A couple weeks back, I shared the story of the guy who knocked at my door with an irresistible offer… One I estimated is probably worth at least $1,000 per day to his small local company.
It clearly attracted a lot of interest — as it should!
Your offer is one of the most important elements of your business success.
An irresistible offer can bring in customers that good copy alone will not.
You may have heard it said…
“A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen.”
(Gary Bencivenga, considered perhaps the greatest copywriter of our era, called this, “The most important 9-word sentence in marketing history.” And he got it from Rosser Reeves, who is famous for crystallizing the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition.)
I’d take that one step further…
“A gifted OFFER is mightier than a gifted pen.”
Your offer can be so much more than your product. It’s everything around it. It includes the total experience and value your customer gets from doing business with you… And what they have to give in return.
Good marketers spend a lot of time thinking about what they can say…
Great marketers think about the total value they can deliver… And then simply try to convey that offer in the clearest, most easy-to-grasp way possible.
The better you get at offers, the better you’ll be at marketing.
Which is exactly why I’m a student of great offers…
And why I spend so much time here, in the pages of Breakthrough Marketing Secrets, talking about irresistible offers…
Sharing examples…
Encouraging you to sit down and think about how you can apply them to your business…
And when a reader shared THIS irresistible offer, I instantly knew I had to share…
Steve Stroum’s business, Venmark International, specializes in product publicity. That means they get your products featured in the media.
He’s also a student of effective marketing and offers…
And he shared with me a personal story — originally written about on his blog — about an irresistible offer he’d experienced… And gave me permission to share with YOU!
This morning, my wife called me and said that she had a flat tire. Some woman in the bank drive-thru line decided to back out at the last minute, rather than driving forward, and forced her into a curb to avoid a collision. Ten minutes later: flat tire.
“Trading $206 in service for a customer for life… Priceless!”
Incidentally, my wife hadn’t purchased the car from Long Cadillac. At any rate, they quoted her $206.00 to replace the tire and were kind enough to perform the alignment for free. A very reasonable price. However, when she picked up her car, the service manager said, “You don’t owe us anything for the tire or alignment. Between GM and Long Cadillac, we’ll pay for it. But, we would like the opportunity to have your business in the future. So come back to us for all of your oil changes and maintenance.”
Now, that’s how you earn someone’s business.
Great story, isn’t it?
What do you think the cost is for that Cadillac dealership to acquire a new customer?
Probably more than the $206 they were going to charge her for the tire, and more than the cost of the alignment. (And certainly more than their cost on the tire replacement.)
To recruit Steve and his wife away from THEIR dealership, which is probably closer and more convenient, would have been a tall hurdle with advertising.
Of course, the value is there…
Oil changes… Maintenance… The cost for that alone over the life of the car will likely run into the thousands…
But that’s not even the most important value the dealership is going to get from the Stroums…
Because if they’re satisfied with Long Cadillac’s service, they’re more likely to buy their next car there. And the one after that. And where do you think they’ll have THOSE serviced?
$206 is chump change.
But — in the moment — in the middle of a huge inconvenience and interruption in Steve’s wife’s day… It was so much more.
Not only was it an incredibly kind and valuable gesture…
It was an irresistible offer!
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
Editor, Breakthrough Marketing Secrets
