"Let me make you an offer you can't refuse."
Many of us direct marketing geeks point to Claude Hopkins as one of the best marketing experts and authors.
You won't find his work next to Seth Godin, Dan Kennedy, Jay Abraham, or any of the latest marketing gurus.
The fact is, Hopkins created his last marketing offer years before Al Gore "invented" the Internet.
But what this man did -- described in his writing,My Life In Advertising and Scientific Advertising (a classic) -- was to demonstrate and communicate the power of an offer to get a Response and Sale.
A simple concept, but one many of us forget, and, as a result, we can suffer from weak marketing campaigns, a dearth of leads, and slack sales.
Remember, taking a pedestrian offer to a turbo-charged one can increase response 500% (5 times), generally with pretty much the same offer or cost.
An offer is simply what your prospects "get" for acting.
And, it could be in lead generation or in selling. Let's discuss a few features of both.
Lead Generation (Generally Free) Offers
For a business audiences, the most common lead generation offers fall into 3 categories, events/speaking, writing, or trials/consultations.
So let's check the old email inbox for a few recent examples.
Writing - There is a free eBook from Infusionsoft through the MarketingProfs list, "The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales."
Event - An upcoming, free webinar on strategies to help select a new technology by one of my colleagues.
Consultation/Sampling/Free Trial - An agency is offering a free consultation on email marketing strategies. A technology vendor is offering a 30-day free trial of its product.
So what are some quick ways to create what Claude Hopkins might call an irresistible, lead generation offer?
1. Consider combining the catagories of offer:
Webinars with a book, personalized action steps with a consultation, etc.
2. Give a value to the offer:
A $10 book free, consultation normally $250 value, speaker charges $1,000 an hour, etc.
3. Create urgency:
You can limit the time to respond or number available.
4. And always for all offers:
Build the value of the offer and describe both the big, life-changing takeaway and key benefits of taking advantage of the offer.
Sales Offers
Too often in today's marketing, especially in a business sale or for a high-level audience, marketing may do a good job of getting you interested, but then there is no turbo-charged offer on the sales side.
While there are books written on this topic, I think the neatest thing Hopkins discusses is combining a product with a low-cost, high value service.
All possible permutations are too numerous to mention here.
Some examples are -- Buy $49 product get a $29 book for free, Buy $4,995 software get $995 training and unlimited 6 month support ($495 value) for free. Or, first month of consulting service for $2,000, with $1,000 training for free.
A real estate agent could offer $1,000 in ad dollars and a free home staging package worth $995 with a listing. Or, a CPA could offer a $500 financial plan (from a financial advisor) for free with first year's tax return.
You get the idea. But sometimes we get stuck trying to differentiate from the competition on a few features and end up pricing the same as everyone else, when maybe a better offer could multiply leads and increase sales conversions.
The Compelling Multiplication with Offers
The math behind two great offers is compelling. Let's say with your new, killer offer you multiply lead flow only by 2 times. And you also multiply sales conversion of those leads by 2 times.
So you could go from 100 leads a month to 200, with 5% sales conversion going to 10% - you would go from 5 sales a month to 20, or a 400% increase in sales.
Quick Success Story:
While working with a software company, we had trouble selling to smaller organizations with under 250 employees for a host of reasons.
So we combined a sales pitch webinar (with a cheap report for attending) as a draw with an offer than included free training, support, and 1 year of upgrades. We went from approximately 3 sales a quarter to 8 sales in the first quarter with this new marketing and offer. What's more there were excellent year 2 through 5 annual service and upgrade fees.
And, our sales people went from trying to chase these smaller, new deals down to writing-up orders, and then going back to these customers to sell other products.
There are some quick ways to create what Claude Hopkins calls an irresistible offer. Hopefully you got some ideas you can profit from, too.
We invite you to contact Bob to help put marketing strategies like these in place
