Let's talk about discounts. There are people who ignore all of the pricing tactics we've discussed so far and rely entirely on discounts to drive more sales. Personally, I don't believe this is the best policy because discounts, if done wrong can harm your business. This company is a pricing strategy might devalue your product and set future expectations. That means people will be unwilling to buy your product at a regular price, because they know that the end of the month is coming for example, or you do discounts so frequently, there is no reason to buy now. Truth is big retail stores.

If trained people to buy items on sale will like it will feel special. But very often, we become victims of well crafted pricing strategies. And if these strategies work very well for retailers, that doesn't mean they will work. That will for us in the long run. Plus, once you get started with deep discounts, it might be very hard for you to give up, because the negative effect would be even greater. I want to share something with you.

I sold a lot of courses on Udemy. I'm talking about thousands of courses, and roughly 98% of my sales came from coupon codes and discounts. See this is remarkable, roughly 98% This is the extent to which Udemy embraced discounting as a pricing strategy. The discounting monster grew so big that it caused havoc in confusion. Students didn't know the real price of a course anymore. Students stopped enrolling in courses paying the regular price.

Obviously Udemy didn't like the fact students were confused. They decided to make a big change in their pricing strategy in removed deep discounts, instructors weren't able to offer 70 or 80 or 90% off coupon codes. Udemy said the highest you can go is 50% of the price of your course. That's it. They truly wanted to reduce the confusion. And they went even further.

Before the price change, you could price your course between 10 and $300. After the price change, you could price between 20 and $50. So the prices look more realistic. Udemy has a lot of data and that decision was back to it. The new people were buying courses at that price range. What do you think has happened?

Let me tell you, it was a complete disaster. I took to the online instructors in my network and most of them reported a dramatic decrease in sales. I remember one of them told me he was making 4000 to $6,000 per month beef For a price change in around $1,000. After the price change, students stopped buying courses irrationally, just because they were heavily discounted and started buying courses. rationally. That means buying courses the need and want to study Udemy tested this new model for a few months and understood that their decision was a mistake, and they made another change.

Now their pricing model resembles the old one that was profitable. However, they kept the $5 increments meaning you cannot set a price ending in any different number than zero or five, like 2025 3035 4045 and so on, which is another mistake in my opinion. And I believe in your opinion too. What about the magic number nine, I still think $29 course is much more appealing then $30 course. Now, this example supports the points I made earlier. discounting devalues your products and sets future expectations.

People like discounts and they're accustomed to discounts because of the retail stores. People feel special. But let me tell you, discounting is not the only way to make your customers or prospects special. You can also make your prospects or customers feel special by providing more value. You don't necessarily need to cut the price just provide more value. I sell my premium program for 497.

And as the original price, I don't say hey, my premium program cost 997 and today you have a chance to enroll only for 497 Well, I took a different approach. I added bonuses to increase the value of my offer added three courses on copywriting in one course on marketing fundamentals in these bonus courses are perfectly aligned with my main offer. There isn't a disconnect and don't take the wrong discounts, incentivize people prospects to take action. That's a fact. I just want to give you more points to consider and don't blindly follow what the masses are doing. I don't encourage you not to use discounts.

I encourage you to be careful with discounts. And you're smart enough, you I know you're understand me. Now, I want to give you a rule of thumb when you do discounts, and you shouldn't be following that rule. Every time you do a discount here is the rule. You must always have a solid reason why you do a discount. You must always have a solid reason why you do a discount.

If I ask you. Why do you do discounts right now? You answer to make more money, right? Well, that's not a good enough reason for your prospects. And you can come up with thousands of reasons you can celebrate a milestone, an event, an important occasion in your life, and as you may have guessed by now A fan of ethical marketing and out encourage you to have a real believable reason. Let me give you an example.

This is a promotional announcement I wrote is Udemy. And I remember you brought a good number of sales subject line. Let's celebrate in brackets. You must read this. What human emotion do I rely on here? If you've answered curiosity, good job, and here is the copy of the promotional announcement.

I started teaching online at Udemy one year ago, and it wasn't an easy journey. A few days ago, I crossed the 10,000 student mark, which is a great milestone for me. Then I added a screenshot because this is proof I'm not lying. First of all, I would like to thank you for enrolling in my courses. I wouldn't be anywhere near here if it wasn't for you. I want to give back to the community and celebrate this meaningful for me milestone with the biggest discount I've ever made on not just one, but all my courses.

Do you see where I'm going with this? I'm not just selling. I'm celebrating something meaningful to me. This, I believe, was a great factor for the success of that particular promo. Time to recap, discounting is a pricing strategy might devalue your product and set future expectations, so you need to be careful. Number two, you can always make your customers feel special by providing more value.

You don't necessarily need to cut the price. And number three, you must always have a solid reason why you do discounts. Thank you for watching and stay purposeful