There are a number of ways to construct special offers that boost your sales considerably once you’ve mastered them.

1. Holiday Sales

Almost every business offers a holiday sale at least a couple of times a year. These are attractive offers on things that a person might need, being offered at a competitive price. They can actually increase profits by encouraging the person to buy more, because they feel they are getting good value from your company.

2. Special Occasion Sales

These are driven by certain events, such as back to school or graduation or home improvements/spring cleaning. Some of the items will be on sale, but others are at full price, or perhaps even higher than that of the competition.

3. Loss Leaders

These are very low-priced products that are used as a lure to get people in the store in the hope they will buy more. Just look at the bargains in your local supermarket flyer and you will see how well this strategy can work.

4. Limited Offer

If you look in the flyer and see “Limit one per customer,” you will also see the limited offer strategy in action.

5. Limited Time Offer (LTO)

Supermarket flyer prices are good for only a week. Then they are gone forever. You can use LTOs in your online business to drive sales. You can even add a countdown clock to your sales pages to reinforce the perception that time is running out and they don’t want to miss such a great deal.

6. One-Time Offer (OTO)

You can also use OTOs in your online business. This means that they will see the offer one time only, and never again. It is a way of driving demand. It is also a way to increase the initial value of a customer once they have bought from you, with the OTO being like a bonus to thank them. An OTO will usually be at a deeply discounted price that they would be foolish to refuse.

7. Upsells

Upsells are another type of special offer to help drive sales. Assume a customer has already bought your main product. The upsell is a second product that is bigger and better than your main product, and therefore more expensive. Think silver, gold and platinum packages, or a deluxe edition at a great price.

8. Downsells

A downsell will be similar to the upsell, but not have as many components to it, and therefore not be as expensive. It would be like the silver package rather than the platinum. It should contain the most important part of the upsell for a lower price, but still be potentially higher than the main product’s price.

9. Fire Sales

A fire sale is an “everything must go” type of sale. You should only run these a maximum of twice a year. It’s a good way to make money from any products that are not selling well at your site which you would like to either discontinue, or just want to boost sales for. Fire sales should be a limited time offer, such as 72 hours.

10. Bundles

Bundles are two or more products grouped together which will sell for a higher price than one product alone, but not as much as the total of the two added together. It offers a good discount and convenience because the products will be grouped together in a logical manner, such as a library of low-carb cookbooks and guides.

Bundles are a good way to sell eBooks without trying to do it one at a time for about $7 each. You can also really add value with bonuses, such as checklists, templates, menu planners and so on. The bundle will be unique and not offered anywhere else, so they would feel foolish to miss out on such a great deal.