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WooCommerce

How To Create WooCommerce Conditional Discounts – A Complete Guide – 2024

Have you ever wondered why certain online stores seem to always have just the right offers at the right time, compelling you to click ‘Buy Now‘ before you’ve even finished browsing?

This isn’t just good luck; it’s strategic mastery of WooCommerce conditional discounts.

Conditional discounts basically allow you to offer promotions based on specific criteria, making your offers more relevant and compelling to your customers.

In this guide, I’ll explain how to effectively implement WooCommerce conditional discounts that click perfectly with buyer behavior and preferences, making your promotions irresistible.

Let’s start!

What Are WooCommerce Conditional Discounts?

WooCommerce conditional discounts enable you to apply specific discounts based on set conditions in your online store. These conditions can be based on a wide range of criteria, from user roles to purchase history, helping you create very targeted and strategic promotions that align closely with your sales goals.

For example, imagine you run a tech accessories store. You could set a conditional discount where customers who have spent over $500 in the past year receive a 20% discount on all new arrivals. This rewards loyalty and encourages high-spending customers to make new purchases.

Another scenario could involve a special promotion for members of a specific loyalty program within your store. You might offer a discount where members who buy any three accessories in a single purchase receive an extra item for free, but only if one of those accessories is a new product line you are trying to promote.

This not only drives sales of specific items but also enhances the value of being a loyalty program member. Now let’s look at the benefits of using WooCommerce conditional discounts.

Benefits of Using WooCommerce Conditional Discounts

Conditional discounts offer several advantages over standard discounts, which makes them a better choice for you in certain scenarios:

1. Precise Targeted Marketing

Conditional discounts allow store owners to target specific customer segments or behaviors, such as first-time buyers, high-value customers, or users who have abandoned their carts. By tailoring discounts based on these conditions, you can effectively incentivize desired actions and maximize the impact of their promotions.

2. Better Personalization

You can personalize the shopping experience by offering discounts based on individual customer preferences, purchase history, or demographics. A tailored approach can increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement, resulting in higher sales and recurring patronage.

3. Strategic Pricing

Conditional discounts allow for more strategic pricing decisions by offering discounts in response to specific conditions or events, such as seasonal promotions, product launches, or inventory clearance sales. This flexibility enables store owners to align their pricing strategies with business goals and market dynamics, optimizing revenue and profitability.

4. Behavioral Incentives

Conditional discounts can serve as powerful incentives to influence customer behavior and drive desired actions, such as increasing order size, encouraging repeat purchases, or reducing cart abandonment. By offering discounts contingent on these behaviors, store owners can steer customer actions towards desired outcomes and achieve business objectives more effectively.

5. Segmentation and Segmented Discounts

Conditional discounts facilitate customer segmentation, allowing store owners to create targeted discount offers for different customer segments based on various criteria, such as location, purchase history, or membership status. This segmentation enables more precise targeting and customization of discount offers, leading to higher conversion rates and improved marketing effectiveness.

6. Upselling and Cross-Selling

Conditional discounts can be used to promote upselling and cross-selling opportunities by offering discounts on complementary or higher-priced items when certain conditions are met, such as reaching a minimum order value or purchasing a specific product. This encourages customers to explore additional products and increase their overall purchase value.

Types of Conditional Discounts You Can Offer

The 3rd field of Dynamic Discount is solely for applying conditions.

1. Discount Based on Cart condition

What do WooCommerce cart discounts look like? Following are some situations you want to create for your customers, which are hard to resist if you put them right.

    • Minimum Order Amount: Offer a discount only if the total cart value exceeds a certain threshold, such as $100.

    • Product Categories: Apply a WooCommerce bulk discount if the cart contains specific product categories, such as offering 10% off on all electronics.

    • Cart Item Count: Provide a discount based on the number of items in the cart, either like offering a 15% discount for carts with five or more items.

