Does it help your internet marketing efforts to hold a fire sale on your products or services? It certainly could. Learn how to hold an online fire sale and what benefits it provides.
The Basics Of A Fire Sale
Bricks and mortar retailers have been using the concept of a fire sale to stimulate buyers for decades. You may have seen store windows splashed with big, showy signs proclaiming a one or two day sale with prices slashed on particular products.
In some cases, the fire sale price is so low that the seller makes little profit, or even takes a loss. The idea is to increase demand for a particular offering in the hopes that a customer who gets a fantastic deal will add other products to their shopping cart and come back in the future to do business with the company again – when that low price is no longer available. This increases profitability over the long run. This is also a great idea for gaining new subscribers just before a new product launch.
Expect that initial demand is going to be very high. Ensure that you have enough goods in stock to handle the demand. If you only have five mp3 players at the fire sale price, for instance, and those sell out within the first hour, the effect will be a negative one. Consumers will surmise that you are using the old ‘bait and switch’ technique.
This isn’t going to be a problem if you’re selling an information product or membership so that’s something to keep in mind when deciding on what to sell in your fire sale. The products you can sell at fire sale prices can be anything from a download of an eBook to a webinar; they need not be traditional consumables.
The Successful Online Fire Sale
An online fire sale uses the same concepts as one held by a traditional retailer. Perhaps the only difference is that your advertising and marketing efforts revolve around banner ads, a catchy graphic on your site’s home page, and an email marketing campaign to your subscribers.
The success of a fire sale depends largely on the degree of interest from subscribers and how deeply you can reach prospective clients through your marketing efforts. While these factors are somewhat uncontrollable, there are some things you can do to promote success.
Select your deeply discounted product or service with care. If you choose an item that previously wasn’t selling, there’s probably a reason and even taking a loss on the purchase price probably won’t help. Do choose something that is already fairly popular and attempt to increase demand. Remember that it is your ‘loss leader’ and use suggested add-ons with a pop-up box in the shopping cart to increase each customer’s order.
It is vital that you begin advertising well in advance of the sale – but not too far in advance. A week or two is probably sufficient. Be sure to post notice on your blog, on your home page, and to send out a succession of email messages to all of your subscribers. Start with a teaser about the event about two weeks out, then send an official notice with all the details a week later. Two days before the fire sale, send your final reminder. You could also send another message on the day of the sale to invoke a sense of urgency.
A online fire sale is a great way to increase your company’s bottom line though getting more customers, or to help you unload excess inventory. It develops further interest in prospective clients and is sure to augment future sales while creating buzz and driving traffic to your website.
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We’ve done a type of “fire sale” with a few of our clients in the past and it truly works to drive actual customers to a site. Email newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, and front page promotions combined can create a boom for online stores. Thanks for the article! It’s a great guide for online companies and marketers.
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