How To Prepare Compelling Offers
Competition is becoming INSANE. In any industry, you’ll have to compete with other people in order to make it to the top… Actually, you’re going to need to do it just to keep afloat.
One great way of doing so is by creating offers in order to make yourself stand out. Creating an offer, and creating a compelling offer are two very different things. And in order to stand out from the crowd, you need to tap into the psyche of your market, and bring them something that they perceive to be truly valuable in order to compel them to take immediate action.
Compel: “Force or oblige (someone) to do something”. ~ Based upon a quick google definition search.
As a smart business owner, you’ll know that you can’t force your customers to take action. In fact, you can’t force them do anything. Your job, on the other hand, is to make them feel that they need to take a particular action, because:
- It will help them to find pleasure
- It will help them to avoid pain
It’s as simple as that. You provide them with the facts… They make a decision.
Now, you can present the facts in such a way that they will be more likely to take the desired action – and that’s what this article is all about.
So what follows is a series of considerations for you to take when you’re setting up an offer. The examples will use a beauty salon. But whichever industry you’re in, you’ll find some useful information and considerations below, so here it is:
1. Think about what your market sees as valuable
As a salon owner, you know that your market values beauty treatments. If you want to create a compelling offer. Look through your recent bookings and find out which treatments are most popular. If your customers love facials, then you’ll probably want to make a special offer that includes facials.
2. Look for alternatives to discounting
Discounting can be VERY expensive. Not only does it cut down your profit margins, but it also encourages price wars between you and your competitors. And if that’s kept up, everyone’s going to lose.
Instead, look for more creative ways of creating offers, that make it much more difficult foe customers to simply “price hunt”. You do this by making your offer unique… Something that your competitor can’t (or won’t) match.
Also, by creating offers in this way, you don’t have to GIVE away money. You can simply INCREASE the value of what you’re offering, so that your customers want it more.
3. Think about timing
Not only do you have to know how long you’re going to run your offer, but you also have to think about your market, and the season in which you’re going to be running your offer.
For example, during Christmas time, people spend more money on beauty products, so for our beauty salon, it’s a great idea to run offers at this time.
However, if you’re an ice cream man, it might not be such a good idea to be running promotions at this time of year. Know your market.
4. Use Scarcity
Remember the definition of “compel”… You’re motivating your potential customers feel “forced” to take a particular action. So not only do you need to let them know that what you’re offering to them is valuable, but you need to give them a reason to take action NOW.
The best way of doing this is by limiting your offer. Not only will the fear losing what they know to be a brilliant opportunity, but when they do actually take it, they’ll feel special, because the offer isn’t open to “just anyone”.
So use phrases like “for a limited time only”… “Offer ends this weekend”… “Only 20 spaces left!”
If I’m perfectly honest… These are only a few of many factors that you need to think about when you’re creating an offer, but they are also some of the most important. So next time you want to run a promotion for your business, keep these things in mind.
So that’s all for now, and I look forward to seeing you back here for my next post…