Wendy Nelson Kenney
Did that headline get your attention? It certainly got mine! But what if we changed the headline to read:
“Free Mercedes SLK 350 Brochure, Just Drop By.”
No, that one doesn’t really get me excited. Does it for you? What’s the difference?
Free offers are one of the best ways to get your company or product or service noticed. They can create instant buzz for little cost. But they have to be done the right way; otherwise you’ll see your efforts backfire.
Here are 7 No Fail Rules of Running a Successful Free Offer
1. The Rule of Dollar Value. The offer has to be something that that has a dollar valued attached to it. Case in point, Denny’s recently ran a campaign for free Grand Slam breakfast for everyone in America. The value of a Grand Slam is approximately $5.99. Millions of people waited in line at Denny’s Restaurants all over the country to take them up on their offer. Denny’s said their promotion was a huge success. According to one of the Denny’s managers, “Free freaks people out; they call and say, ‘What’s the catch?’” And Denny’s thinks that by “freaking people out” in a good way, it will keep them coming back for more.
2. The Rule of Desire.It has to be something that customers want, and wouldn’t be able to get unless they paid for it themselves. Good examples include free Kindle books for Kindle owners at Amazon.com or free MP3 downloads from Napster.com.
3. The Rule of Relevance.One way to make sure that your offer is something that people want is that it has relevance to what’s going on right now or what’s popular. Dunkin’ Donuts gave away free iced coffee in May and experienced great success. Would they have done so if they would have given away hot chocolate instead? The question to ask yourself is what is relevant in the market right now? What are people talking about? Then tailor your free offer to address that.
4. The Rule of No Strings Attached. For free to work, it has to be 100% absolutely free. As customers, we are weary and cynical. We don’t know who you are yet, and we don’t trust you yet either. Give us a chance to trust you by giving something away that won’t require us to sign up or opt in. If you’ve followed all of the other tips above, it’s highly likely we’ll tell others and we’ll come back to see what else you have. David Meerman Scott, Author of the “Word Wide Rave,” gives away a free eBook on his website WebInkNow. It’s definitely worked for him as his new book, “World Wide Rave” is one of the top sellers on Amazon.com. Scott believes that the purpose of free is not to generate sales leads but to create positive buzz about you, your product, or service.
5. The Rule of Taste: The freebie should only be a taste of what you have to offer, not necessarily the whole meal. Costco is very successful with this sampling strategy. In fact people will go to Costco on Saturdays just to get the free samples, which are so plentiful they can easily score a “free lunch!” Costco doesn’t seem to mind. You know why? Because it works! How many times have you tried a new food at Costco and ended up purchasing a whole package?
6. The Rule of Limited Time: Customers who go to Costco know that the free samples are only given out on weekends. They make sure they are there to get them or they will miss out. Denny’s free Grand Slam was only good for one day. Having an expiration date or a limited supply will create urgency that creates buzz and also will motivate people to take action right away.
7. The Rule of the Right People: Have you ever noticed how much free stuff celebrities get even though they can easily afford to buy the stuff themselves? That’s because they are influential. Other people see what they are wearing or using and want to follow suit. If a celebrity likes something, they may also spread the word. Oprah ’s Book Club is a case in point.
According to Andy Sernovitz, in his book “Word of Mouth Marketing” you’ve got to identify the “Talkers,” that is those people who by nature enjoy spreading the word and will spread the word about you. So who are talkers? Talkers are people that naturally use your product or service. A celebrity may not be the best talker for your business. For example, if you own a retail store that specializes in organic clothing, a talker might be a well known blogger or journalist who specializes in that area.
Many business owners miss out on the buzz they can create, or even create negative buzz by doing free offers the wrong way. Don’t let this be you, by following the 7 No Fail Rules of Running a Free Offer, you’ll be well on your way to creating buzz for your business!
Wendy Nelson Kenney is the Crazed Creator of 23Kazoos.com, an organic marketing company that teaches business owners how to build buzz for their business, through social media, public relations and new media. She can be reached at Buzz@23Kazoos.com.
If you like this post, feel free repost on your blog or on Twitter, giving credit where credit is due and a link back to http://23kazoos.wordpress.com
Monica Parham
Vice President, Marketing
In the March newsletter, we talk about lead generation in the context of community marketing. The Xsellerate model of community marketing helps you focus on the goal of achieving new clients and projects: the sweet spot at the center of your target.