2. Discount Based on User Role Conditions

You can treat each customer differently based on the kind of interaction they had with your brand, for example-

    • First-Time Buyers: Offer a special discount to users who are registering or making their first purchase on the website.

    • VIP Customers: Provide exclusive WooCommerce dynamic pricing & discounts to users with a VIP or premium membership role based on their loyalty status or purchase history.

    • Wholesale Customers: Offer discounted prices to users with a wholesale or bulk purchasing role, encouraging larger orders.

3. Shipping Conditions

You can offer WooCommerce cart discounts based on shipping conditions if a certain purchase goes to your advantage.

    • Free Shipping Threshold: Offer free shipping if the total cart value exceeds a certain amount, such as free shipping for orders over $50.

    • Specific Shipping Methods: Provide discounts or promotions for specific shipping methods, such as offering a discount for expedited shipping or local pickup.

    • Shipping Destination: Apply discounts based on the shipping destination, such as offering reduced shipping rates for international orders.

4. Purchase History

    • Repeat Purchases: Offer WooCommerce bulk discounts to customers who have made multiple purchases within a specified time frame, rewarding loyalty and encouraging repeat business.

    • Abandoned Cart Recovery: Provide discounts to customers who have abandoned their carts, incentivizing them to complete their purchases.

    • Cross-Sell Offers: Offer discounts on related products based on a customer’s past purchase history, encouraging them to buy complementary items.

5. Billing

    • Payment Method: Provide discounts for customers using specific payment methods, such as offering a discount for paying with a credit card instead of PayPal.

    • Billing Address: Apply discounts based on the customer’s billing address, such as offering region-specific promotions or discounts for local customers.

    • Subscription Status: Offer WooCommerce bulk discounts or special offers to customers with active subscriptions or recurring billing arrangements, encouraging subscription renewals or upgrades.

How To Create WooCommerce Conditional Discounts - A Complete Guide - 2024 1
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It is worth mentioning that, in order to create WooCommerce conditional discounts, install and activate Dynamic Discount then go to your WordPress Dashboard->WooCommerce->Dynamic Discount >Create new discount( or edit any existing discount) ->Configure the discount using special conditions->Update and Publish the conditional discount.

We will go into the step-by-step guide below.

How to Create WooCommerce Conditional Discounts- Full Guide

There are plenty of tools available to create conditional discounts in WooCommerce. Today, I’ll use Dynamic Discount for WooCommerce to create conditional discounts easily with zero hassle.

To get started you need to have WooCommerce activated on your site along with all the products added.

If you are acquainted with all types of conditions already, you can jump onto how to create woocommerce conditional discounts

Let’s say, you own an online store that sells T-shirts. You want to offer a special promotion to your customers where they receive a 20% discount on V-Neck T-shirts if the customer’s subtotal reaches $800 or more.

To comply with the scenario, you have to set the discount accordingly.

Step 01: Since the product is specified here, you must set the discount type to ‘Product Base Discount’.

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However, you have to adjust the condition so that the discount will only apply if the customer’s subtotal (the total value of items in their cart before any discounts or taxes) reaches $800 or more.

To create the condition,

Step 02: Press ‘Add New’ and choose the condition type. For the given scenario, you’ll have to choose Subtotal.

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Step 03: According to the given scenario, there is a condition that says there will be a discount only if the customer makes a purchase worth more than $800. So there is a range of options under the field named- Subtotal Should Be. According to the scenario we are working with, you should choose ‘Greater than’ and the “Subtotal Amount” should be set to 800.

And then you are good to go. But what if you want to add more conditions for your customers to avail of 20% discounts? Let’s say you want to offer a discount only when they have exceeded a subtotal of $800, and the customer had purchased anything worth $500 or more before.

In order to set this condition, you’ll have to cover one additional step.

Step 04: After pressing “Add new” go to purchase history> last amount order. Set the order amount to $500, as per the scenario. Put the order status as ‘completed’.

