Last week we talked about your clients favorite radio station, W.I.I.F.M., or “What’s in it for Me?”  Today we’ll talk about the second of the 7 tips for crafting a compelling offer.  To review, see my previous Blog post here.

First and foremost your offer must be clear.  Confused people do nothing, and nothing is the last thing you want from prospect or client.  In general, “half off,” is better than 50% off.  Further, “two for one,” in general, is better than “half off.” 

I say in general because it all depends on your target audience.  The words and phrases you use will get better or worse response based on your chosen target audience.  Review segmenting your lists here.

Second, you must get in the habit of offering only one thing with each piece of marketing.  Here’s an online example.  In most cases, you want to collect your clients contact information right when they first visit your site.  Everything should be concentrated on that one goal.  You wouldn’t want to sell them your widget, try to get their contact information, and have them come by and visit your shop all at the same time!

Here’s on off-line example.  If you’re running lead generation advertising for your dental practice, you want the only offer to be to call or visit a website for more information.  You’re not selling them on the dental work itself, just a call to action to get more information.  It would be foolish to try and sell a root canal in that situation, wouldn’t it?

Finally, the offer must be a good (perceived) value.  Going back to our dentist example, to validate our offer, we may want to put a value on the information we are providing, thus giving our information a high perceived value.

Be wary of using percentage off for your offers.  As a society, we’ve become increasing skeptical of these offers.  We have ingrained in our minds that they’ve simply over-inflated the original value of the product or service, and then cut down to the “real” price with the percentage off.  However, this can work when there is a widely known “published” price of an item.

Next week we’ll talk about the value of offering discounts, premiums (free gifts) or both.  See you then.