By Robert Hutchinson
Years ago, a friend of mine… who built up a $200 million travel club business from scratch… told me his entire philosophy of direct response marketing could be reduced to just two magic words:
The Offer.
He told me he had tested every variable imaginable both online and offline – lists, headline, body copy, colors, text sizes, formats, you name it. But when push came to shove, he said, nothing — absolutely NOTHING — produced sales like an irresistible, no-brainer, “you’d have to be crazy not to accept it” offer.
That was his specialty. He would cobble together 50% to 75% discount offers from airlines, car rental agencies, luxury hotels, restaurants, and cruise lines and put them all together into a package that he’d sell for something like $49.95 a year.
The offer was simply incredible. If you liked to travel, you’d have to be crazy not to accept it. Why pay $350 a week for a car rental when you could get the same car for $125? You’d pay for his service with a single coupon!
Yet too many marketers and copywriters spend an enormous amount of time on every other element of their marketing campaigns and very little time thinking through their offers.
People aren’t stupid. They know a good deal when they see one.
That means that, as a marketer or copywriter, you have to really ask yourself some tough questions: What’s in it for the customer? Is the offer you’re making something that is SO GOOD — such an incredible deal — something that provides so many overwhelming benefits — that he or she would be insane not to accept it? If not, you have work to do.
Crafting an Irresistible Offer
The best resource I can think of for marketers to bone up on creating superb offers is Mark Joyner’s now-classic The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less (John Wiley, 2005). You can pick this up used at any decent bookstore or order it from Amazon.com.
I don’t have time to go into all of Joyner’s theories right now, but let me just summarize a few key points. For Joyner, the Irresistible Offer has three basic elements:
- An incredibly HIGH Return on Investment (ROI) for the buyer…
- A TOUCHSTONE or instant summary of your offer… and
- Believability.
The TOUCHSTONE is what is unique about Joyner’s approach - and the part that’s difficult for marketers to achieve.
Examples are Domino’s Pizza’s “Pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free” or Columbia House Records’ “10 CDs for 1 Cent.” Another good Touchstone is from Federal Express: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” That tells you immediately what they are offering - and, if you have a package that HAS TO BE THERE, it’s irresistible.
Believability is something everyone understands. If I offer to make all your wrinkles disappear overnight, I have to have some pretty heavy credibility enhancers. But if I can tell you I can make your wrinkles FADE in just 7 days, you might believe me - especially if I’m an MD and I have loads of case studies to back me up.
The final point that Joyner doesn’t really discuss is the target audience. The best offer in the world will flop if you make it to the wrong group of people. You can’t sell ice to an Eskimo, as the saying goes, but you CAN sell ice… a lot of ice… to a thirsty crowd on a hot summer day.
Improve Your Offer for the Win
Bottom line: Whenever I work on a new promotion, one of the things I try to do is evaluate the offer with the client. Could it be stronger, more dramatic?
Are there some additional services or products we could add that would strengthen it? What about throwing in free shipping? Are there some customer-service elements we could add that would make the offer irresistible? (A computer store near me regularly offers to come to your home and set your computer up for you – for free.)
Oftentimes, potential offer enhancements are buried, bundled in with the product. A marketer’s job is to dig them out and “denominate” them, as Jay Abraham likes to say.
The point is: Take the time to really flesh out your offer and you’ll have orders flying in from every direction — via call centers, email, your website, fax machine, FedEx, mail, even carrier pigeon.
The secret to success in copywriting and marketing really does begin with those two magic words: The Offer.
About the Author: Robert Hutchinson is a direct response copywriter, Ninja marketing strategist, author, and “copy critic.” Visit his site for more great advice from Robert.
