What Makes a Powerful Offer
What is a Powerful and Compelling Offer?
Your offer forms part of your marketing campaign. When you get it right, everything else will fall into place.
A powerful offer is one that makes the most people respond and take action. A compelling offer gets people running to spend money on your product or service.
Powerful offers nearly always have an element of urgency and of scarcity. They give your audience a reason to act immediately, instead of putting it off until a later date.
Urgency relates to time.
The offer is only available until a certain date, during a certain period of the day, or if you act within a few hours of seeing the ad. The customer needs to act now to take advantage of the offer. Think Amazon Prime Days and Black Friday as an example. It becomes a powerful offer because if customers don't take action now, they lose the benefits of the offer.
Scarcity relates to quantity.
There are only a certain number of customers who will be able to take advantage of the offer. There may be a limited number of spaces, a limited number of products, or simply a limited number of people the business will provide the offer to. Again, this requires the customer to act immediately to reap the high value for low cost. A compelling offer lets customers know if they don't take action now, the offer will no longer be available.
The First Steps
Before you spend thousands of dollars on an impressive marketing campaign, remember to complete these steps first.
For instance - the Strategez for Business Value Proposition is “Learn to Thrive in Business, NOT Just Survive.”
What does that mean? Simplistically it means, “Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime.” When you learn to work ON your business, NOT IN your business you are far more likely to succeed.
What Makes up a Powerful Offer?
It’s a common mistake to focus on how great your product or service is. It’s easy to neglect the two main reasons why your products or services matter to your prospects. Customers don’t care about your products or services, they care about what your products or services will do for them. They are only motivated by two things; pain or gain. They want your products or services to take away their pain or help them gain an opportunity.
The Call Us Trap
Many in business fall into the “call us trap” in their marketing material. They simply provide information on their company and the products or services they provide. Then tell prospective customers to call them. Really - this is not enough to get customers to act. Remember buyer motivation is all about their pain or gain. Unless you address their pain or gain, there is no reason for them to pick up the phone, visit your store, or email you right now.
You need a powerful, irresistible offer for them to want to take action. It needs to be an offer with an objective. Consider what you want the offer to do?
Now that you have an objective in place, you can start to build a compelling offer that will address the prospect's pain or gain.
Your Offer needs to Demonstrate Value
Customers perceive the offer as having great value – more than a single product on its own, or the product at its regular price. It is clear the offer takes the reader's needs and wants into consideration.
Your Offer Needs to Make Sense to the Reader.
A compelling and powerful offer is simple and easy to understand if read quickly. Avoid percentages – use half-off or 2-for-1 instead of 50% off. There are no "catches" or requirements, no fine print.
Your Offer Needs to Seem logical.
A compelling offer doesn't come out of thin air. There is a logical reason behind it – a holiday, end of season, anniversary celebration, or new product. On the other hand, people can get suspicious of offers that seem "too good to be true" and have no apparent purpose.
Your Offer Could Provide a Premium.
A powerful offer provides something extra to the customer, like a free gift, or free product or service. They feel they are getting something extra for no extra cost. Premiums are perceived to have more value than discounts.
Remember when your target market reads your offer, they will be asking the following questions:
The Most Powerful Types of Offers
Decide what kind of offer will most effectively achieve your objectives. Are you trying to generate leads, convert customers, build a database, move old products off the shelves, or increase sales?
Consider what type of offer will be of most value to your ideal customers – what offer will make them act quickly. A powerful offer is one that not only achieve your business objectives, it turns maybe buyers into now buyers.
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Free Offer
This type of offer asks customers to act immediately in exchange for something free. This is a good strategy to use to build a customer database or mailing list. Offer a free consultation, free consumer report, or another item of low cost to you but of high perceived value.
You can also advertise the value of the item you are offering for free. For example, act now, and you'll receive a free consultation worth $75. This will dramatically increase your lead generation, and allow you to focus on conversion when the customer comes through the door or visits your website.
The Value Added Offer
To create a powerful offer consider adding additional services or products that cost you very little, and combine them with other items to increase their attractiveness. This increases the perception of value in the prospect's mind, which will justify increasing the price of a product or service without incurring extra hard costs to your business.
Package Offer
Package your products or services together in a logical way to increase the perceived value as a whole. Discount the value of the package by a small margin, and position it as a "start-up kit" or "special package." By packaging goods of mixed values, you will be able to close more high-value sales. For example: including a free desk-jet printer with every computer purchase. An offer like this becomes more powerful with that added extra.
Premium Offer
Offer a bonus product or service with the purchase of another. This strategy will serve your bottom line much better than discounting. This includes 2 -for-1 offers, offers including free gifts, and in-store credit with purchases over a specific dollar amount.
Urgency Offer
As we mentioned above, offers including an element of urgency enjoy a better response rate, as there is a reason for your customers to act immediately. Give the offer a deadline or limit the number of spots available. This is what makes a powerful offer even more compelling.
Guarantee Offer
Offer to take away the risk of making a purchase from your customers. Guarantee the performance or results of your product or service, and offer to compensate the customer with their money back if they are not satisfied. This will help overcome any fear or reservations about your product, and make it more likely for your leads to become customers. What makes it a compelling offer is the guarantee. It gives customers peace of mind they are making the right decision or they get their money back.
How to Create Your Powerful Offer
Pick a Single Product or Service
Focus on only one product or service – or one product or service type – at a time. This will keep your offer clear, simple, and easy to understand. This can be an area of your business you wish to grow, or an old product that you need to move off the shelves.
Decide What you Want Your Customers to Do.
What are you looking to achieve from your offer? If it is to generate more leads, then you'll need your customer to contact you. If it is to quickly sell the old product, you'll need your customer to come into the store and buy it. Do you want them to visit your website? Sign up for your newsletter? How long do they have to act? Be clear about your call to action, and state it clearly in your offer.
Dream up the Biggest, Best Offer.
A powerful offer is an offer that immediately captures the attention of your prospects. First, think of the biggest, best things you could offer your customers – regardless of cost and ability. Don't limit yourself to a single type of offer, combine several types of offers to increase value. Offer a premium, plus a guarantee, with a package offer. Then take a look at what you've created, and make the necessary changes so it is realistic.
Run the Numbers.
Finally, make sure the offer will leave you with some profit – or at least allow you to break even. You don't want to publish an outrageous offer that will generate a tremendous number of leads, but leave you broke.
Remember that each customer has an acquisition cost, as well as a lifetime value. The amount of their first purchase may allow you to break even, but the amount of their subsequent purchases may make you a handsome profit.
If you struggle with what offer to come up with, brainstorm with your team. Your employees have ideas that perhaps you never thought of. And they love to be asked for their opinion. Remember, they are often the ones at the coal face and offer up suggestions that make sense.
On a final note
With a compelling offer your prospects have a reason to engage with you. Remember, the offer is only one aspect of marketing and should not be used in isolation. You also need an overarching marketing strategy that takes into account your target market, buyer avatars, the value proposition and how you communicate value to your target market.
When you put everything together and use the conversion equation to communicate your compelling offer, then you are far more likely to convert prospects into paying customers.
Learn to Thrive Not Just Survive
80% of business owners do little more than just survive. They often make less than in full paid employment. They can't take sick leave, they usually work longer hours and take less vacations.
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