Have you ever fallen into the trap of offering your products or services at a discounted price? Hands up – we've done. Guilty. As. Charged. But that stops now. Because the awesome John Hutchison taught us a jaw-dropping way to frame discounts in a completely different way. 

That's right. Bet you wouldn't even know it's a discount if it smacked you in the face. 

It's simple. 

It's mind-boggling. 

And it works. 

Care to find out what the magic trick is? 

SOME EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 
(2:44) Two lies and a truth. Does John's wife Gail really drink blue cocktails and touch her nose with her tongue?
 (4:37) The mind-boggling way John uses to frame his discounts.
 (7:28) The reason why people spend more this way.
 (11:26) How to ask your subscribers for their physical address.
 (13:30) How to create gorgeous digital gift cards that will wow your subscribers.
 (15:54) How to kick off your 3-7 day email campaign.
 (18:15) How to encourage your subscribers to buy.
 (19:03) How to give your subscribers social proof.
 (22:15) The two emails you need to send your subscribers on the last day. (23:30) Subject line of the week - John style!

Ditch the discounts and give your subscribers a gift card instead

John Hutchison's trialed and tested method is simple. Just don't give your subscribers a discount. Nope. Not at all. 

Give them a gift card instead.

Now, this can be either a physical card, which you can get designed and printed and can send over to your subscribers' physical address. Much like a store card, it's something tangible they can use and keep. It makes you feel connected to the brand, and that's quite powerful. Awesome. 

Your other option is to create a digital gift card. If you go down this route, make sure your gift card looks sexy and gorgeous! Add your branding to it, put the value on it, and personalise it with the recipient's name. Have a nice image made (you can use a tool called Nifty Images) and send it to your subscribers with a dynamic voucher code and a great subject line. Something like, “Hey, we've got a $20 store card. Open up!”

Who should you offer your gift card to? 

Well, your subscribers, obvs. But is it all of them? Some of them? People who bought from you before? People who haven't made their first purchase yet? Which one is it? 

John Hutchison advises to segment your subscribers based on value and identify your most recent high-value purchasers.

Why? Because these are the people on your list who love to spend. And the more people spend, the more giving them money on a gift card will encourage them to spend. 

Magic, right? 

The psychology behind offering a gift card

So what the trick to get your subscribers to spend money with you? Put money in their hands.

And the reason why is simple. Because if they don't spend it, they'll lose it. And who in their right mind wants to flush free money down the toilet?!

The other reason why this works so well is that it makes people go and take a look at your website. When you offer a discount, if they didn't intend on buying anything, they still won't! They won't even go to your website.

But now that they have free money to spend… well that's a different ball game, isn't it? Now their buyer intent is different – they're heading to your website to see what their money can get them! 

The loss factor of missing out on a discount versus giving up the chance to spend free money is completely different!

The practicalities of sending out physical gift cards

So let's say you've decided to send out physical gift cards. What happens when you don't hold the postal addresses of your subscribers? Most online or service-based businesses don't. John explains you can run a ‘requester letter campaign'. 

You basically tell your subscribers you have this cool thing you want to send them via snail mail and ask them to give you their physical address. And do you know what's super awesome about that? That those people are coming in with an even higher intent because they've literally raised their hand and asked for whatever you're sending them! 

How to build an email campaign sequence around your gift cards

So once you've worked out who you're going to send your gift cards to, it's time to build an email campaign around it. John recommends a 3-7 day campaign to create urgency and scarcity.

The first thing you need to do is to tell your subscribers why they're getting this reward. Is it because they bought something over the last 7 days? Because they spend a certain amount of money with you over time? Because they made their first purchase with your company? Whatever it is, tell me what they did to earn this reward. In your first email, send them the gift card (if it's digital) and tell them how to redeem it. 

The next piece of the sequence is to let them know what they can buy with their gift card. If you use segmentation software and know what your customers have been buying or whether they've been looking at a particular product, you can target the email specifically to them. 

And once you've done that, you move on to giving them social proof. This is where you show them what people just like them bought with their gift cards. Tell them a story! Show them how someone else turned their money into a product or an experience and make sure they can see the benefit they'll get if they use their card. 

Make sure you build on that scarcity too! Let them know that they'll lose out if they don't use their money by a certain date and time and that they should take advantage before the offer slips away. 

And last but not least, on the last day of the offer, send two more emails a few hours apart. Let them know how many hours they've got left to spend their money before their chances go up in smoke. 

Subject line of the week with John Hutchison

Can you believe this subject line is getting John an incredible 84% open rate and an 11% reply rate?

And the line is (drumroll please!)… “Coming in ice-cold and hoping to help.” So why does this work? Quite simply, because it's honest. 

Useful Episode Resources

About John 

Want to connect with the amazing John Hutchison? You can find him over at whyemailworks.com.

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