In the last 2 weeks alone I’ve had three brand owners come to me, all with the same story. They’ve been told by marketing “experts” that every single EDM, every Meta ad needs a discount incentive. Every website needs a countdown timer or some other kind of FOMO bells and whistles.

One of them showed me her email marketing calendar. Every. Single. Week. A different discount code. Flash sale this, 20% off that, “last chance” the other thing.

And here’s the part that really gets me — some of these countdown timers? They’re not even counting down to anything real. They literally reset when you refresh the page. It’s manufactured urgency. It’s fake scarcity. And it’s everywhere.

So today, I’m going to be blunt with you.

This advice? This “discount everything, all the time” approach? It’s not just lazy marketing. It’s actively destroying premium brands.

Over the next half hour or so, I’m going to unpack why constant discounting is eroding your profits, repelling your best customers, and training shoppers to never buy from you at full price.

And I’ll share what’s actually working for quality-focused brands right now. Spoiler alert: it’s not another 20% off code.