Brands often misinterpret repeat purchases driven by discounts or points as genuine loyalty. True loyalty is an emotional connection, not a transactional one. This "entrapment" model fails to build lasting customer relationships or brand affinity.

Constantly discounting your main product trains customers to wait for sales and devalues your brand. Instead, splinter off a small component of your core offer and discount that piece heavily. This acquires customers and builds trust without cannibalizing the perceived value of your full-priced core offer.

Counterintuitively, providing new, varied bonuses frequently can keep customers engaged longer than a single, large permanent upgrade. This is because customers quickly get used to permanent features, while novelty continually recaptures their interest.

Instead of offering a fixed lifetime price (e.g., "$10/month forever"), offer a percentage or dollar amount off the retail price. This allows you to raise your base prices in the future to account for inflation or added value, while still honoring the discount for loyal customers.

Instead of offering a standard discount to all abandoning shoppers, AI analyzes individual behavior to determine the precise, minimum percentage off needed to secure the conversion. This maximizes sales while preventing unnecessary margin erosion.

Discounted offers make sales teams feel that prospects are "ready to spend," overcoming their limiting beliefs about selling. This increased conviction is a key mental benefit, even if upsell conversion rates are the same as with free leads. It makes the team more invested in the sales process.

When pressured to hit quarterly targets with promotions, use a simple filter: 'Does this action increase the long-term desirability of my full-price product?' This framework helps balance immediate revenue needs with the crucial goal of protecting and building brand equity, preventing a downward spiral of discounting.

Go beyond transactional bonuses by creating status labels (e.g., 'VIP', 'Elite') that customers earn through loyalty. Publicly celebrating these status changes creates social proof and makes the status something customers feel proud of and reluctant to lose.

The perceived value of a discount changes based on its presentation. Test framing it as a percentage off, an absolute amount off, a relative equivalent (e.g., "save a steak dinner"), or simply the final discounted price to see which one drives the most action from your target audience.