How to Create Discount and Trial Offers in Ghost

Ghost is a powerful app for new-media creators to publish, share, and grow a business around their content. It comes with modern tools to build a website, publish content, send newsletters & offer paid subscriptions to members. One of the features that Ghost offers is the ability to create discount and trial offers to convert more paid customers by offering shareable discounts to your audience, as well as offering free trials to your premium tiers1.

Creating a Discount Offer

The offers page appears in Ghost Admin when you have an active Stripe connection in place. To create a discount offer, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Offers page in Ghost Admin.
2. Click on the "New Offer" button.
3. Choose "Discount" as the offer type.
4. Set the discount amount and duration.
5. Click "Create Offer".

If a member cancels their free trial prior to expiry, they will be converted to a ‘free’ member and their card will not be charged. Members can cancel their free trial from within their account settings1.

Sharing Offers

Each offer has a custom URL that can be shared anywhere. When a visitor clicks an offer URL, they will land on your website with Portal displaying the offer. It's possible to share your offer with your audience in several different ways:

• Include a link to your offer in a newsletter sent to your free audience, or a segment of your audience, using an email call to action card.
• Mention your offer link in a podcast episode.
• Share your offer link on other platforms or social media1.

Free Trials

Offering free trials to your members is a great way to grow your paid audience, by giving them the chance to try out your premium content for free before committing to a subscription. There are three ways to offer free trials natively in Ghost, depending on what you are hoping to achieve5:

Free Trials on Paid Tiers

It’s possible to add a free trial to any premium tier in Ghost, which enables the free trial for all new signups on that tier. This method is ideal if you want to offer a free trial for all new paid subscribers. When signing up for a free trial on a paid tier, members are required to enter their credit card details, so that the card can be charged at the end of their trial. If they choose to cancel before the free trial ends, their card will not be charged.

Free Trials as Special Offers

The offers feature in Ghost can also be used to create a free trial, which can be shared with a specific group of people via a custom offer link. This method is ideal if you want to offer a free trial to a specific group of people, such as your email subscribers or social media followers.

Free Trials on All Tiers

It’s possible to offer a free trial on all tiers in Ghost by creating a custom integration with Stripe. This method is ideal if you want to offer a free trial to all new members, regardless of the tier they sign up for. In conclusion, Ghost offers a powerful and flexible system for creating discount and trial offers to convert more paid customers and grow your audience. By following the steps outlined above, you can create custom offers and free trials that are tailored to your specific needs and goals15.