Now that they know you always keep your words, they'll keep in mind not to let next opportunity slip away. Next time they won't wait for another second to buy from you!

What I have for you here is a groundbreaking idea for your deadline marketing...

Instead of saying,

"If you don't delay and order now, you'll get 50% off. The original price is $100, but order now and you pay only $50. Order before midnight and you'll get this special price. Remember if you order after midnight, expect to pay $100!"

SAY,

"Take an unfair advantage of our online marketing test. For 7 days only, our company decides to slash 50% off original price in order to see whether pricing affects sales. In our doing so, you are one who gains! During our marketing test, don't pay us $100. Keep $50 to yourself now!"

See difference? Feel impact?

If you decide to use deadline marketing, don't forget to make it right and make most out of it.

Apart from writing a HARD-TO-SAY-NO deadline, here is "one-of-a-kind" tool to accelerate your prospects' buying decision....

Go get yourself a dynamic countdown javascript and put it on your site...

www.dynamicdrive.com

It's FREE! And it works like miracle. Believe it or not? People tend to feel rush to act when they see clock ticking!

P.S. Be different. You can still offer deadlines, but make sure you take a different approach!

If you are selling gift certificates, they cannot expire. Someone has given you money for a product or service that you have not yet delivered; to allow that to expire is unethical in my opinion, unless you return money to purchaser after expiration date.

Accounting for them, however, can be a problem. A friend of mine received landscaping gift certificates for several years. She accumulated them until she had a big project to do, and nursery that issued them was mortified that they were going to have to honor them all at once. If you think about it, though, they got a better deal because they had use of money for all of that time, and buying power of money they received has diminished over time; a $100 certificate, for example, issued 5 years ago won't buy as much today as it would have then. Gift certificates should be carried on your books as a liability. That way, you don't realize revenue or take profit until certificates are redeemed.

Some people have feeling that gift certificates are too much trouble because of liability and accounting, but my feeling is that you should do what's best for your customer, not what's best for you.

Coupons and gift certificates are good tools. Use them, but be smart about it.