Terms like suspect, relationship, prospect, opportunity, and client will help you begin to think about building a community of interested and involved people willing to listen to your message and where those individuals and activities fall on your company’s target. Learn more at www.xselleratesolutions.com/resources.php.
Michael Faul
President
Leads. Everyone wants more leads, but not everyone seems to know where to find them. Perhaps, because of the recession, we should resign ourselves to a no-growth strategy in 2009—then we can all just forget about finding new leads …
Wait! We have a better idea. Suppose we don’t accept that just because the market contracts we have to as well. After all, if our local market remains in a no-growth mode, does that mean all businesses are doomed to achieve zero growth or worse? No!
If the average firm achieves no growth, then some firms will decline, and some will… Well, they will grow. Why can’t you place your firm in this latter category? What’s stopping you—perhaps the lack of significant lead flow?
Throughout 2009, Xsellerate invites you into a conversation about leads. We will explore how to get, grow, and organize leads to fuel your growth. We want to help you learn how to build the pipeline of your dreams.
Interested? Then we invite you to participate in the conversation. Send us topics you would like to see covered. On our blog, post comments, success stories, and questions.
Here’s the plan for dealing with the economic situation—choose not to participate in the recession. Right now represents perhaps the greatest opportunity for your business. Those who whine about the economy and resign themselves to a no-growth strategy will probably get what they plan for. Those of us who dare to move in a more audacious direction will acquire clients, expand market share, and position ourselves well for the day when clients need to spend to win.
Michael Faul
President
Traditionally, relationship marketing has focused on a simple premise which was the hallmark of American business—take good care of your customer, and the relationship will become more rewarding over time. Taking care of the customer provides all types of opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell additional products and services to that customer. And, because it’s easier and less expensive to sell to existing customers than to new customers, your margins improve. Simple.
If relationship marketing works so well for customers and clients, will it work for prospects? We need to remember we sell and market to people, not companies, agencies, governments, or associations. People with similar needs will respond similarly to the same offer or stimulus. So it stands to reason that techniques used to warm client relationships can also warm relationships with prospects, making them more receptive over time to your message. But, how do you warm up prospect relationships? Here is the first installment in a series of principles to help you manage your lead generating community.
Note: Learn more about the relationship stages of suspect, relationship, prospect, opportunity, and client by visiting us at http://www.xselleratesolutions.com/resources.php.
Focus your lead generation offers on getting people to form a relationship with your business. Routinely we see marketing pieces, sent to suspects, with offers to make substantial purchases or set appointments. Suspects, not knowing your business or even that you exist, have invested zero trust in a relationship with you. They have no reason to take time from their busy schedule to meet with you or discuss spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars with your firm. As a result, very few suspects will respond to these high-level offers.
Generally speaking, about one-half of one percent of recipients will respond to direct mail offers within large batches of 10,000 names or more. Those who do respond have an immediate and obvious need. Hoorah, sales success! If another two, five, or ten percent of the market has a need 12 or 18 months in the future, you may have to run large, ongoing campaigns to continue to engage them.
To improve response rates, scale back the initial offer to provide a high-value enticement such as a white paper or online tool. In exchange, you ask only for the smallest investment of trust—a name, company name, phone number, and e-mail address. By responding, the suspect forms a relationship with your business, and you have the ability to communicate with that individual over time at a much lower cost. Plus, those folks who will be buying down the road now have the opportunity to get to know you before making that decision.
Avoid asking suspects to do more than is appropriate. When you ask a suspect or other stranger to meet with you, you’re asking for a lot. Even if it you offer a free consult, the prospect will invest precious time from a busy schedule. If you request someone to exhibit a behavior not commensurate with the type of relationship you have, they will tend not to act. So, you will receive the best result by asking suspects to do only what is necessary for them to become a relationship, and relationships only that which advances them toward becoming a prospect.
Stay with us for future tips on managing your lead generation community!
Michael Faul
President
You worked hard to deploy a great marketing campaign and the phone rings, your inbox fills, or you start racking up registrations for your next seminar or webinar. Leads are heading inbound and your job is done, right? Not exactly. In fact, your job has just begun, and what you do next and how quickly you do it greatly increases or decreases your sales success. So we came up with some tips to help you maximize your ability to qualify and advance leads toward a sale.
