonal sales can generate tons of revenue.

The lead-up to a limited-time sale is a great opportunity to build strong email and SMS lists. The fact that the upcoming sale will be for a short period of time, means that prospective customers will plan ahead for it.

Here are some effective templates that can help you clear out the inventory you want to sell. You can use them to display your most exciting limited-edition products. Online store owners are always confronting the problem of high bounce rates and not enough first-time visitors entering their sales funnel.

Limited-time offers for first purchases are a great way to ensure that more visitors make it from your landing page to your checkout process. You can also take advantage of your limited-time promotion by getting visitors to join your email list.

That way, you can send them future offers as well. Pro Tip: Always use a branded business email address like john yourbrand. com to share these promotional offers with your email lists. So that your email does not end up in a spam folder, you also get higher open rates.

Choose to run your campaign from any time period, ranging from just a few hours to a full hour period. Best Buy became famous for their daily deals because they showcase a large discount on a different product each day.

This strategy is also called liquidation , and it can be a great way to clear out old stock at low prices. Sephora made a special tab on their website for all sales and offers and listed their BOGO offer.

Lifestyle discounts are incentives to boost the attractiveness of a particular lifestyle. Usually, these discounts are offered to veterans, seniors, teachers, or students. They are also offered to people who have certain types of health conditions. For example, many fitness centers offer discounts for people who suffer from obesity, diabetes or high blood pressure.

Considering the value of word-of-mouth advertising, lifestyle discounts can be very beneficial to your business. Tiered discounts, also called Buy More Save More , can be a powerful tool to encourage customers to spend more money with your brand. The discounts can be tiered in a number of ways.

Asking your loyal customers to spread the love for your brand, in exchange for a discount or reward, can make a big difference for your business. With their customer referral program, Dropbox grew their registered user base at If you have the resources, consider expanding your referral program so it rewards not just the referrer but also the referee.

That means that your business can benefit from increased revenues if you use this time effectively. Marketers may take advantage of the holiday season by introducing new products or highlighting existing ones that are related to the holiday. Loyal customers who feel appreciated and rewarded for their repeat business can be the difference between a company that succeeds and one that fails.

Assuming you have a coffee shop, you can use loyalty cards to offer 1 free drink after buying 9 as seen in above. You can offer double loyalty points for a limited time as a sales promotion to your customers. For instance, an airline company can double loyalty points for the flights taken between February 1 to February If you're looking to get more exposure for your business, consider using a contest or giveaway on one of the most popular social media sites or on your own website.

Affiliate programs allow content creators, influencers, and other businesses to earn a commission on every purchase they refer. By partnering with others and leveraging their audience, you can reach more people and drive more traffic to your site without increasing marketing costs.

A flash sale is a sale that either lasts a limited amount of time or where a limited quantity of products is offered at a discount. Flash sales are popular because they provide an incentive for customers to purchase items quickly. Bed Bath and Beyond runs flash sales frequently and alerts customers via their website and email newsletter.

Recurring Sales are a great way to stand out from the competition and build anticipation. Amazon Prime Day is an excellent example of a recurring sales promotion that generates a lot of buzz each year.

You can also implement a recurring sale for your brand, whether once every three months, six months, or yearly. Seasonal sales offer customers discounts on products or services specifically related to the current or upcoming season. This can be a great way to encourage customers to buy items they may not have considered otherwise.

Offering a lower price is a great way to clear out inventory and make room for new products. An abandoned cart is a shopping cart left inactive, usually because the customer has either changed their mind or become distracted by something else.

Abandoned cart promotions are a great way to recover sales from potential customers who are still on the fence about whether or not to purchase.

Gift cards are a tangible reminder of your company and conveniently allow customers to purchase your products or services. Right now, businesses have a fantastic opportunity to generate extra revenue through gift card sales.

Being a company that cares about important causes and makes charitable donations can help instill trust in your customers and make them feel good about supporting your business. You can use this to your advantage by promoting your charitable giving on your website and social media platforms.

Doing so can help increase brand awareness and create a positive image for your business. TenTree plants ten trees every time you make a purchase, which has helped them raise awareness for both their brand and cause. Free shipping and returns are a great way to entice customers to shop with you.

Joint co-marketing is an excellent way for businesses to promote their products or services together. Businesses can pool their resources and reach a larger audience by working together. Companies can utilize this marketing strategy in various ways, such as co-branded advertisements, joint marketing campaigns, or even product collaborations.

Just take the Yeezy and Adidas collaboration, for example.

So that your email does not end up in a spam folder, you also get higher open rates. Choose to run your campaign from any time period, ranging from just a few hours to a full hour period. Best Buy became famous for their daily deals because they showcase a large discount on a different product each day.