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What if you decide, there will be a hefty 20% discount if a customer can fulfill one more condition, which is he/she is ordering from a particular country?

The additional step is as follows-

Step 05: Go to ‘Add new’. Next, choose Country of ‘shipping’ condition type. Beside, that very field, you’ll see there is ‘Countries Should Be’. Here you get to choose “in list” or “No in list”, meaning that if you choose “in list”, the discount will be applied only to the countries that are listed. And if you choose No in list, the discount will be applied for all countries except for the countries in the list.

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Next, you’ll see ‘Select Country’. This is where you make the list of countries. Here, the countries chosen are Bangladesh, China, India, Russia and Thailand. Once the countries are chosen, you can finally click ‘update’.

N.B.- Do remember that the above conditions are set as “Match all”. This means that to avail 20% discount, a customer has to meet all the conditions. And if you decide that, meeting any of the conditions can qualify them to avail of the discount, simply opt for “Match Any”.

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Things to Keep in Mind When Creating Conditional Discounts

Setting conditional discounts might seem very tempting once you see the interactions go high. But if not used strategically and not managed well, discount campaigns might go haywire. You don’t want that. So there are several things you will have to comply with after setting discounts.

1. Set the Objectives Clearly

Determine what specific outcomes you want to achieve, whether it’s boosting sales, increasing customer loyalty, clearing excess inventory, or attracting new customers. Clear objectives will help you measure its effectiveness.

2. Segment customers

Segmenting your customers based on relevant criteria such as demographics, purchase history, or engagement level allows for more targeted and personalized discount offers.

3. Create Discount Schedule

Consider factors such as seasonality, holidays, product launches, and industry events when scheduling discounts. A well-planned discount schedule ensures that promotions are strategically timed to maximize impact and minimize cannibalization of sales.

4. Set Usage limits for discounts

Determine the maximum number of times a discount can be used per customer, per order, or overall. Usage limits can also be applied based on specific conditions such as user roles, purchase history, or time periods. By setting usage limits, you ensure that discounts are utilized effectively while protecting your bottom line.

Final Remarks

Ultimately, to go all in for driving growth and success, you have to leverage conditional discounts as it will empower you to create more targeted, impactful, and profitable promotional campaigns.

Implementing conditional discounts offers a dynamic and strategic approach for you. In case you didn’t know, implementing discounts can redefine your sales strategies and customer engagement.

If you want to know more about how you can use discounts for the better, read this: 5 Best Tactics To Use WooCommerce Discounts And Boost Your Sales

Last but not least, let’s not forget how easily you can create conditional discounts with Dynamic Discount, shown above. If you have any further questions, or you feel stuck with the learning feel free to ask questions.

Categories
Guide

How to Increase Hotel Bookings- 10 Practical Ways to Follow

A constant concern of hoteliers all over the world- “How to increase hotel bookings?” “Are the booking strategies right?” or “How to increase hotel occupancy in low season?

Let’s break it down together. The solution involves a few strategic moves:

  • Choosing the right booking channels,
  • Implementing effective tactics to boost bookings,
  • Optimally using these channels for maximum impact.

In an industry flooded with options, it’s not unusual for hotels to miss out on deals, especially during slower periods. If you’re not actively seeking ways to enhance your bookings, you might see a dip in occupancy and revenue.

The secret to standing out? Implementing the right strategies with precision and care.

In this blog, I have shared 10 practical ways of increasing hotel bookings to boost sales like never before.

So, let’s get started!

Why Direct Bookings Are the Real Deal?

Before diving into the main topic – how to increase hotel bookings, let’s first learn about direct bookings. Direct bookings are basically the reservations made directly with your hotel, without using any third-party platforms.

