Discounting is a risky growth strategy. Especially when you’re trying to position yourself as a premium brand. Maven found themselves facing this exact challenge. But I like their calculated approach. Gagan Biyani, CEO and Co-founder of Maven, recently talked about it in a LinkedIn post. He shared his experience at Udemy: “We discounted Udemy to the point where people often waited until our 90% off sales. This led to price inflation by our instructors, which led to a lack of trust in Udemy's marketing.” But even after that, Udemy was still a leader in their category. Maven also couldn’t ignore the “underlying business physics.” Urgency drives sales and most instructors see a sales slump in Q4. So, understanding the risks, they launched Maven Monday - a 25% site-wide discount across their top courses. A large enough incentive to drive urgency, but not so big that it would discourage purchasing at other times throughout the year. They also stated that this would only happen once or twice a year max. So far, it seems to be working for them. They had one of their highest sales weeks of the year, during a time that normally we see a major slump. Check out Gagan’s post
