The offer is what sits between the ad and the order: what you’re selling, at what price, on what terms, with what promise. It’s usually decided by whoever writes the next ad. It should be decided once, on purpose, by whoever owns the numbers in part one.

An offer is five decisions

1. The productWhat’s in the box. The best first product is the one whose buyers come back, not the best seller.
2. The doorWhere the stranger meets it: which page, which size, which bundle.
3. The price and the mechanicFull price, an introductory price, a gift with purchase, free shipping, a trial.
4. The promiseWhat happens if it doesn’t work: the guarantee, the return window, the exchange.
5. The next stepWhat the buyer is offered after the first order, planned before the first order runs.

A discount is only one of the five, and usually the most expensive one to use.

The offer picks the customer

In 2006 the marketing professor Michael Lewis studied customer records from a newspaper and an online grocer and found that customers won with deeper discounts were worth less over time. A 35% acquisition discount produced customers worth about half as much as full-price customers Published. Three field studies published in 2004 by Eric Anderson and Duncan Simester at a catalog retailer found close to the opposite for new customers: deeper first discounts led to more buying later Published. The two fit together once you ask what the discount teaches, and to whom. The First Offer spends a chapter on it.

An offer is a price for the first order and a lesson about every order after it.

The operator’s short list

• Price the offer on CM2 before it runs, using the tool in chapter 2. If it can’t pay back inside your ceiling from chapter 4, it’s a loss you’ve chosen, and should be a small, deliberate one.
• Answer the real objection. Read your 3-star reviews. If people doubt fit, lead with exchanges; if they doubt the company, lead with proof. A discount answers none of those.
• Keep new-customer offers away from existing customers. Exclude buyers from acquisition codes and ads, or your best customers learn to wait.
• Write the second offer now. The reorder email shouldn’t be the first time a discount customer meets your full price.
• Judge offers on the cohort they bring, at 90 and 180 days, not on first-order conversion.

The full treatment, with eight tools and the research behind each point, is in The First Offer.

Do this

• Ask three people to write your first offer in one sentence: the founder, whoever buys media, whoever runs email. If the sentences disagree, you have promotions, not an offer.