(AF-2) Working with Discount Codes
You have the ability to create Discount Codes in Workshop Angel. These can be a powerful part of your marketing strategy, for example to encourage clients to book early, reward clients who come back for further activities, or help to fill spare places as your start date approaches.
Let's take a look at how they work!
All Activity and Activity Specific Codes
You can define Discount Codes to work in two different ways within the app.
They can be defined globally, such that the code can be applied to any activity.
They can also be defined within an activity, so that the code can only be used for bookings made onto that specific activity.
Discount Code Availability and Amount
When you define a code, you can also set parameters about its availability. This can be:
A time window during which it is valid
Whether it can be applied to just one attendee on a single booking, or all attendees.
When setting the amount of discount that a code will apply to a booking, this can be a fixed amount of money, or a percentage of the booking amount.
Note that you can create a discount code of 100% to give to people who are attending your activity for free to help with your delivery.
Where to Define Discount Codes
To work with all activity discount codes:
To work with activity specific codes:
How to Create Discount Codes
To create a discount code:
The code will now in the code listing, and available for your clients to use:
How to Manage Discount Codes
To edit an existing Discount Code:
The Discount Code window pops up
To delete a Discount Code:
While many things in Workshop Angel can be retrieved after deletion, Discount Codes cannot!
Discount Codes - To Consider
When working with Discount Codes, please take these factors into consideration:
Duplicates Codes - If you create code with the same text as a previous one, the previous code will be the one that is applied for your client.
Spaces in Code - your code can contain spaces e.g. "EASTER 2022". However your clients may find it easier to work with codes which do not contain spaces.
Upper / Lower Case - your client will need to enter the code in the same case as you defined it. There is a bit of a convention to use upper rather than lower case.
Time window - the code will be available from the start of the valid from date to the end of the valid to date. Please note that the time used to calculate the start and end of these dates is UTC time rather than your local time or your client's local time. If you are in Europe, the times are quite similar, but the American continent is 5-8 hours behind, and Australasia is 8-11 hours ahead.
Explain The Code Usage - when sending the code out to your clients, it is best to explain any conditions of the code such as the time window or limitation to a single attendee per booking.
Keep Things Tidy - we recommend you delete a code once it is no longer available to reduce the chance of having duplicate definitions.
Testing Your Codes
It is always worthwhile testing a code once you have created it.
Note that Discount Code definitions are loaded when you first visit the booking form... therefore if you change a code definition you will need to re-load the booking form for the changes to be taken into account.
Be aware of the UTC time topic too!
Telling Your Clients
You can now tell your clients about the availability of the code you have created. Be sure to explain the time window if that is something you have set up.
You can use all of the features we have discussed about activity labels (lesson AF-1), contact search (lesson MC-3), and sending out mailings (lesson DM-7) to communicate that you are offering a special discount to your clients.
Summary
We have discussed how discount codes can be used to increase your business. We looked at how to define both global and activity specific discount codes, how to manage the availability, and how to test a code is working okay.
You are now officially a Discount Code guru!
In the next lesson we will discuss how to allow and manage payment by instalments.
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