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Offers_that_Turn_Lookers_into_Buyers
| Offers that Turn Lookers into Buyers
Offers that Turn Lookers into Buyers
If you're getting only a sluggish response for a product or
service that people genuinely need, wake buyers up by spicing up
your offer. I've seen losing propositions become winners with
these kinds of changes, which in most cases cost you nothing:
1. Guarantees. With a strong, simple guarantee, you can overcome
the doubts of people who have not done business with you before,
and calm down worriers who don't act when they can think of too
many "what ifs." The guarantee does not have to promise a
refund. Someone hiring an exterminator service wants those
darned critters out, not their money back. "We guarantee you'll
be pest-free for a year, or we'll come back and spray again for
no extra charge" is the thing to promise them. Direct-mail
professionals tell us that a one-year guarantee sells better,
with fewer refund requests, than a thirty-day guarantee, and a
lifetime guarantee does even better.
2. Package deals. If you sell office supplies, you might think
that folks going back to school know how to select what they
need. Perhaps, but why not make things easy for them -- and more
profitable for you -- by shrink-wrapping three spiral notebooks,
two packets of pens, a pocket calendar and several
semi-necessary items together in a Back to School packet? This
often persuades people to spend more than they would on separate
items.
The same principle applies to services, where you can mobilize
people who shy away from hourly fees with fixed- price bundles:
only $350 for a will and a consultation on estate planning. A
name makes your bundle more appealing: $150 for the "Get
Organized Special."
3. Premiums. Try rousing sleepy customers with bonuses -- spend
more than $100 and receive a free whooziwhatsit, which isn't
available any other way. One mail-order company offered a free
booklet with any order from that catalog, and received 13
percent more orders from that catalog than previously.
Similarly, frequent-buyer programs have now spread far beyond
airlines, because they work. If convenience-store patrons have a
card to buy nine cups of coffee and get the tenth free, they're
more likely to consolidate their coffee buying rather than
buying sometimes here and sometimes there.
4. Payment terms. When you let clients know they can spread
payments out over two or four months, you'll snag some wavering
over the money issue. But changing payment terms doesn't
necessarily mean you get your money later. I know speakers and
consultants who offered a 2 or 5 percent discount for payment in
advance, and received their money a whole year before they would
have otherwise!
With any new offer, test, test, test. You can't know any other
way whether "Buy one, get the second one free" works better or
worse than "Buy two and each is half price." Human beings are
illogical creatures, and unexpected offers can turn this fact to
your advantage.
About the author:
The above is adapted from "Secrets of Mouthwatering Marketing
Copy" by Marcia Yudkin, available from
http://www.yudkin.com/mouthwatering.htm . Marcia Yudkin
is the author of 11 books, including
Persuading on Paper and Internet Marketing for Less than
$500/Year.
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