Offering holiday deals in Acuity Scheduling

Holidays like Black Friday in the United States are a great opportunity to use coupons, packages, and gift certificates to offer your clients deals through Acuity. Advertising is key—ensure that you send coupon codes to your clients and let them know about special packages and gift certificates. 

This guide reviews all options, plus ideas for using each for holiday promotions. 

Use appointment coupons

With appointment coupons, your clients use a code to get a discount when booking an appointment. 

Keep in mind:

• Coupons are live as soon as you create them, so wait until the holiday to distribute the codes.
• A coupon that's valid for a percentage off an appointment’s cost applies to any add-ons the customer selects as well. To avoid this, set the discount as a specific dollar amount, rather than a percentage.
• A coupon that's valid for a total number of appointments can also be used for recurring appointments. If it doesn’t cover the entire set of appointments, the customer owes whatever isn’t covered. To have the coupon only apply to the first appointment, set This can be used to each customer can use this once.
• If you have other coupons available, clients can't combine them with your holiday deal. Acuity only accepts one coupon per order.

Here are some ways to use coupons for a holiday:

Create a holiday deal

For an exclusive, one-day deal, create a coupon code and set it to expire the day after the holiday. Because codes expire at midnight, the code will expire right when the holiday ends.

Create a deal for a set number of customers

To limit how many people can use the coupon, create a coupon with a total number of uses. After the code has been used the number of times you’ve specified, no one else can use it. This encourages your customers to use the deal as soon as possible.

Create special codes for a group of clients

To give a special reward or incentive to one group of clients, create a group-specific coupon code. For example, you could create THANKYOUVETS or FORPARENTS and send the code to those groups of clients. If you've integrated Acuity with Email Campaigns, you can promote the code by sending a campaign to a specific mailing list.    

Use packages and gift certificates

With packages, you can sell clients multiple appointments bundled together, typically at a discounted rate. With gift certificates, your clients can give their friends and family one or multiple appointments with you, or a discount the next time they book. 

Packages and gift certificates are available on the Standard or Growing and Premium or Powerhouse plans.

Keep in mind:

• Coupons for packages and coupons for appointments can't use the same code.
• Don't delete your package when the sale is over. You can set the package to Unavailable, but if you delete it, this invalidates the codes customers received when they bought the packages.

Here are some ways to use packages and gift certificates for a holiday:

Offer a buy-one-get-one sale

Create a package that’s good for two appointments, but only costs as much as one appointment. Keep in mind that clients can purchase unlimited amounts of these packages. 

Encourage gift certificates as a holiday present

Remind your clients they can print a gift certificate and give it to the recipient, or email it to them after purchase. 

To ensure your certificates are printable, check Show a printable gift certificate after purchasing whenever you create a gift certificate.

Add links to your client scheduling page

You can share package and gift certificate links with clients directly, or you can encourage people to buy them from the client scheduling page. These items need to be set to Public to appear on your client scheduling page. 

To add a package or gift certificate to your client scheduling page: 

1. In Acuity, click Packages, gifts & subscriptions
2. Select how you want the item to appear. You can display all items as a list, add a link to them, or hide them. 
3. Click Save. 

These options appear after creating at least one package, gift certificate, or subscription. 

Offer a coupon for packages

When you offer a coupon for a package, you create a discount on a discount. These coupons are similar to appointment coupons, but they offer a dollar amount or a percentage off the purchase of a package. You can limit these coupons to one use per customer email address. 

Like appointment coupons, you can set them to expire the day after the holiday. They're also live as soon as you create them, so ensure you don't share them too soon.

Tip: The two different coupon areas of your Acuity account look similar. To confirm the type of coupon you're creating, look at the left panel to check if you're in the Appointment types section or in Packages, gifts & subscriptions.