Here’s why embracing direct bookings is beneficial for boosting your profit and sales:

  1. Cut Down Commission Costs: When guests book directly with you, you eliminate the need to pay commission fees to third-party booking platforms. More of the profit stays in your pocket.
  2. Increase Guest Loyalty: Direct interactions pave the way for building stronger relationships with your guests. When they book directly, you have the opportunity to personalize their experience, increasing the likelihood they’ll come back or recommend your hotel to others.
  3. Control Over the Booking Experience: Managing the booking process yourself means you can control guest experiences from the start. You ensure that they get accurate information and a seamless booking process, which can lead to higher satisfaction rates.
  4. Access to More Guest Data: Direct bookings give you valuable insights into your guests’ preferences and behaviors. Use this data to tailor your marketing strategies and improve your services, ultimately leading to more tailored experiences and increased guest satisfaction.
  5. Quicker Adjustments to Offers: With direct control over your bookings, you can quickly implement promotions or adjust pricing based on demand, season, or special events, helping you stay competitive and responsive in the market.

In the next section, I’ll also be discussing ‘how to get direct bookings’ which can really boost your hotel’s profits and sales. It gives you more control and helps you build better relationships with your guests.

How to Increase Hotel Bookings- 10 Proven Ways That Work

Focusing on optimizing direct bookings through your website is a great starting point if you’re looking to increase your hotel bookings. Let’s explore 10 effective strategies that can help your hotel attract more guests directly.

1. Optimizing Your Hotel’s Website for Search Engine

Just the mere presence of a website won’t do much for your sheer ambitions of making more bookings. Your hotel website needs to have good visibility, good user experience, and trustworthiness, which will ultimately drive higher traffic, conversions, and revenue.

Your website has to be seen, liked, and used for the sake of making money for your business.

And there are some ways that you need to believe in religiously.

a) SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) enhances your hotel website’s visibility on search engines like Google. By incorporating relevant keywords, optimizing title tags and meta descriptions, and building backlinks, you improve your site’s ranking. This includes focusing on both regular and local SEO to ensure your hotel appears prominently in search results.

Ultimately, effective SEO strategies make it easier for potential guests to discover and book your hotel online.

Improved Visibility on Search Engines

b) Content Marketing

Having a collection of blogs on your hotel website is crucial for improving SEO, as it educates prospective guests about the area, and showcases your unique guest experience. Regularly updating the blog builds a backlog of posts, keeping visitors engaged and providing content for social media and email marketing.

c) Website’s Ease-of-Use

The ease of use of your hotel’s website directly impacts the user experience. A complicated or frustrating website layout can deter visitors and lead to abandoned bookings. By prioritizing ease of use, you create a positive impression, build trust with potential guests, and increase the likelihood of conversion, ultimately driving more bookings and revenue for your hotel.

d) Mobile-Friendliness

Ensuring your hotel website is mobile-friendly is crucial because over 50% of potential guests browse websites using their mobile devices. A mobile-responsive layout, fonts, and images are essential for a seamless browsing experience. Check your website’s loading time, navigation, call-to-action placement, and content optimization to ensure a smooth mobile experience for guests.

2. Having a Simple & Smooth Booking system

Implementing a simple and smooth booking system on your hotel website is essential for increasing bookings. With an average bounce rate of 47%, a complicated booking process can deter potential guests. Simplify the process to a 2-step action, where users enter check-in/check-out dates, select room type, and make payment.

Collect basic information in Step 1 and redirect to a payment page with multiple options in Step 2. Avoid email verification by allowing sign-ups via Google or Facebook. Immediately confirm booking and payment details to guests.

By streamlining the booking process, your website can convert more browsers into actual guests, which will boost bookings significantly.

3. Virtual Showcase of Your Properties

Virtual showcases of hotel rooms can significantly increase hotel bookings by providing potential guests with a realistic and immersive preview of the accommodations. Through virtual tours, 360-degree photos, or interactive videos, guests can explore rooms, amenities, and facilities from the comfort of their own homes. Having this can naturally enhance the understanding of the space, and build trust in the hotel’s offerings.

