Day 3 of 12 Days of Holiday Marketing Tips - Don't devalue your products.
One holiday season, I was walking in the mall and a girl from a kiosk asked me to come over and try the lotion. I went over, tried it and loved it. She then sold me a buy one get one free deal. This wasn't needed I loved the product, however, it was very much welcomed because it was the holiday season and I knew my grandmother would have loved one too.
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Many big name stores and brands that you can find in the mall use the buy one, get one free tactic. However, I would caution some small business from using this because it can harm the value of your product or service in the eyes of your potential customers and may even anger some customers that had paid regular price.
Remember day one of the 12 Days of Holiday Marketing Tips I told you to hold off on the email campaign until you learned more tips. Well, here is one you are going to want to note.
But this is a great tactic during the holidays, you say. And I reply, but there are other ways that are better if you get creative.
Today's Tip: Avoid devaluing your product during the holidays, or any other time, for quick and easy sales and instead get creative.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
1) Offer a “lighter” version.
If you want to lower prices during the holidays, I would suggest selling a "lighter" version of your product or service for the "lighter" price. For instance, if you sell a package of a 5 candle set for $30, take out a couple of candles and sell it for $15 instead.
2) Sell in bulk.
Try the opposite of #1. Sell in bulk at a discount but higher price overall. For instance, if you sell 1 candle for $1.00, sell at bulk with 10 candles for $7.00.
3) Add a free gift with purchase.
However, make the gift something that you don't regularly sell and therefore don't have a price for. Macy's does this all the time with their perfumes. For example, if you buy a gift set, you will receive a free tote bag.
4) Sell gift sets.
In #3, I mentioned a gift set. You can use this like the idea #2, selling in bulk, but instead you are selling different products together that complement one another as a set. Usually, if purchased this way it would be cheaper than buying all the products separately.
5) Clean out discontinued inventory.
If the product is going to be discontinued and this happens every year, then you may make a company holiday tradition of selling these type of products at a discount. This wouldn't necessarily devalue the product. Because by discontinuing a product to release a better version, you are already devaluing the product and the discounted price would be appropriate. If you do this type of event every year, you may make a large profit in sales that will increase as the years went by.
6) Reward early purchasing.
Building on #5, if you do a discontinued product event every year, at the same time you can announce your new products and offer a free gift with purchase if bought early and not later. The period for the early purchase can be during the month of January to start the year with a bang.
I hope you are enjoying the 12 Days of Holiday Marketing Tips so far. Be sure to tell others about it.
