Welcome to Really Practical, it's lovely to have you here. Please feel free to test drive our free content marketing tips, case studies and examples by email or RSS feed.
Special offers can be used to great effect in marketing your business but getting the balance right between an offer that is enticing – and one that gives away the farm – can be difficult.
Whenever you craft a special offer you should start with a specific outcome in mind.
What exactly do you want to achieve?
Special offers can be used to:
- Change the message – a simple way for people to notice your marketing again when your standard ‘formula’ isn’t getting the results it once did
- An excuse to ‘talk’ in the first place – a way to overcome the ‘way are you contacting me’ issue
- An incentive to take a particular action – do you want your customers to use your business at a normally slow time, encourage trial, motivate lapsed customers, get them to buy products that aren’t selling otherwise or increase their average spend?
- Overcome a barrier – for example, if your location is an issue then free delivery might be an offer worth considering as it addresses a key reason not to buy
- Differentiate yourself from the competition – a simple, we’re better / different than them statement
- Capture data for future marketing
Once you’re clear about what you are trying to achieve then the question becomes ‘is this enough of an incentive to accomplish that aim’?
For example, to encourage trial you may need to shift them away from their normal habits or a competitor’s product. That will no doubt mean bettering any offer they can get elsewhere AND a bit extra to overcome inertia or ties that bind them to their normal course of action.
On the other hand, if you are simply using special offers to freshen up your message and maintain interest then the value of the offer is less important. Similarly, existing customers may not need as much of a push to change the way they buy from you as opposed to new prospects who must decide to try you in the first place.
You’ll obviously want to keep an eye on the bottom line as well but base these decisions on the lifetime value of the customer. Using price incentives for one off purchases is more of a cost, for products / services with long term, repeat business potential it may be more appropriate.
Finally, don’t think that every special offer has to be priced based. What extras could you add in? How about added levels of service or guarantees? These can be just as effective but help to maintain the integrity of your pricing.