But you need to do it right, or else that would be a baseless investment. With the right software and tools, you can easily make a virtual tour or panorama image of your hotel’s rooms.

WPVR is one virtual tour-creating software in WordPress. You simply upload 360 panoramic images, and this plugin will turn it into an exclusive virtual tour. You can trust the creation process while saving your sweat for implementing all the other strategies.

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WPVR HomePage

If you’re a hotel business owner, this is a must-read for you How To Create A Hotel Virtual Tour To Increase Online Hotel Booking

4. Run Marketing Campaigns – Seasonal and Off-season

Local events like festivals, concerts, and conferences are drawing travelers, offering accommodation operators opportunities to boost occupancy. Maximize these events by adding them to your marketing calendar, creating special packages, promoting them on your website, and discussing them on social media.

Seasonal marketing campaigns tailored to specific guest segments can effectively increase hotel bookings.

A good example of how this could look like-

Summer Vacation Campaign:

Target Audience: Families with children

Offer: Family-friendly packages with activities such as pool parties, beach outings, and children’s entertainment.

Promotion: Special discounts on extended stays or complimentary meals for kids.

Content: Social media posts featuring fun summer activities and vibrant images of families enjoying their vacation at the hotel.

Also, you can say that effective off-season marketing campaigns are crucial in learning how to increase hotel occupancy in low season.

5. Email Marketing to Outreach & Retarget

Email marketing can be a powerful tool for hotels to channel communication and personalized offers. This is a good way of building relationships with past guests on a regular basis. But you have to put your mind and soul into reaching out, or your emails will be left unopened- meaning no possibility of sales.

To do it right,

  • Segment your email campaigns tailored to your guest’s interests and demographics.
  • Implement pre-arrival communication to promote add-on services, enhance the overall guest experience, and encourage bookings.
  • Reconnect with website visitors who did not book, reminding them of the hotel and enticing them to complete the booking process, which is retargeting.
  • Effectively engage recipients with visually appealing and mobile-optimized emails

6. Expand your Reach Everywhere- Tourism websites, Online Travel Agencies

When it comes to sales, leave no space for your competitors. And the only best way to ensure that is by being present everywhere. To maximize visibility and attract guests, ensure your hotel is listed on multiple online travel agencies. OTAs offer broad reach and high search engine rankings, increasing discovery opportunities for potential guests.

To establish an impressive presence,

  • Provide comprehensive information, including accommodation options, facilities, rates, and contact details
  • Encouraging positive guest reviews to enhance credibility and boost bookings.
  • Capitalize on tourism websites’ traffic by featuring your hotel prominently with compelling photos and unique features.
  • Explore collaboration opportunities with local tourism boards and businesses for cross-promotion, which might further increase bookings for all parties involved.

Here is an example of how Waterfront Hotel did an amazing job at showcasing its properties on TripAdvisor.

Hotel Waterfront listed on TripAdvisor
Hotel Waterfront listed on TripAdvisor

7. Establish a Social Media Presence

Establishing an impressive presence on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is essential for increasing hotel bookings, especially considering that almost one-third of travelers seek vacation ideas on social media.

But obviously, any social media marketing won’t work, unless you do it strategically.

  • Share relatable content to humanize your brand
  • Leverage user-generated content, such as photos and reviews from previous guests, to build trust and credibility in your brand.
  • Encourage guests to leave reviews on social media or popular review websites like TripAdvisor to further enhance your hotel’s reputation and attract more bookings.
  • Beyond regular updates and promotions, employ storytelling techniques to engage your target audience by sharing behind-the-scenes stories of hotel management, staff, or amenities

8. Personalize the Customer Experience

Guest satisfaction and loyalty come when they feel cared for, and the only way to do it is by personalizing services. By leveraging guest data and preferences, hotels can offer tailored services, discounts, and offers that enhance guest satisfaction.

