Discover how to create the perfect online offer in under 30 minutes.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an advertising whizz to do this...
We'll break things down into simple steps and give you a load of templates for inspiration.
Get templatesEveryone loves a good offer!
In fact - running promotions, or special offers, is one of the most effective ways to grow any business online.
Some offers are literally too good to refuse.
You can use special offers to:
🤩 Grow brand awareness
😍 Generate new leads (i.e., grow your contact lists)
🤑 Boost sales
Put another way, if you’re not running new promotions on a regular basis - you’re leaving money on the table.
It’s as simple as that.
However...
Right now, most small businesses are only taking advantage of a tiny fraction of their potential promotion opportunities.
In blunt terms, its money going to waste.
hbr.org
Like most things in business, to run successful promotions, you need...
💡 Inspiration… fresh ideas for new angles that will resonate with your audience
💰 Money... a budget to hire developers and designers to turn your ideas into reality
⌛ Time... to test and optimize your campaigns for maximum conversions
But these precious resources are in limited supply...
The average small business owner doesn’t have the time, money, or inspiration to churn out fresh offers regularly.
Most small-business owners are focussed on running their business (and rightly so!)
If you’re a small business owner you probably know this feeling:
As a result, it’s easy to fall into a “marketing rut”...
...running the same stale, unimaginative offers, over and over 😴
= Missing out on growth opportunities 😭
If you want to maximise your growth potential, you need to run new promotions at least once a month - in order to keep new leads flowing into your business, boost your sales, and keep existing customers engaged.
Well, this is why we’ve created this guide!
To show you, step-by-step…
This guide is for you if you want to…
💡
Take the guesswork out of coming up with winning offer ideas. You’ll never be short of another promotion idea with our simple 3-step Perfect Offer Formula...
💰
Create and launch new offers without needing to hire developers or designers. Simply select a template that matches your offer angle, then customize your design in minutes with our intuitive drag-and-drop builder...
⌛
Optimize your campaigns & get amazing results in days, not weeks. Conversion optimization isn’t just for advanced marketers. This guide will show you how to improve your conversions - and boost your bottom line - with easy “1-click split-tests”...
By the end of this short guide, you’ll be able to take advantage of every possible promotion opportunity to grow your business 😍
So let’s dive straight in...
First up, you need a good idea for your offer💡
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be an advertising whizz to do this...
Coming up with a good offer idea can be broken down into a few simple questions:
Your promotion will be more successful if you give a compelling reason for running it because people will feel like they’re genuinely getting a great deal. And as such, they’re more likely to take action...
And the good news is, there are plenty of marketing angles you can use to frame your offer.
Here are a few suggestions...
National and international holidays & events are great excuses for running promotions...
Here are some holidays & events that present great promotion opportunities:
Plus some more random ones, like…
Identify the holidays and events that are the best fit with your business, and create offers around them...
You can also use internal events as triggers for running promotions. That is to say, celebrate your company’s successes and milestones with your prospects - and grow your business in the process. For example, you can run offers to celebrate...
There are plenty other opportunities throughout the year to promote your business which aren't necesarily tied to a specific day
Last but not least, you can use a personal customer event as a trigger for a promotion. This is perhaps the most powerful way to frame your promotion, because it makes your offer more exclusive. For example, you can run offers to...
🔥 HOT TIP 🔥
For best results, you should come up with new angles for your offers on a regular basis - at least every few weeks.
This will keep your marketing fresh, relevant, and engaging.
Put together a promotion calendar to plan all your promotion angles in advance.
Now you have the angle for your offer nailed, you need to decide exactly what you’re offering...
In other words, what will your prospects actually be getting?
Broadly speaking, there are two types of thing you can offer, depending on your goal:
If you don't fancy running a contest, then you could offer a lead magnet to capture leads - such as an e-book, checklist, video course, or newsletter.
These kind of offers are incredibly popular.
Again, anyone who opts-in for the lead magnet could be entered into an email sequence to convert them into a customer...
🔥 TIPS:
The best converting offers are...
Now you know what you’re offering and why, you need to decide how to display your offer...
In other words: where and when do you want to show your offer to your prospects?
In order to decide this, it’s useful to consider the “moments of truth” in the browsing experience. These are the key moments where a timely intervention can make a big difference to your bottom line…
With this in mind, here are some different ways that you can display your offer:
Display your offer as a full screen takeover when people land on your website. This gives you the chance to convert your prospects at the first opportunity, before they can get distracted and move on.
