Creating effective discount strategies

The first consideration in creating a discount is how will you use it to help you bring in additional enrolments that you would have otherwise not received.

Consider low income discounts. These are the discounts you think of when you imagine children, seniors, disability card holders or unemployed discounts - people who may have limited disposable income and for whom the cost of the full course is a deterrent for enrolling. These are discounts which can be given either as a percentage of the course fee, or as a fixed dollar figure. If you decide to give a percentage discount you can also set the minimum and maximum dollar discount which can be given. So you might to decide to give 10% off for seniors but cap it at $50 so that $800 course doesn’t start to be discounted too heavily for you. Or a 2% discount which gives at least $5 off that $100 course, so it doesn’t appear too stingy.

Another option is to offer early enrolment discounts, as by encouraging people to enrol and pay well before class start dates makes resource management easier on the college. You could also provide last minute style discounts, to encourage the spare seats to be filled or to get a not quite viable class over the line. These discounts could be automatically given to all enrolling students, or be restricted to students who can provide the matching promotional code.

For these type of discounts you would set a start and end date, where other types of discounts continue indefinitely. onCourse gives you the choice.

Other types of discounts may be a 'buy one get one free' style of discounts. These types of discount apply when the invoice being created during the enrolment process meets certain criteria, such as containing 3 enrolments from the list of specified class.

When considering who can access the discount, you might want to restrict it to all students who have enrolled in the past, are over a certain age, live in a particular suburb or who have certain type of concession card or membership. You aren’t locking it to the students who currently fit the requirement: any student who later is entered into the system with the right age, suburb, concession or membership type will be able to obtain that discount.

Finally, you are able to set the list of classes which may receive the discount. This might be every class you run, just your computer courses, or just one course you choose. This gives you flexibility to offer discounts where you think they will be appropriate, useful and affordable. You may be able to offer lower discounts to outsourced courses given your margins, or it may not be helpful to offer seniors discounts to pre-natal sessions.

With all this flexibility, you can offer discounts to your students in exactly the way you choose.
For instance:

• all students under 25 receive 10% off all courses - these are often people with lower disposable income and discounts are a useful way to attract them
• all students who attended a course last term automatically get 20% off selected courses this term
• all students with a senior’s card receive a $20 discount off any of the daytime arts and craft classes
• all students purchasing more than $500 worth of enrolments in a single transaction automatically receive a 5% discount

Generally, concessions apply on a long term basis and are based on your college’s fees and charges policy. Concessions are automatically applied to fees on enrolment if a student meets the conditions you have set. If you wish to give a special deal to a certain group of people for a limited time only, it is more suitable to create a promotion.

Promotions (Promotional Codes) are another type of discount with a string attached. The student must know a particular word or code in order to obtain the discount. You might decide to perform a letterbox drop in a particular area with postcard sized teasers for your new dance classes. They explain that the recipient can get a 15% discount by going to the website and typing in 'WALTZ'. When they do this, the website alters and shows the courses with fees crossed out and the discounted price alongside in red. The idea is to:

• create the feeling of an offer targeted to a particular group of people, so the recipient feels special.
• track the effectiveness of your letterbox drop
• use an expiry date to create urgency
• micro-market: use different strategies for different demographics

You might distribute your promotional codes by using:

• targeted printed material
• an email mail out to existing or potential students
• SMS
• an alliance with a club or user group - such as a deal with a local RSL that gives their members a discount through a code in their newsletter

Remember, the point of promotional codes is not to keep the code secret and prevent recipients telling their friends about it. The effectiveness of your marketing is greatly enhanced by potential students telling as many people as possible about this great deal they can get by typing in a 'secret code'.

Long term, analysing the percentage take up estimations vs the actual use of the discount on a per class, or per enrolment period will assist you in determining if the strategies you are employing are effective at encouraging new or repeat enrolments.