Who took the bigger risk in forming this new relationship: you or your new lead? They just stepped out of the comfort of anonymity to provide you contact information and put their valuable time, energy, and privacy at risk. What your lead experiences first will determine if and how quickly you can replace that fear with trust. Achieving that objective determines when and if you can convert leads into sales. Here are four tips to help you build goodwill with new members of your lead generation community.
Get to know the people contacting you. When someone contacts you they tend to provide you limited contact information. You need to complete contact information and conduct some customer intelligence. Go to your lead’s website and:
· Complete all contact information,
· Make notes about their product or service offerings,
· Note if they have multiple office locations,
· Review their client list, and
· Check their leadership team
Use the information you gathered to personalize questions and comments for your first contact with your new lead. Being able to personalize your first contact will increase trust and differentiate you from the competition.
Roll out the welcome mat. Send every new member of your community a welcome letter or email. Set up your welcome letter or email as a template with mail merge fields. This allows you to generate personalized welcome notes with consistent messaging and little effort or time investment. In addition to welcoming new members, make them aware of other resources they may find valuable.
Provide new community members a copy of your privacy policy. This demonstrates your respect for their trust in you with their contact information. Also explain to them your keep-in-touch program, focusing on the benefits of being a member of your community. Invite them to participate by posting comments on your blog or other online forums and download relevant resources from your website.
Begin interacting with new community members—quickly. The longer you wait to contact a lead, the more dramatically your probability of converting them into a sale declines. How much time do you have? Research published by Insidesales.com and The Sloan School of Management at MIT indicates your probability of sales success begins to decline after the first 5 minutes of a new relationship. By the end of your first business day, your chances of qualifying the relationship can decline by more than 25% and the probability of realizing a sale by as much as 20%. Think about that: if you don’t pick up the phone to contact that lead, you become 1/5 less likely to win the deal. You need a process that ensures phone contact within the first business day of a new relationship.
Begin the process of qualifying leads. In Xsellerate’s community marketing model, anyone can enter your lead-generating community. They only need to exchange contact information with you. But, you still need to qualify your community membership. Qualifying leads is not meant to determine if they are “in” or “out” of the community; rather it determines “where they live” within the community.
Do not over-qualify on the first interaction. This tends to turn off your new lead. Rather, determine if you have only a relationship or if your new friend is a true prospect. To do this you need a check list that describes what a good prospect looks like to your business and which describes the behaviors manifested by a prospect. Work your checklist items into a series of qualification questions. You can learn about relationships and prospects at http://www.xselleratesolutions.com/resources.php.
Keep in mind qualification needs to take place throughout the entire sales process (a subject for a future article.) For your first interaction, work your positioning questions into the conversation. Interweave qualifying questions with informational statements so you don’t sound like you are interrogating your lead. Strategically leave some qualifying questions for your next interaction.
The first step in a strong lead management process involves receiving the lead into your community quickly and establishing a meaningful interaction. This needs to take place within the first business day of the relationship. The interaction should be used to initiate lead qualification, but must add additional value to the relationship while inviting the lead to interact with your organization. Properly executed, a strong lead intake process will increase your close rates and, ultimately, your growth rate.
Monica Parham
Vice President, Marketing
Susan Rose, President of Two Sisters Creative and veteran copy writer, shares a great example of jargon-laden copy and why it doesn’t work. Her five tips will ensure that you keep your focus on the audience and their needs. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
“Poor marketing copy is epidemic. We are so accustomed to seeing it we barely register how bad it is. What can you do to make sure your copy is good?”
http://twosisterscreative.blogspot.com/2009/02/make-your-communications-clear.html
Monica Parham
Vice President, Marketing
As a growing business, you can learn from “best-in-class” consumer businesses, even if you focus on B-to-B or B-to-G services. While watching football with my husband on Sunday, I noticed an awful lot of ads for Japanese compact and hybrid cars. Normally Sunday and Monday night football ads center around big American trucks, domestic beer, and fast food. Then it occurred to me: with the U.S. auto industry in bad shape, Japanese automakers are seizing an opportunity to move in on a market previously dominated by Detroit. And they weren’t just advertising other big trucks–they presented more affordable, environmenally friendly options to a marketplace that has demonstrated a desire for just such products. This got me thinking, “Good move! B-to-B businesses should be doing this, too!”
