2011-11-10dated from the article

Black Friday & Probabilistic Promotion

Written November 10, 2011. Platforms and services described here have changed. This is kept as a record, not as current advice.

Here’s a great post from Dan Ariely called Probabilistic Promotion: “Recently Nina Mazar and I have been playing with the idea of probabilistic discounts. The basic question is whether people would prefer a fixed discount of X% (lets say 10%) over a fixed probability X of paying nothing for the product (lets say 10% chance of paying nothing).

So far it seems that probabilistic discounts are a huge hit.” You can read the rest of the details on his blog, but I thought it might be an interesting tactic to apply to albums. If you have been considering (or are running) a Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotion offering 10% off selected items, Dan’s research suggests that you may increase your sales much more by offering a 10% chance that the album is free!

That would involve processing all your orders on Tuesday and issuing a full refund to 1 out of ever 10 customers. His second suggestion is also very applicable to album sales: “If you buy “The Upside of Irrationality” [book] in any version (physical, e-book, enhanced e-book, or audio) between now and Nov 20 th …. If you are selected (at random) I will invite you to have dinner with me!” We often talk about the strategy of offering deluxe packages at higher price points, but what about offering the chance of a deluxe experience at a standard price point? For current email and audience-ownership context, see beehiiv.

For example, everyone who buys the album + t-shirt package in your store will go into a draw for backstage passes at your next gig. I came across the concept too late to try something for today or Monday, but we may be factoring it into some of our future promotions. Is it something you’d consider trying?