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title: dua lipa could be the key to saving your margins 🎤
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one song title, zero discount, and a sale that never touched full price ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­    ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏  ͏ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­ ­  

| View in browser Dua Lipa Just Taught a Margin Lesson Worth Stealing One song title, zero discount, and three more brands who did it too. The play 🏷️ Hey there, Dua Lipa has no idea she ran one of the smartest sales of the summer. A fitness brand built a week-long campaign around her new single and never once mentioned a discount. That's one of four emails below, and not one led with a discount. Two never touched their price, two buried the sale in a P.S. All four, yours to steal. First, why most brands reach for the markdown anyway. The quickest way to move end-of-summer stock is an email that says 20% off. It works. Units move, the warehouse clears, everyone's happy. It also teaches a slice of your best customers that your prices are optional. Wait long enough and the deal always comes. A discount with no reason costs you twice. The margin on this order, and the full-price sale that would have happened next. Most founders never notice the second cost because nobody emails to say they held off buying to wait for your next sale. They just wait. Every unexplained discount is margin you pay to rent your own list. Sends that kept the discount out of the headline 📬 Tap any email to open it full size. Austral Herbs  ·  the no-discount sale 🌿 "Australia Day Flavour Combos: Summer Cooking Essentials" A seasonal sale with zero percent off. The only lever is free shipping over $150, and the whole email sells summer flavour pairings grouped as savoury, fresh, and warm. The season carries the urgency, the threshold lifts the basket, and the price never moves. The result: AOV landed 62% above the account average, with no markdown at all. what to steal Anchor the sale to the season and let a shipping threshold do the lifting. Barry's  ·  the cultural-moment tie-in 🎤 "Celebrate Dua Lipa's new single with us!" No discount anywhere. Barry's turned Dua Lipa's new single "Training Season" into a themed class week, matching the song title to the workout they already sell. The urgency comes from a seven-day window and the cultural moment, and the price never enters the conversation. what to steal Find a cultural moment that genuinely maps to your product, then build a time-boxed event around it. The moment supplies the urgency a discount usually has to buy. Kiyoko  ·  the founder's picks 💌 "J-Beauty Changed My Skin Forever" The co-founder writes as herself about the routine she actually uses, a curated set of products with no markdown on any of them. The one discount sits in a P.S. at the very bottom, demoted below the story. Her recommendation does the selling. The result: this founder-as-sender angle pulled the highest revenue per email in the account's history. what to steal If your brand has a face, build a send around what they actually reach for, and let any discount ride in the P.S. Huckberry  ·  the cause-led holiday send 🎗️ "Kyle here." A Memorial Day send that leads with the day's actual meaning. The head of marketing writes in the first person about the Murph Challenge, pledges a donation for every purchase or completed workout, and mentions the sale only in the top banner and a one-line P.S. The story and the cause carry the email, and the discount sits at the edges. what to steal Tie a holiday to a cause or community moment that genuinely fits your brand, and let the sale ride in the banner and the P.S. The playbook under all four 🧵 Put them side by side and the same moves keep surfacing. → Give a reason that has nothing to do with the price. A season, a cultural moment, a founder's own picks, a cause. That reason is what makes the send feel like news your list wants to open. → Let a lever other than a discount carry it. A free-shipping threshold, a time-boxed event, a gift with purchase. Something that moves units and leaves the price alone. → Put recent buyers in front. Give everyone who engaged in the last 30 days early access before the full list sees it. They raised their hand recently, so they hear about it first. → If you do discount, demote it. Banner or P.S., under the story, never the headline. The way Kiyoko and Huckberry both ran it. The moves are simple. Running a full promo calendar that sells hard and still protects the brand is where it gets real. Here's what that looked like for one skincare brand. See the promo calendar that skipped the deep discounts → Why the reason beats the number 🧾 Every discount raises a silent question in the reader's head. Why is this cheaper today? Answer it and the discount reads as a one-time event. Overstock, end of season, clearing the shelf for the next drop. Leave it unanswered and the reader fills the gap themselves, and the cheapest story to believe is that the full price was never real. "But my customers only buy when there's a deal" 🤔 If that's true, it's worth asking who taught them. A list that only moves on discounts is usually a list that's been trained to expect one every few weeks. You don't have to swear off sales to undo it. Make full price the default, make the discount an event with a reason attached, and the reflex fades over a season or two. A sale should be a nudge on top of a product people already want. The situation The move Real overstock or a season change Say so, make it a one-time event Quiet-inbox week A smaller cut clears plenty Crowded holiday inbox Go deeper, but only for that window Your recently engaged buyers Early access before the full list A "sale" every few weeks, no reason given You're training discount-only buyers Discount as the only lever you own Rotate in a threshold or a GWP The anti-patterns at the bottom are where the damage hides. A markdown every few weeks with no story behind it reads as your real price list, and once a buyer decides that, they wait every single time. Brands that discount less, on purpose 📈 48% Feminera grew email from 7% of store revenue to a peak of 48%, with no aggressive discounting, just a 10% offer for first-time buyers. Conversion rate climbed 124% and the pricing stayed intact the whole way up. And when a discount is the right call, the ladder matters. One premium DTC brand ran a quiet-season sale at a small cut, then handed its 30-day engaged buyers early access to the next one before the full list. That early-access send opened at nearly 70%, well above the deeper discounts that went out cold. Recent buyers rewarded for being recent. Moving the inventory and keeping your pricing power are the same skill. The reason you attach to the discount is what holds them together. Skip the reason and you get the clearance and the hangover both. A clearance sale feels like free money right up until you count what it does to the next full-price launch. Give it a reason, size it to the moment, and lead with your recent buyers. Same stock cleared, and the customers who were happy to pay full price keep paying it. That's the trade almost nobody makes on purpose. If you want to see a promo calendar that carried a brand to nearly half its store revenue without torching prices, the Feminera breakdown is worth twenty minutes. Read the Feminera case study → Cheers, Josh P.S. Pull up the last three discount campaigns you sent and count how many gave a reason beyond the word sale. That number is usually the tell, and it's a habit you can flip on your very next send. Josh Chin Chronos Agency  ·  LTV Profit Lab Reply to Josh → Chronos Agency, Sin Ming Lane #06-76, Midview City, Singapore City 573969, Singapore Unsubscribe Manage preferences |
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