Remember, a large portion of your visitors leave within seconds of landing on your website. But by dynamically “interrupting” their normal browsing behaviour, full-screen popups instantly grab their attention – making your call-to-action unmissable.
Display your offer as a slide-in when people scroll to a certain point on the page. This is a timely, unobtrusive way of delivering your offer.
Scroll-boxes convert well because you can set your them to appear at a relevant moment in your visitors’ experience.
For example, you could show a scroll-box with a related offer (e.g., “enter your email download the full guide here”) that appears when readers get to the end of your blog post.
These are more natural (less annoying!) way of getting your prospects to move to the next step in the sales journey.
Pro Tip: set your scroll-boxes to appear in the corner of the page – so your visitors can continue to read your site without having to close them down. This will boost your conversions further
Display your offer as a popup that’s triggered when your visitor clicks or hovers over a specific image, button or text (of your choice).
Like Scroll-boxes, contextual popups deliver your offer in response to your visitors’ behaviour, so they are more timely and relevant.
For example, you could set a particular product image to trigger a popup offering a discount coupon when your prospects hover over it.
Display your offer as a popup that show as when visitors leave your website.
On average, over two-thirds of your website visitors leave without taking any action…
You can use exit offers to give these abandoning visitors a new incentive to stay (or at least not leave empty-handed) – a discount coupon, special report, etc.
This gives you a 2nd chance to convert visitors who would otherwise be lost – so any conversions they achieve are a bonus!
Alternatively, you can run your campaign as a:
Display your offer on a new page with its own unique url.
Perfect for promotions where you want to be able to link to the offer directly
A good squeeze page will typically have the best conversions as you're typically presenting your propsect with one clear action to take.
🔥 HOT TIP 🔥
To maximise your conversion opportunities, use a combination of these methods to deliver your offers.
For example, you could show people who visit your blog a scroll offer when they reach the end - then retarget anyone who doesn’t opt-in back to a squeeze page for the same offer.
Once you’ve got a great idea for your offer, you’re ready to make your idea a reality...
First, choose a design style for your popup.
To hit the ground running, we’ve created a selection of ready-to-use templates. Simply choose a template that matches your angle, and hit the“Import” button to get started. You can then customize your design with the TD Pages drag-and-drop builder.
If you have a specific design in mind already, or a distinct brand style, you can design your popup from scratch in the TD Pages drag-and-drop builder (just select the “Blank Canvas” from the template gallery to get started).
🔥 TIPS:
These are critical to your success - because your audience will notice your images before they digest your copy. So your images need to give the best possible first impression.
🔥 TIPS:
Note: If you have a really strong headline and CTA, you may not need to add images (as they could distract from your copy). If you feel this is the case, you could split-test a version “with image” vs. a version “without image” to confirm (see Optimizing Your Campaign below)
The heading is the first text that your visitors see. As such it’s one of the most important drivers of conversions. Be sure to use a heading that clearly states the biggest benefit that your product/offer confers; tell your visitors exactly what they can get if they take action.
Use your (optional) sub-heading to further explain your offer and share the Unique Value Proposition.
Your headline + sub-headline needs to...
🔥 TIPS:
Here are a few useful and effective headline formulas you can use when creating your headline…
Direct headline (Works well for product pages):
“WAIT! [OFFER: e.g., Get Free Shipping/ 10% Off your first order]”
Unique Value Prop:
“The Only [Product Type] Made Exclusively to [Highly Desirable Outcome or Benefit]”
Social Proof headline (best paired with testimonials):
“Who Else Wants [blank]?”; “Don’t leave yet! Join our 34,098-strong tribe of [profession name]”
Command headline:
“Download Your Free [blank] Now”; “Grab This Free [blank] Now”
All gain, no pain:
“Get the [Rarely Seen But Relevant Adjective] Power of [What Your Product Does] Without [Pain]”
The How-to:
“How to Get [Desired Benefit] in under [Time Period]”
YES/ NO (best with a multistep campaign):
“Would you like [Desired Benefit]?
Curiosity Headline:
“Discover The 3 Weird Ways I Get [Benefit]”
Once you have your headlines in place, add additional copy to expand on your offer, break-down the benefits, and answer any common objections...
🔥 TIPS:
Even if it’s not your main angle, adding testimonials or case studies to your campaign is a proven way to increase conversions.
🔥 TIPS:
Adding urgency or scarcity to your offer is another proven way to boost your conversions. When we know something may soon be unavailable, our natural survival instincts kick in, and we feel the need to secure it for our future needs...
