Make them an offer they can’t refuse - Part 1
By Andrew Shedden
You may not be aware that Marlon Brando is a direct mail expert who has offered his wise counsel in The Godfather. What direct mail advice did Marlon Brando offer his family in The Godfather? He explained the value of making someone “an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
While this may be a bit of a stretch it remains a sound tactic for you to employ in all of your direct mail campaigns. If you’re suffering from poor response heed Don Corleone and get your offer into shape.
There is probably nothing more discouraging in marketing than a failed direct mail campaign. You lovingly produce your mailing piece, write scintillating copy, get just the right shade of purple for your envelope, send it out, and-bang-nothing happens. You wonder why, your boss most emphatically wonders why, your salespeople give you menacing looks around the company water cooler, and you feel like a failure.
When you send out sales letter/direct mail newsletter and receive low response the first place to look is your list. The second place to look is your offer. Today we’re going to discuss offers.
Poorly planned offers lead to low response rates which, of course, means a rotten return on investment. The most beautifully laid out direct mail piece will fail miserably if your offer is uninspiring.
How many times do you look at a promotional offer from another business and yawn? How many times do you look at a competitor’s offer and think that you wouldn’t walk across the street to take advantage of it? How many times do you look at an offer and think “I don’t know how they’re doing this but I’m going to take advantage of this now.”
The critical difference is that they are practicing empathy in their offers. Offers that create action are those which strike a chord within prospects and motivate them to respond.
How do I create effective offers?
Effective offers aren’t hard to create. All you need to do is think of the type of highly motivating offer you’d like to receive from a company such as yours - and then extend that offer to your prospects.
The first step is to calculate the lifetime value of your customer. This is a powerful way to come up with an offer that will amaze your prospects and alarm your competitors, and it’s quite an easy thing to do.
Let’s say you sell paper clips to businesses in boxes of 10,000. Let’s also say that you sell each box for $5 and each box costs you $2 manufactured, sold, and delivered. Because you’ve done your research you know that an average customer purchases six boxes in any given year. This means an average customer is worth $18 profit to your business in any given year.
The question then becomes how much would you be willing to spend in one year to get $18?
What kind of response do you think you’d get if you offered prospects their first two boxes of paper clips for free? I’m sure you’d agree that the response would likely be overwhelming.
This would mean you were buying a customer who on average would be worth $18 to your company for $4. Even if you add in another $5 per customer for the cost of the direct mail campaign you still are trading $9 for $18.
I’d trade that all day, wouldn’t you?
Think lifetime value, think long term, and make them an offer they can’t refuse. In part two I’ll discuss the optimal offer strategy.
