We have a lot of choices when deciding when to offer discounts as incentives for our free users to upgrade to a paid product. We have had very impressive results from our discount campaigns in the past, so we know it works well, at least in our case! The problem is that we don't REALLY know if we're leaving a lot of money on the table and just doing it completely wrong. Valid testing is hard because we have a small number of buyers paying a relative high price.<p>Should we send them when sales are slow? Should we send them when sales peak, reducing friction among people CLOSE to buying already? Should we just work on modeling behavior and offer them on a case-by-case basis?<p>Do any best practices exist around this?
What do you define as an 'impressive result': increased unit sales? Are you signing up people who absolutely would not have signed up over time? Are you looking at number of sales and signups only, or are you also considering your margins?<p>> Should we send them when sales are slow? Should we send them when sales peak, reducing friction among people CLOSE to buying already? Should we just work on modeling behavior and offer them on a case-by-case basis?<p>Why don't you flip the question around: Everything has a value and a price. I assume in this case these customers would buy eventually. What is that 'eventually' and what price are you wiling to bring forward those sales and have that money sooner rather than later?
There should be no need to hold a sale. In the long to medium term, reducing prices has never been the answer. By this stage you should've already worked out where you are in the market and what your optimum price point is.<p>You should focus on providing the very best service possible and work out, from your customers' perspective, how you can add value to your product.<p>Once you've done this you'll be surprised at how less important a factor the price become to new customers. Also, these new customers will stay with you longer as they aren't fickle about price and so won't jump ship as soon as something a few pennies cheaper comes along.<p>Feel free to drop me an email for a chat: fortitude3141@gmail.com