🔥 TIPS:
Last but not least, your offer needs a strong call-to-action.
No matter what you’d like to accomplish with advertising and marketing, you won’t do it without a compelling CTA.
Direct command CTA:
“Download Now”; “Subscribe” “Join”
Benefit focussed:
“[Benefit] Now” e.g. “Save 10% OFF Your Order Now”
1st person CTA:
“Send My Free [Blank]”
Instant gratification:
“Get Instant Access”
Almost all of your campaigns and content should have a well-crafted call to action designed to drive action.
🔥 TIPS:
Any campaign that is collecting emails needs to be connected to an email autoresponder.
This will allow you to automatically follow up with your leads to convert them into customers.
Typically this only needs to be done once when setting up your account.
The final step is putting your campaign live on your website.
If your campaign is a page then your campaign will be automatically hosted by TD Pages. You can keep the page here or publish it to your own domain in several ways (you can check out our knowledge base for full guidance on all the possible pushing options)
If your campaign is a popup, then you'll need to integrate TD Pages by adding our embed code to your website.
If your site is based on WordPress, then this is simply a case of installing our WordPress plugin and entering your TD Pages user ID and Workspace API key into the plugin settings.
If you use any other platform, then you simply need to copy the TD Pages embed code and paste it somewhere before the closing </body> tag in your website's source code and you're done.
In any event, you'll find both of these options via Workspace Settings > Installation, within your TD Pages account.
💡
(this will boost your results but is not essential…)
There are multiple elements on your popup that can help you increase your conversion rate.
But ultimately, there are 7 key elements that will make the biggest impact on your results.
These are:
There are multiple different ways you could set up your split tests.
Many people will tell you to split test only 1 element at a time and keep all the other elements identical.
This is good advice if your site gets thousands of visitors and you're looking to squeeze out the last few fractions of a percent from your conversion rate.
For most people however, this is bad advice 😱
For your average exit popup for the majority of websites, you're much better off testing widely differing variations of each campaign.
E.g. testing radically different designs or completely different copy.
The goal is to optimise and iterate quickly, spotting and reacting to general trends in your campaign data (as opposed to finding a small statistically significant uplift from any single change made to your campaign, as is the goal of traditional A/B split testing)
As an example, here's a basic campaign testing workflow:
🧪 Phase 1 - Create 3 variations of the same exit popup. Keep the messaging identical or similar but with radically different designs - e.g. one colourful version, one with a background image, one with a very plain style.
The aim is to get a few hundred impressions on each variation to see if any early trends emerge. e.g. is one campaign outperforming the rest? Is one clearly not performing? If it's too early to say, then give it another week then check again.
🧪 Phase 2 - Duplicate the best performing 1 or 2 campaigns from phase 1 and tweak the messaging, the headline, the CTA, remove the bullet points, etc...
Aim to create anywhere from 2-6 new variations here, to help dial in the campaign messaging. Again, keeping a close eye on the results over the next few weeks will help you react to the incoming campaign data. Weed out poor performers and divert more traffic to the best ones.
🧪 Phase 3 - The best 1 or 2 performers from phase 2 now become the control. From here on out you're only trying to beat the control and the pace of testing typically slows a bit.
On an aged campaign, you should aim to always be running 1 or 2 new variations against the control, but typically the traffic split will be 70% on the control and 30% on the new variations.
Of course, you could test the copy first in week 1 and then design in week 2. Or if your site doesn't get much traffic, you may want to run each test for several weeks.
The exact mechanics of what's being tested and when and for how long are not the most important thing here.
The most important thing is adopting a mindset where you're continually making small adjustments to test new ideas and improve your marketing campaigns, whether its an exit popup, or a landing page, or even your email follow up sequence.
The data never lies.
#alwaysbetesting!
So there you have it.
And to close I want to highlight 1 further thing that underpinds everything above - the importance of data.
The more data you have the more you can be sure that your promotion will go in the right direction. The less you're relaint on simply guessing what will and won't work
And the more promotions you run, then more data you'll be able to gather.
These are the kinds of questions a good marketer will try to understand and running promotions and experimentation is a big part of this.
In short:
Test > analyse > adjust > test
TD Pages gives you the tools you need to do this rapidly, at scale and with a minimum of technical hassle:
Ready-made marketing campaigns at your fingertips.
And remember, if none of the templates above are to your liking, there are literally hundreds more, something for eveyone, in the TD Pages template marketplace.
Here's to your next successful promotion 😎
