How To Frame Your Discount Emails To Pull Way More Sales

Hey it’s Max from The Inbox Newsletter.

Today I want to share a cool way to reframe your discount emails that’ll pull much more sales rather than running the typical “% off” send…

Discounts are usually the first thing brands reach for when they want to drive revenue, so if you know how to frame them right, you can tap into a much stronger psychology and get way more of your subscribers to actually convert.

I figure with how many promotions coming up over the next few months, this should give you a bunch of fresh angles to run...

Let’s get into it!

Discount Psychology

Before dropping the 5 angles, I want to break down the psychology behind why this works so well.

The reality is your subscribers have been hit with “10% off” so many times that it barely registers anymore.

But a look at this Ridge email as an example…

Instead of leading with a boring “$5 off,” they framed it as “We just dropped $5 in your account.”

You’ll notice it’s the exact offer, but completely different feeling on the other end.

“Get $5 off” feels like something the customer has to BUY to receive… while “Your $5 reward is waiting” makes it feel like something they already have that they shouldn’t want to lose.

This plays in to the psychological principles of Loss Aversion. People don't want to lose things that are theirs. someone has money in their account, and we tell them it's going to expire. It feels like we're taking $5 from them.

Much more effective!

Keep that psychology shift in mind as we go through the 5 angles below. Each one is just a different way to apply the same core idea.

1) Account Credit

Same sort of deal as the Ridge example…

The reason why this works so well is all due to loss aversion kicking in…

Works even better if you throw a 24 or 48 hour expiration on the credit so there’s a real deadline attached to the “money” they already have.

2) A Specific Dollar Amount

Instead of the usual round number like $10, you can use something more specific like $9.16 or $12.47.

That specific number makes it feel like a real notification that fired just for them instead of another “% off” send.

Plus it looks personalized instead of a mass blast every other subscriber on your list got hit with too...

3) Loyalty Rewards

A really underrated angle…

Frame the discount as reward points the customer earned, like “your points unlocked a $10 reward.”

The best part is you don’t even need a real loyalty program running to make this work. Since the framing makes the customer feel like they earned something, they’ll give it way more value…

4) Golden Ticket

Super fun one! We’ve all seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but you can run that exact same framing with your discounts lol.

All you need to do is position the discount as a limited selection that “chooses” the customer and give the credit for a $X amount.

Out of thousands of customers who get picked for a golden ticket, what do you think they’re going to do?

The exclusivity + scarcity itself will push them to act now before they lose that "chance."

Highly recommend throwing this one into your next one-off campaign!

5) Digital Gift

Everyone loves getting a gift... so why not package the discount as a digital gift from your brand to your customers?

You can present the discount code inside a gift-card-style graphic and frame it as a “from us to you” moment.

Because the framing is much warmer and less transactional, lots of customers will engage with it.

On the other hand, a regular coupon code just feels like another ad. This one is much more personal and valuable to the customer.

And there you have it! Try even one or two of these out on your next sale email and watch your conversions climb…

Extra Email Inspiration Of The Day

Brand:
Bloom

Email Design:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ljf82GwMJ-9iBScc4pQyL61IkPcYTRVu/view?usp=drive_link

Notes:
Really great email from Bloom here. Cool milestone-type post and then also the design with the files is super cool!

Reply to this email if you have any questions or further content you want covered.

Cheers,

Max Sturtevant

P.S
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