There are ways more than one that you can do so-

– For instance, maintaining detailed information such as birthdays, anniversaries, and special preferences in a guest management system enables hotels to send personalized messages and provide unique experiences during guests’ stays. This personalized approach fosters stronger relationships with guests, encouraging repeat bookings and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

– You might as well utilize a concise form to gather guest preferences upon booking. Based on this information, the hotel offers relevant experience packages and complimentary amenities, such as champagne for guests celebrating special occasions.

This personalized touch not only delights guests but also sets the hotel apart, creating memorable experiences that drive customer loyalty and increase direct bookings.

9. Digital Advertising

Digital advertising can be a powerful tool by leveraging social media platforms and creating a sense of urgency for travelers. Firstly, utilizing social media advertising allows hotels to dominate search results and drive traffic to their websites. But these platforms can do a lot more than that. Like-

  • Integrating a booking engine with social media pages enables fans to book directly, streamlining the booking process and encouraging conversions.
  • Employing messaging on the hotel website that creates a sense of urgency can further boost bookings.
  • Strategies such as flash sales or limited-time offers can be effective in driving traffic and increasing conversion rates. These promotions can be promoted via email campaigns or prominently displayed on the website with a unique discount code.

By leveraging digital advertising tactics that create a sense of urgency, hotels can effectively fill occupancy quickly and drive direct bookings.

10. Incorporate CTAs and Pop-ups

A lot of visitors explore hotel websites to browse through images, learn about amenities, and understand policies. But sometimes they are not consciously browsing, and they lose directions. This is when leveraging compelling CTAs (Call-to-Actions) and strategically timed pop-ups on your website can be highly effective. But some key ideas to note when putting your CTAs-

  • Utilizing attention-grabbing CTAs and pop-ups that can alert them to special offers or lower rates, encouraging direct bookings.
Discount pop-ups
  • By making your homepage pop-up noticeable and providing incentives for direct bookings, you can significantly boost your conversion rates. However, it’s crucial to ensure that these CTAs and pop-ups are not intrusive and don’t disrupt the booking process. Visitors should have the option to easily skip or close them if they choose.

While it can be challenging to alter traveler behavior, implementing well-designed CTAs and pop-ups can effectively encourage visitors to return to your website and consider booking directly.

Final Remarks

Lastly, don’t just go for shiny objects, have patience with whatever strategies you come up with, refine, and then optimize. Always keep measuring. Measure the open rates of emails, and subscription rates, if the CTAs are really working. Keep learning and try different options. The results will often surprise you. When it comes to getting direct bookings, don’t follow your instincts, they don’t always work. Analyze the data you get and base your decisions on it.

As hotel managers, keeping up with travelers’ modern needs and coming up with strategies to meet those should be your top priority. When you meet their needs, sales will follow you through anyway.

And if you are looking for software that can help you create virtual tours for your hotel website, WPVR can do beyond magic.

For any software advice or strategies, you are always free to ask for help through comments or our support system.

Because asking for help is smart!

FAQs

1. What Are Some Direct Booking Examples?

Direct booking examples include guests making reservations directly through a hotel’s website, contacting the hotel via phone, or sending booking inquiries through email. These methods allow guests to interact directly with the hotel without involving third-party platforms like online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Booking.com or Expedia.

2. How Can WPVR Help in Increasing Hotel Bookings?

WPVR, a virtual reality plugin for WordPress, can enhance hotel bookings by offering immersive experiences to potential guests. Through virtual tours, guests can explore hotel facilities and rooms in detail, increasing their confidence in booking. This technology provides a more engaging and realistic preview, effectively showcasing the hotel’s offerings and encouraging guests to make reservations.

3. What are the Drawbacks of Online Travel Agencies?

Online travel agencies (OTAs) offer convenience but come with notable drawbacks for hotels. High commission rates eat into profit margins, while limited control over branding and customer data poses challenges. Managing inventory across multiple platforms can lead to overbookings or underbookings. Overall, these do not guarantee your business profit and more bookings.