Flash Sale Experiment: Will This Marketing Tactic Work?

As promised, I’ve now updated this post with my results. Jump down here, to go straight to that section.

As authors and business owners, we often hear how important it is to grow our email list. Generally, I think this is sound advice, and we discussed this strategy at our Email Marketing Success BAIPA meeting last year. (If you’re a member, you can log in and then watch the replay here)

So I decided to run an experiment with my own email list of just over 1,000 people: what would happen if I announced a flash sale, with 40% off?

My business is website design, and I specialize in author sites. The products I chose for this sale are my premium Squarespace website templates, a do-it-yourself resource. They help you to finish a better author website faster and more easily, than if you start from scratch.

The flash sale is live now, so of course I’ll take this opportunity to tell you what you can buy!

(Jump down here if you prefer to skip this part, and go directly to read about the behind-the-scenes of this experiment.)

Using one of my started-for-you templates, you can launch a higher quality website, more easily. Just follow the instructional videos, and replace the placeholder content with your own. Everything from colors to fonts to the menu structure can be customized as much or as little as you want. You get:

• A Squarespace website, professionally designed by me.
• 15 pages, all configured specifically for your type of business. Use what you need, and hide the rest.
• Options for a new author, established author, coach/consultant, and speaker.
• Complete Squarespace video tutorials, showing you the steps to replace the template content with your own.
• 21 days of email support from me (your video access does not expire).
• Free 24 x 7 support from the Squarespace team, for as long as you need it.

My templates usually sell for $247; during this weekend’s flash sale, that’s reduced to $148.

Website templates for new and established authors

Is your author website helping you, or hindering?

Most serious authors now understand you need a strong website if you want to demonstrate your professionalism, get invited to book clubs, podcasts, and other publicity opportunities, and to grow your email list to sell either this book, your next book, or your related services. You know that if your website is old-fashioned, cluttered, or poor quality, you won’t get the best results from all the other time, effort, and money you’re spending on book marketing.

However…

Many authors, especially those who are publishing independently, are on a tight budget. You’re already covering all of the expenses that a traditional publisher would pay for, and you know that unless your book hits the national bestseller lists, you’re unlikely to make a life-changing amount of income.

This means there are thousands of authors who would love to launch an attractive, modern website … without hiring someone like me to build it for you. My solution: sell you a premium Squarespace template where you begin with a professionally designed set of pages. Then, you replace my content with your own, test your links, purchase a Squarespace subscription, and publish.

Behind the scenes… why this marketing experiment, why now?

Conventional wisdom is that if your email list is large enough, with people who are sufficiently interested in your work, then you can periodically offer them things to buy, and generate income relatively easily.

So here’s my rationale for giving it a whirl, and what I hope to learn:

• I’ve never tried a “flash sale” before, so it feels fun to experiment.
• Marketing experts are big fans of deadlines. Will a time-sensitive offer work? Is a 40% discount a procrastination buster?
• Because these premium templates include 21 days of support from me, it’s easier for me to sell a bunch all at once, and know that I’ll be offering help for a fixed period. Looking at my calendar for the next three weeks, I know I’ll have bandwidth to assist.
• But, is the middle of summer a terrible time to sell a product where buyers will need to sit down at a computer for several hours to complete their project?
• And although I have well over a thousand people on my email list, how many of them actually want a new website, are keen to use Squarespace, and are ready to take action?

Finally, on a personal level: I have a large medical bill coming. My left arm & shoulder have been stiff and painful since March. It’s probably a common case of frozen shoulder, but the X-ray showed something that needs further investigation, and my share of the upcoming MRI scan is over $1000. I’m luckier than most; I do have the money in the bank to shoulder the expense (ha-ha, pun intended). But I’m curious to see if I can generate enough revenue to cover it.

In return for your time in reading this, and hopefully your willingness to click through to my website and look at these gorgeous templates, I’ll commit to updating this post with the results of my flash sale.

How about you? Have you ever tried the flash sale approach, and how did it go?

Update: results of my “experiment”

I sold 5 website templates during this flash sale. Not enough to pay for my MRI scan, but still a welcome injection of cash.

I ran this sale with minimal marketing effort:

• Email, first day of sale – 1011 recipients, 47.9% open rate, 58 clicks, 11 unsubscribes
• Email, last day of sale – 994 recipients, 40.1% open rate, 44 clicks, 9 unsubscribes
• Other promotion: I posted once on Instagram … and wrote this blog post

Selling 5 products to an email list of over 1000 is not brag-worthy, and most online marketing experts will claim that you “should” be able to generate more sales than I did. However, when you see standard conversion rates, there will always be specific factors to take into account. For example, if you run a flash sale, your mileage will vary due to:

• Price point: the price here was $148. Not a massive investment (and frankly, amazing value for a professional start to your website!), but still much higher than most people’s threshold for an “impulse” buy.
• Specificity: this product was only suitable for someone ready and willing to build a new DIY website, using Squarespace.
• Effort from the purchaser: unlike a simple download or webinar, my buyers will need to set aside several hours to get the result that they want.
• Time constraints: to get full value from this offer, my buyers need to have time available in the next 21 days, so they can take advantage of extra help from me. In the northern hemisphere, summer schedules can make July unfavorable for a new project.

On the other hand, if you offer a flash sale where you sell, for example, a $5 book with wide appeal, that your audience can keep and read when they’re ready, I would hope your conversion rate could be much higher than mine.

Nonetheless, you’ll need to be realistic about the size of your audience, their willingness to open your emails, and whether you’re offering something new in your flash sale that they don’t already own. Equally, you can’t run sales like this more than a few times a year, or you’ll train people to wait for your next discount.

Overall, I’m happy with this outcome, but not over the moon. Having a large, engaged email list certainly makes it easier to do a promotional push when the need or inclination arises. But equally, don’t believe anyone who claims that you can use your email list like an ATM.

Pauline Wiles

Pauline Wiles is a website designer who builds beautiful, custom websites for authors and writers. As an author herself, she noticed others were often overwhelmed by this task. Now, she’s helping to dispel the myths around how difficult a web project should be.