Newsletter - Craft a Better Offer: 9 Tips
Performance Marketing
Volume 1, Issue 8
August 2009
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Performance Marketing, the monthly newsletter for online marketers looking for results. In a few days September will be here. For many of us fall triggers a renewed sense of purpose and energy, like going “back to school.” Do you remember putting on shoes and socks for the first time after a summer of bare feet or flip-flops? It felt tight but good, like you were gearing up for the next adventure. In this spirit, we’re going to help you prep for fall campaigns with nine tips. Read on to find out how you can craft compelling, successful offers that generate high quality leads and differentiate you from the competition.
All the Best,
Daniel Laury
Founder, President and CEO
LSF Interactive
Feature Article: How to create effective and attractive promotions
Successful marketing requires more than just developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it readily available. It also requires effective communication with all targeted current and potential consumers to encourage purchase. Good marketing requires good promotion as well.
Based on my experience, the best-designed campaigns can be derailed by a poorly crafted offer; one that doesn’t resonate with the target market or motivate it to act.
There are a great variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product, but a truly compelling offer is one that turns a casual browser into a potential customer.
In the words of our Senior Director, Media, Baglan Nurhan, “A good offer is determined and reinforced by the action of people who respond to it. If it’s unsuccessful it simply means people are not responding.”
Here are 9 tips to creating attractive and effective promotions
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Assess your needs and set realistic objectives.
This is Marketing 101. Before designing any kind of promotion, identify your business needs – website traffic, leads in the pipeline, brand awareness, or something else. Always decide on the timeline and price points for your promotion to give better direction and enable tracking.
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Make sure your promotion appeals to your customer base.
We’ve achieved good results with percent off and dollar off promotions, but we also work with many high-end brands to whom this type of incentive doesn’t appeal. Your market research shows what your audience finds motivating. Be sure to use it.
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Promote at all stages of the process.
Effective promotion of your product or service must take place at all stages of the consumption/buying process, namely pre-selling, selling, consumption, and post-consumption. Don’t view it as a one-time effort or target only one portion of the process.
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Choose the best promotion for your product.
There are many different types of offers and the best promotion will depend on your product, its price, and the value of each new customer. Make the best offer you can afford. Typical offers include discounts, rebates, gifts, premiums, contests, drawings, buy one get one free, trial sizes, free samples, special exhibits, fairs, trade shows, redemption coupons, free tastings, and money-back guarantees.
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Time the offer appropriately.
We recommend that promotions run for at least one month for the best ROI. Consider using coupons and special offers only during slower business periods. You’ll boost sales and prevent customers from expecting a discount all the time.
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Learn from the competition.
Monitor, track and record what your competition is doing. Once you’ve built a history you’ll be able to see patterns, be proactive, and differentiate your brand.
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Connect emotionally.
You want the offer to have a positive emotional impact on your audience. Make it eye-catching and recognizable so that viewers associate the offer with your brand. Use the offer to reinforce the value of the product.
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Match the channel with the product and the offer.
Not all promotions can be distributed the same way. For consumer packaged goods we recommend paid search or display ads. For luxury brands, we prefer exclusive closed circuit promotions that use email to current customers or members of loyalty programs. Email marketing to an internal list prevents brand dilution, allows for greater control of the offer, and has better results. Display reaches a broader audience and may generate more leads.
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Stock up.
Make sure you have an adequate supply of free samples, gifts or whatever your offer is. You don’t want to run a month-long promotion and run out of your give-away after 10 days. Don’t underestimate -- think positively about the response you’re likely to get!
