You need to take into account the time of year it is when you have special sales to avoid potential problems of your subscribers missing your sales and being disappointed, which could lead to them unsubscribing from your list. To avoid these types of situations, there are three main things you can do.
On November 21, 2006, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, a highly respected Internet marketer who lives overseas emailed his lists about a sale of one of his valuable Internet marketing products. If I recall correctly, he was selling it for $197, but during the 21st and 22nd of November, he was selling it for $97.
However, there was also a limited number he would sell at that price, and if you weren’t one of the first 500 (I think,) he was going to raise the price, even if the 22nd had not passed yet.
The big problem I had with this was, did the Internet marketer realize that this was the week of Thanksgiving? During Thanksgiving in the United States, most people are away from their computers, getting ready to take trips back home to reunite with loved ones or getting Thanksgiving meals ready to welcome loved ones back home.
The closer it gets to Thanksgiving Thursday, the more time that is spent away from the computer and the more time that is spent getting ready to take trips or make meals for those coming over to your home.
Now, granted, the Internet marketer still sold out his quota and made a nice profit, and there were still plenty of responsive subscribers ready to purchase his Internet marketing product, but the main problem was, he didn’t give a fair chance to the U.S. market to purchase his product, and chances are, his email lists probably had many U.S. customers on them.
In essence, he likely disappointed many of them because they didn’t have a chance to purchase his product for that price – in fact, they likely didn’t see the email for his sale until after they returned home, likely that Sunday or Monday (November 26th or 27th,) at least four days after the sale was completed.
This is something important to keep in mind – you need to take into account the time of year it is when you have special sales such as these. For one thing, you could have a lower buying rate than you expected because many of your prospects could be away from their computers, which could lead to them missing your messages about your sale. This could lead to lower-than- expected profits for you.
For another thing, as in this case, even if your sale is a success and you earn a high level of profits as you expected, it’s likely you’re going to annoy and disappoint many of your subscribers because they’re going to miss out on your sale and not have a chance to take advantage of the special offer you are offering them. This could lead to them unsubscribing from your newsletter and/or spreading bad publicity about you online, which will hurt your business long-term.
So, what can you do to avoid these types of situations? Three main things you can do are the following –
- Try to keep in mind the major holidays of the countries that your subscribers represent. This isn’t always easy, especially if you have a diverse list of countries represented, but for the countries that are most represented on your lists and for the most important holidays, you should try to avoid having special limited-time or limited-quantity sales during these time periods if at all possible.
- If you must have a sale during these time periods, you should try to alert all of your subscribers as soon as possible (say, at least a week or two ahead of time); that way, you put the responsibility on them to make arrangements to make the time to take advantage of the sale. This was a mistake the above Internet marketer made – there was no notification that I was aware of about this sale – it was very last-minute.
- If you do have a sale that several of your subscribers missed, due to the fact that their country was having a major holiday during the time of the sale, and you receive several complaints stating this, you could consider holding a special opportunity for them to take advantage of the sale after the holiday has passed.
This would require extra work on your part, including verifying that they are from the country they claim they are from, only submitting the second-chance sale offer to those specific subscribers, and compensating your other members who did take advantage of the sale the first time with something special that only they would receive (another infoproduct, exclusive Master Resale Rights or Private Label Rights to the products in the sale, etc.)
Like I said, it would require extra work on your part, but it would appease those subscribers who missed the sale due to a major holiday, while also appeasing those who took advantage of the sale the first time. And keeping subscribers happy is the key to having a responsive and profitable list.
Therefore, keep in mind what is going on in your subscribers’ lives when it comes to major holidays and such; by doing so, you keep your list happy and responsive to your future offers.