Top 10 Beauty offers ideas that don’t involve discounts

There comes a time in your brand’s marketing campaign when you can’t always offer discounts to increase your revenue. If you always choose to offer discounts, customers will start to perceive your products as being cheap, slowly lose interest and trust in you.

Always discounting your products can lead to consequences in the long run. You’re starting to decrease your average order value, it creates an expectation for future discounts and your product value fades in the mind of the customer. They’ll no longer wish to buy the same product, no matter if it's high quality at the original non-discounted price, but rather choose to buy it only when discounts are presented.

So, how can you as a beauty brand stay clear of that? But, also incentive your customers to buy more without offering them discounts. Create beauty offers so appealing that they don’t involve discounts. Easy, right? You can start with these:

Start adding more value to your products, offer them samples of the full product

This is a great way to test products that you’re currently working on. You also add value to your customers by letting them be the first ones to try them out. This makes them feel important & it’s rewarding them by offering exclusivity. So, instead of offering 20% off their order, or 10% off, try pairing a smaller-size product with a bigger purchase. Let’s say for example any orders above $60 receive a 1oz or 3oz conditioner, or whatever product is in demand. Or you can pair products that are not selling that well with products that are high in demand. This way you increase sales for other products & incentives your customers to go through with the offer.

Take inspiration from supermarkets: do a 3 for 2 offer

All the major supermarkets do this to boost their sales, why shouldn’t you? Whilst it might still be considered a discount, it’s actually increasing your average order value. Why? Well, you’re ‘forcing’ the customer to spend more in order to take full advantage of the deal, getting the third product free. Because chances are your customers were initially planning to buy the product before the offer.

Consider creating Happy Hours/ Days

Take inspiration from restaurants that have Happy Hours at specific hours in the day which are quieter. If you have the possibility to create this why shouldn’t you? Think about it, if you notice some months are slower than others when it comes to sales, why not implement it? Give them the opportunity to indulge in your products & offer them something extra. This can be as mentioned above, a sample of one of your best-selling products, offering a travel kit, or anything else your customers might find valuable.

Implement a loyalty program

This is a great way to increase revenue & reward your customers for being loyal to your brand. Showcase the fact that by buying more from you they get more rewards and opportunities. Create a loyalty scheme, where for every dollar spent they collect points to use in future promotions, or in getting products.

Promote product bundles

Bundles provide value to your customers who choose to buy multiple products from you. And it’s perfect for customers who seek convenience, want to save more dollars & get the most out of the products they’re purchasing. Another way to take your bundles to another level and have a steady stream of sales is to offer your bundles on a subscription basis.

Add consultation promos

Partner up with your team of professionals & offer free consultations on orders above a certain amount spent. If your beauty brand’s business focus is on skincare, offer a free skincare consultation to customers. Provide them with tutorials on how they can get the best out of your products by helping them enhance their natural beauty and aid in their skincare challenges. This can also work if your business is focused on selling hair care products, you can offer the best personalised consultation for customers who struggle with a certain hair issue (i.e., dandruff, frizz, hair loss).

Start a referral program

Using referral marketing is one of the ways to encourage customers to tell their peers about your brand in the digital space, and not only. On a psychological level, people are more likely to try a product they’ve heard about, or if someone told them about it, rather than trying it on their own. Deep down, it creates a sense of familiarity, people will be more inclined to trust a brand they’ve never tried before but heard of than trust a brand they don’t know & haven’t heard anyone around them speaking about it.

Let us give you an example of how you can easily implement this referral program:

Referring 5 friends = they receive a FREE sample product

Referring 10 friends = they receive two FREE sample products

Referring 25 friends = they get the full product & a voucher

Referring 50 friends = they get more special benefits, or a 3 month supply of a certain product

Up-sell, cross-sell, just SELL!

When customers visit your website, they have the intent to buy. This is your best chance to get them excited to buy something. Up-selling, down-selling, and cross-selling are age-old strategies that:

1) increase average order value and

2) increase customer lifetime value.

How? By presenting related products that may be of interest to customers at higher prices (upsells), lower prices (downsells), and unrelated products (cross-sells).

Create a sense of urgency

We all know that increasing urgency creates a sense of “must-have” and increases the value of an item. By setting deadlines for your promotions and products, you can encourage customers to act quickly and worry less about missing out. Another way to create urgency is to offer seasonal items, anniversary versions of current items, or limit the production of certain items (for example, only 20 pieces of that particular item each season).

FREE shipping

It's no secret that people like free stuff. Considering that over 60% of abandoned carts are due to shipping-related reasons, offering free shipping is a solid strategy to boost sales for your beauty brand. If you do this strategically, you can use, for example, only minimum order quantities to persuade customers to buy without sacrificing your average order value. Research shows that more than 46% of customers are willing to pay a little extra on the total order if it means they qualify for free shipping.

These are just a few beauty offers you can try instead of discounts. Don’t get us wrong, discounts are good for the business sometimes. But doing them for a long time harms the business & drives away customers. So, are you ready to implement these into your strategy? If not, we’re always here to help and we’re only a call away:

Book your call here