Q: I just read in the LERN Marketing Recreation brochure that you had ideas on discounts and incentives for participation in programs. I would love to hear ideas that you recommend!

A: In our business, discounts can increase both income and profitability, but discounts must be offered selectively - given only for certain kinds of conditions, and for only certain kinds of classes and programs.   They can be win-win options for both the customer and for your program.

LERN recommends early registration incentives and discounts. They work well and have several benefits:

1. Discounts on early registration do encourage early sign-up and give the participants a break on the cost, which they like.

2. Early registration lets you monitor enrollments and identify courses that are in trouble so you can make adjustments, increase promotion for those classes, etc. and reduce cancellations.

3. The trends for early registration over time give you a way to project total enrollments before the end of the enrollment period so you can implement strategies to bolster sagging registrations if necessary.

4. Online registration is a strong asset to your program because it saves staff time, so saves your program money.  It also represents a convenience that most people now expect and respond to.

Early registration discounts for events  average 10% to 15%. In your publicity, decide whether to use a percentage or dollar amount based on what is perceived to be a larger amount to your customers.  For example, for a $20 product a 15% discount is likely to seem larger than $3. For events, LERN uses something like second person half-price or third person free incentive. There is no cost to you, because you are getting an enrollment you wouldn’t have otherwise.

There are other incentives you might offer. For example, frequent participant discounts (take 3 courses, get the fourth for free or half-off, etc.) – these are excellent to increase customer share – the amount of money each customer spends with your program because you are encouraging people to take more classes with you. Other incentives include “Bring a friend and you both get a 25% discount,” or “Free parking” (if people have to pay to park near your facilities).  There are discounts or perks that will be valued, but which will not affect your overall revenues or possibly even be seen as negative.

If your program is like most others in our business, there are certain weeks or periods of the year when you have very low registrations.  Offering large discounts during one of these weeks, such as the week of spring break (by offering a special camp or program for youth during that period), can give you additional revenue during an off-peak time. so would be worth researching.

Packaging a winning class or program with a loser class or program is another way to take advantage of discounts.  You can offer a discount on the loser class when the purchaser registers for a winning one (packaging multiple classes).  When it is unlikely the person would buy the loser class, you come out ahead. Then you can track performance and determine if the packaging works better than simply cutting the losing class.

Youth camps and some types of personal enrichment classes offer free t-shirts of other tangible incentives, but these add cost to your bottom line so should be considered carefully in terms of ROI for both your customers and your program.

Employee discounts are another option. You should try to reward and recognize your employees as often and in as many ways as you can. Offering an employee discount is always a good idea. A percentage discount is probably better than a dollar amount, since fees vary. $10 off a class that costs $25 is a lot, but $10 off a class that costs $125, is not very motivating.