Sticky bars are a great tool for promoting your limited-time offers across your entire site. If you want more customers to make it all the way through your conversion funnel, a limited-time offer is one of the best ways to guide them along. Why not try out one of the limited-time offer popup templates on your site and drive sales now?

Skip to content. What is OptiMonk? Build your list Increase sign-up rates from single to double digits. Increase sales Help visitors shop and boost ecommerce revenue.

Grow AOV Maximize Customer Lifetime Value with proven tactics. Stop abandonment Explore powerful strategies to win back lost sales. BY TYPE. BY GOAL. BY BUSINESS PROFILE. ON DEMAND. Why run limited-time offers? What is a limited-time offer?

Helps boost customer loyalty Even loyal customers love time-limited sales. It can decrease your cart abandonment rate One of the less intuitive ways that time-limited deals can boost sales is through stopping cart abandonment. Promote free shipping for a limited time Free shipping is an incredibly powerful incentive for encouraging new and existing customers to make a purchase.

Check them out below:. Use countdown timers The addition of a countdown timer is a great way to get customers to act fast. You can add a countdown timer to a sticky bar too:.

Leverage the holiday season Seasonal sales are a natural place to use limited-time offers to boost sales because they have a built-in expiration date. Build your list for an upcoming limited-time sale The lead-up to a limited-time sale is a great opportunity to build strong email and SMS lists.

First-time purchase offers Online store owners are always confronting the problem of high bounce rates and not enough first-time visitors entering their sales funnel.

Create sticky bars to remind visitors Sticky bars are a great tool for promoting your limited-time offers across your entire site. Summing up. Share this. Prev Previous Post The Advantages of Using Popups. Next Post The Future of Conversion Optimization Next.

Written by. Nikolett Lorincz. Nikolett is the Head of Content at OptiMonk. She is obsessed with content marketing and loves creating educational content for ecommerce store owners. She truly believes in the importance of quality over quantity.

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Company About us Success Stories Contact us We're hiring! However, promotions are a great solution to turn your sales up and succeed from the beginning.

While Costco first set the trend with free samples, many brands now offer a free trial or sample product. The brand allows its customers to choose any two samples per order. Sephora is confident people will come back to make more purchases given the quality of its products.

This is the logic behind free sample promotions — give a gist into what you offer and lure customers in for sales. Everyone expects to find flash sales and bumper discount offers. This is how Strikingly created its discount offer for the Easter holidays:. This shows that the holiday season means promotions.

Percentage discounts are the best suited for these seasonal deals; coupons are another great option. This shows why referral marketing is a whole different ball game.

With referral discounts, you can hit two targets with the same arrow — get more sales and spread the word about your company.

Consider referral discounts as an inorganic approach to word-of-mouth marketing. But a full-fledged referral program works tremendously for getting more sales. Given that word-of-mouth marketing is a continuous process, a well-planned referral program will keep bringing leads.

Building a referral marketing strategy requires time and effort. Here are some steps you can follow to simplify the process:. Referral discounts will bring in the warmest leads.

However, they should be in line with your offering as well. So, analyze your customers and find out how you can benefit from their referrals.

Referral discounts are a double-edged sword. Make your referral program bulletproof with these few inclusions:. When fixing the value of referral discounts, remember that they should be desirable for the customer and affordable for your business.

Loyalty programs are among the oldest promotional tactics. Closely connected with brand marketing, they aim to reward loyal customers with discounts and bonuses. It works both ways — encouraging new clients to build brand loyalty and retaining existing customers, thanking them for their commitment to the brand.

But the true essence of a loyalty program lies in making the customer feel special. The beauty brand offers three levels of loyalty benefits. You qualify for a different tier after making a certain number of purchases.

The rewards and benefits, like premier access, early sale access, and free shipping, also vary. A customer loyalty program is a long-term promotional tactic and is also a great way to win back lost customers. Social media is a brilliant way to brand and market your business.

But it also helps boost sales through promotions. A social media giveaway presents the ultimate opportunity to increase engagement and sales. A great giveaway like this one creates hype around your brand. So, even if a few people get the product or service, you are essentially encouraging several others to:.

If your business is just starting, you can also combine your giveaway idea with influencer marketing. Ask key social media influencers in your niche to host a giveaway on your behalf and encourage their followers to check out your brand. The brand teamed up with an influencer with a decent Instagram following to promote their latest campaign.

This way, they reached the right audience. This is the ultimate sales promotion tactic carried forward from one brand generation to another. With hyper-targeted marketing campaigns, offering personalized gift vouchers can drive your sales.

A customized coupon works best to make your customers feel special and excites them to buy more. Vouchers act as a gesture of gratitude as well.