Getting the Most Out of Your Marketing: Part II: The Offer

You’ve written beautiful marketing copy. You perfectly describe your product, including benefits to the customer. You draw in the reader. And then it ends.

No one calls. What’s missing?

You forgot your offer.

Every piece of marketing collateral needs an offer. You can tell your readers how great your product is, but if you don’t give them an offer, you’ve wasted your time and money. Sure, they could call to find out your prices, but that would mean they would have to work. And you never, ever want to make the customer work. You want to make buying from you simple.

You want to make your marketing offer worthwhile. Selling widgets one for $15 or two for $30 is not compelling. Your offer should be:

• Attractive enough to stimulate action
• Simple to understand (no strings attached)
• Good for a limited time (encourages readers to act now)

Discounts are the obvious popular choice for an offer in an email campaign, direct mail or advertising. But here are some other creative examples of offers that get people to buy.

1. Free sample. Offering a sample lets interested parties see if your product works for them. If it does, the sale is easy to close.

2. Free report or ebook. Say you’re selling press release services. You send out an email to your contacts telling them what you can do for them and then offer a free download to your ebook on writing press releases. Everyone loves free information, so once they read it, they will be more likely to believe in your ability to help them.

3. Referral program. People love being rewarded for doing nothing more than introducing a friend to your services. Offer incentive, such as a gift card or free products for every new customer your contacts bring you.

How can you enhance your marketing material with an offer that will bring you new business?

-Susan

PS Here is my offer to you. I want to give you a preview of my ebook, DIY Press Releases. It’s not the whole document, but hopefully it will be useful enough to you that you want the rest (and at $19.99 I’m practically giving it away anyway). If you want the 40+ sites where you can distribute your press release for free, you’ll have to buy the ebook.

If you’re interested in your DIY Press Releases ebook, email me and tell me how you use press releases.

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