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A year after Shobha Tummala opened her second New York City spa, the entrepreneur issued a limited time offer – a special price for just one month – on Brazilian bikini waxes. It was a way, Tummala says, to get existing customers to try a new service.

“We had an existing client base and we wanted to motivate them to switch to us for this service,” says Tummala, whose salons specialize in a centuries-old method of hair removal from India called threading. “They were already going to be here for their other appointment. By deeply discounting that service, we believed that if they tried it, they would switch to us” for waxing, too.

Tummala limited the offer to only a month because customers come back within that time, if not sooner, for their next threading treatment. In one month, she’d hit every customer.

A limited time offer is only as good as its limits. Businesses that are always deeply cutting prices on services or products become known as discount houses, but higher-end companies can judiciously use a limited time offer as a tool to promote a launch, open a new location or keep customers in the off-season.

This summer, Beverly Hills Club, a full-service exercise facility in Beverly Hills, Mich., offered a “join free” promotion to fill the seasonal gap when many existing members put their memberships on hold to head outside for warm-weather activities. This limited time offer – no initiation fee for two months – is one way to pull in new members.

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