6 ways to make an offer they can’t resist
The not-so-secret art of getting your users to take you up on your offer
Offers are great. That’s why, anywhere you go — online or out in the big bad physical world, you’re constantly hit with offers.
Here are 6 things that will help you in your quest to create the ultimate offer that your users will not be able to resist at any cost!
1) Know thy users
In my experience, you cannot stress enough on user research and segmentation. And surprisingly, this is a boring exercise for so many entrepreneurs and marketers I know.
In my humble opinion, it is one of the most exciting and complex parts of the entire marketing / business / product process; and super critical, goes without saying.
Get to know what usually works with your users. Spy on them online. Treat them to a coffee / meal to spend time picking their mind. Buy good research reports. Create (real life) user personas.
Know them in a professional and a personal setting. Know them intimately. Even better than your wife. Ok maybe not that, but definitely like your friends. This is important.
2) Get to know what your competition is doing, and why
This is easy. And plain common sense. Apparently, everybody I know does this well, unlike the case in the last point. There are free online tools that would help you spy on the kind of keywords that your competition uses for ads.
The keywords they use for ads are usually mentioned in the title of the ad copy, which is usually the offer.
You know what to do. Do it. And make notes.
3) Align your offer with your core product / offering
So ideally, your offer should help sell your core product / offering. For which, it should ideally align well with your product. Which basically means it should:
a. Help solve a sub-set of the bigger problem your product solves completely. Eg: HubSpot offers its CRM for free. Helps them sell their Marketing Automation suite.
b. Provide information that will help do their job better (usually not without buying your core product). Eg: HubSpot State of Inbound report.
c. Help solve an ancillary, complementary problem. Eg: HubSpot’s free CRM again!
d. Help solve a smaller, immediate problem, that makes them realize the problem your core product helps solve. Eg: Erm.. HubSpot’s free CRM? It lets you manage a small part of your funnel effectively, while making you realize how well it can help you manage the entire funnel.
Sorry for all the B2B (HubSpot) examples, but you get the point.
I mean, if you’re selling to the end consumer / masses, or your offering is fairly generic, and / or for whatever reason, you just want random user interest, then you might as well offer anything from a Starbucks coffee, to an Amazon gift card, or the latest iPhone, depending on your budget and your hard work in point 1.
No seriously, I have (near) zero B2C marketing experience (Yet. Never say never).
Moreover, and interestingly, I have actually tried something on the lines of “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your lives, or work with me to change the world?” with a potential hire. If you didn’t get the Steve Jobs reference here, then I really don’t know what you’re doing on this post.
4) Timing, exclusivity, limited period, and other basics
Timing is everything. Like most things in business, its true in this case as well. It is also a subset of the first point, just like most of the rest of the points, but warrants a special mention nonetheless.
Know how your users like it. Some would like it in an email, some would like it in a popup, some in their LinkedIn feeds, and some in their search results.
If you don’t know that about your users, feel free to try out everything that logically makes sense in a controlled way. If limited by budget, feel free to start with what your most successful competitor is doing (remember the second point).
Ideally, measure the top level numbers throughout the funnel, and adjust budgets / efforts accordingly.
Another couple of basics: All offers are limited period only. Or exclusive to the user who has stumbled upon this offer. Or unlocked it by chance.
Also, all offers require the user to take an action RIGHT NOW. Never make an offer that is available indefinitely and is open for all.
5) Putting it out — The messaging, the proposition, the ask and the give
Work on the messaging. Hire a good copy writer. Better still, learn to write good (no, great!) copy. Some of the marketers I look up to owe a lot of their copy writing (and other) skills to this book called “Breakthrough Advertising” by Eugene M. Schwartz.
I would love to go on about great copy, but you know how important this is already, and better men have written books on this, so I’ll leave it at that.
But keep the aesthetics of the offer to how your users like it. If you’ve done your homework as per the first point and have been doing this for some time now, feel free to go with your gut.
Yeah. Not many digital marketers will say this. But if you have really, really worked at understanding your users, go with your gut.
Finally, be very clear as to what you’re asking for, and what the user will get in this offer. Usually, straightforward offers that are easy to understand and that are without any hidden T&C work best.
6) More marketing stuff — A/B test constantly, measure results & Re-marketing
Progress that lasts is achieved incrementally (Nah, who’s got time for that shite!). Its true. Right? Well fuck it, it must be true.
Activities on the digital media can be tracked, results measured and analyzed. So do that. A/B test constantly.
Get better incrementally.
Also, if you find a way to get better drastically, feel free to share that with me.
Re-market to users who drop-off somewhere in your funnel in all ways possible, but only at the stage at (and after) which you’re sure they’ve clearly understood what they’re getting into, and still went ahead with it (indicated usually by clicking through, or filling up of a form etc.).
Lest you want to spend money trying to reach out to either a completely wrong audience, or the right audience looking for something else (happens when your ad is promising something different from your actual offer on your landing page).
Offers are great. Just like most fine things in this world, including good food, fine wine, great scotch, loving relationships and experiences.
Do them right, and they can lend you great results (Best case — more revenue. Worst case — lots of user interest). Do them wrong (repeatedly), and it will likely kill your business.