All sectors are feeling this down economy, but that doesn’t mean we should stop marketing. Look for new opportunities and places to assert your business, gain market share, or pull away from the pack. This doesn’t necessarily mean having to spend more money. Put resonant, relevent messaging in front of your audience and they will notice you. Pay attention to where your competitors are pulling back and put yourself in that space. Seek out and take advantage of opportunities that open up as a result of a shifting marketplace!
Xsellerate, LLC has relocated to new offices in Chantilly. Please update your contact information with our new address and phone numbers.
14555 Avion Parkway
Suite 125
Chantilly, VA 20151
Main: 703-249-4100
Fax: 866-536-6607
Michael Faul: 703-552-2130
Monica Parham: 703-552-2129
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How many relationships do you need to meet your revenue objectives and growth goals in the coming year?
By building a community around your business of interested and involved people willing to listen to your message, you can meet and sustain your growth goals. Sales and marketing should take you to a specific objective, and we’ve got a tool to help you get there!
The Xsellerate Community Calculator uses your current sales and revenue data to estimate the size of the community you need around your business to reach and sustain the growth you seek, in any economy. The calculator will help you begin to think about how many suspects you need to reach to build relationships, discuss solutions, and create opportunities. Check out the free tool at www.xselleratesolutions.com/community-calculator.
Learn more about community marketing at www.xselleratesolutions.com/resources.
In a tight economy, qualifying leads can help you allocate resources appropriately and increase your success rate. If you qualify and continuously assess every lead in your pipeline, you can expect to generate more successful deals faster, even in tough economic times.
Qualifying leads has more to do with assessing the behaviors of your prospect than it has to do with externally observable factors. Consider four areas of behavior as critically important when implementing a lead qualification process. For each behavioral area, you can continuously ask yourself which of the behaviors your lead demonstrates.
Ability to make a decision and commit to a decision-making process.
You can spend weeks and months pursuing someone, but if they don’t take action you wasted your time and money. Similarly, your ability to engage through their active involvement indicates you have a fair shot at winning the business. Consider if your prospect:
- Articulates how this decision will happen
- Identifies key decision maker(s)
- Has made similar decisions in the past
- Budgeted adequate resources to support the decision
- Allows you to engage to win
- Meets with you in person or over the phone
- Responds to your sales initiatives
Willingness to build specific solutions for specific challenges
Does your prospect have a need or a want? Prospects with needs move more quickly. Needs arise out of specific business problems or challenges. Wants include those nice-to-have items which enhance operations. Ask yourself if your prospect:
- Needs or wants a solution
- Has specific challenges prompting the inquiry
- Demonstrates a consensus on their team regarding the challenges and solutions
- Articulates when the need was first identified
Desire to share the competitive landscape
Large competitive purchases convert your specific solution into a commodity. In that world, price becomes more important or the most important criterion. If you can engage earlier and avoid competitive horse races you will win more business at a lower cost of sales.
Prospects who don’t openly discuss the competitive landscape probably don’t care if you win or lose. Your solution is being viewed as inconsequential to their success. As a result, you do not have the leverage you need to win. Rather, you’re gambling that a fair and equitable evaluation will occur. Some top of mind questions to ask about your prospect include:
- Are they speaking with your competitors? If so, when did they start?
- Do any of your competitors claim them as a client?
- Has someone championed your solution and become your advocate?
- What were the decision criteria on their last competitive purchase?
- Why haven’t they made a decision yet?
Posses a compelling reason to take action
People probably will act if they have a need. They might act if they have a want. They almost always act if they have a compelling reason. Having a compelling reason tends to motivate all other behaviors the prospect will demonstrate. Compelling reasons to take action have two components—time and consequence.
A specific quantifiable consequence that occurs on a specific date compels people to move forward and conclude business. Otherwise why should your prospect act? In fact, they have every reason to wait for a better deal, more options, a different approach, or any other reason not to finalize a purchase. Consider the following when assessing a prospect’s compelling reason to act:
- What happens if they do nothing?
- When will consequences of inaction start affecting their business?
- Does the solution cost more than the consequence?
- Can they quantify the consequence?
- Do they have a deadline and why is that specific date important?
Many of these conventions need to be adapted to specific circumstances. They tend to hold true for larger, more complex, solution-oriented sales situations. In a tight economy, qualifying leads can help you allocate resources appropriately. Just remember, as a sales campaign unfolds, the qualification can change in either direction as you meet more contacts and ask more questions.
