Saturday, September 15, 2007

Creative Offers Multiply Profits

If you're getting only a sluggish response for a product or service that people genuinely need, wake buyers up by spicing up your offer. I've seen losing propositions become winners with these kinds of changes, which in most cases cost you nothing:


  1. Guarantees. With a strong, simple guarantee, you can overcome the doubts of people who have not done business with you before, and calm down worriers who don't act when they can think of too many "what ifs." The guarantee does not have to promise a refund. Someone hiring an exterminator service wants those darned critters out, not their money back. "We guarantee you'll be pest-free for a year, or we'll come back and spray again for no extra charge" is the thing to promise them. Direct-mail professionals tell us that a one-year guarantee sells better, with fewer refund requests, than a thirty-day guarantee, and a lifetime guarantee does even better.
  2. Package deals. If you sell office supplies, you might think that folks going back to school know how to select what they need. Perhaps, but why not make things easy for them -- and more profitable for you -- by shrink-wrapping three spiral notebooks, two packets of pens, a pocket calendar and several semi-necessary items together in a Back to School packet? This often persuades people to spend more than they would on separate items.
  3. The same principle applies to services, where you can mobilize people who shy away from hourly fees with fixed-price bundles: only $350 for a will and a consultation on estate planning. A name makes your bundle more appealing: $150 for the "Get Organized Special."
  4. Premiums. Try rousing sleepy customers with bonuses -- spend more than $100 and receive a free whooziwhatsit, which isn't available any other way. One mail-order company offered a free booklet with any order from that catalog, and received 13 percent more orders from that catalog than previously. Similarly, frequent-buyer programs have now spread far beyond airlines, because they work. If convenience-store patrons have a card to buy nine cups of coffee and get the tenth free, they're more likely to consolidate their coffee buying rather than buying sometimes here and sometimes there.
  5. Payment terms. When you let clients know they can spread payments out over two or four months, you'll snag some wavering over the money issue. But this sort of offer doesn't necessarily mean you get your money later. I know speakers and consultants who offered a 2 or 5 percent discount for payment in advance, and received their money a whole year before they would have otherwise!
  6. With any new offer, test, test, test! You can't know any other way whether "Buy one, get the second one free" works better or worse than "Buy two and each is half price." Human beings are illogical creatures, and unexpected offers can turn this fact to your advantage.

Extraordinary Media Coverage for Ordinary Businesses

Media folks suffer an eternal hunger for distinctive material. When you supply a creative angle, you are helping the city editor who has to fill up a score of pages every day, the TV producer constantly on the hunt for fun and perky topics, or the column writer desperate for information nuggets. Here's how.

When I was looking for examples of publicity successes, a man named Chuck told me this story. During a visit with his brother, who owned a hardware store, the brother suddenly said, "Wait a minute," ran outside the store and returned a few minutes later breathless. "I saw the meter maid coming, and I don't want downtown shoppers to get parking tickets. So I put money in the expired meters. One of these days a reporter is going to come along and find out what I'm doing."


"Why not today?" Chuck responded, reaching for the phone and calling the city desk of the local paper. Within two hours a reporter and photographer arrived at the hardware story. Later in the week a sizable feature portraying Chuck's brother as a civic-minded store owner appeared in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Along with appreciative shoppers, the article quoted someone who argued that this renegade meter feeder was depriving the city of much-needed revenue. On the whole, though, it nicely enhanced Chuck's brother's profile in the community.



Here's how a coffee dealer -- an equally ordinary business -- achieved valuable media coverage. In Washington state, Clancy Donlin had launched a fax-on-demand system offering free information by fax about choosing and brewing fine coffee, as a service of his mail-order Coffee of the Month Club. After he mailed his press release to newspapers, the story appeared in 24 papers nationwide and led to Donlin's appearance on "CBS This Morning." Donlin told me that sales for his new company spiked $10,000 higher the month after all this happened.


Years before, I had used a similar strategy to get a media spotlight to shine lucratively on a new firm that would present writing seminars to businesses. Along with our seminar plans, my partner and I created a 900-number that dispensed tips on business writing. Our one-page press release about the "WordRight Lesson Line" got us onto page one of the Wall Street Journal, in its Business Briefs column. This clipping and others like it gave us tremendous credibility when we went looking for clients.


In these three cases, notice that what got each company media attention was not its central business purpose but something tangential and distinctive, something peripheral and unusual that caught reporters' eyes. Yet when the resulting stories appeared, the halo of publicity glimmered on the everyday aspects of each business as well.


Media folks suffer an eternal hunger for distinctive material. When you supply a creative angle, you are helping the city editor who has to fill up a score of pages every day, the TV producer constantly on the hunt for fun and perky topics, or the column writer desperate for information nuggets. Begin reading the papers and listening to the news each day trying to understand what gets coverage and why, and you too will soon wind up in black and white or on the airwaves.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Phone Pitches that Pay Off

Well over a decade ago, Colorado consultant Debra Benton gave her career a lasting boost in less than one minute. She called a famous columnist and told him in one sentence what she did: teach executives how to have charisma. The columnist took her number and called her back a week later for an interview.


The day his article appeared, she received calls from Time and Newsweek as well as from several executives who turned into clients. Time ran its own story on her, which led to writeups in Barron's, Financial Weekly, The New York Times, "CBS This Morning" and "Good Morning America." Much of her business -- and her ability to charge thousands of dollars a day for her services -- indirectly stems from that phone call to that columnist.


What can you learn from this?


First, she used a concise, intriguing characterization of herself. This takes most people much more than one minute to formulate. Unless you have an unusual job title, such as New York State Official Handwriting Analyst, your job title won't perform this function. Instead you need to delve below "stockbroker," "specialty shoe wholesaler" or "sports trainer" to put into words the results that you produce for some group of people. The shoe wholesaler might say, "I help men spend a whole day on their feet in comfort." You'll know you've done it right when people lean forward after you reel off your sentence and ask you, "How do you do that?"


Second, Benton did the research necessary to reach someone who would probably respond well to her pitch. Although her research consisted simply of taking note of the personality and interests of the columnist, whom she regularly read anyway, you may need a few trips to the library or the Internet to find the right media person to call. Consider the audience you hope to reach and what publications they read or what programs they watch or listen to. Or consult an up-to-date media directory in the reference department of almost any public library.


Third, when you call, respect the other person's time. Because media people face unforgiving, absolute deadlines, PR pros usually start off something like this: "Hello, this is ____. Are you on deadline or do you have a moment now?" Tell them only as much as is necessary to pique their interest. Don't take it personally if they appear brusque, and never argue with someone who's given you a "no." Simply go on to another person on your list.


Fourth, practice what you'll say when they want a full-length interview. Decide on three major points you want to get across and get a friend who's a Barbara Walters wannabee to feed you relevant and off-the-wall questions. Debra Benton got terrific results from the columnist partly because she anticipated what he might ask and prepared compelling examples and convincing replies.


Finally, do work up the courage to try. I'd love to add you to my success files!

Friday, June 15, 2007

How Visibility Pays Off

Advertisers and marketers have proven that the more times someone runs across your name, the more predisposed they are to buy. The effect grows when your name appears in contexts that imply that you are highly competent.

The following formula describes the role of visibility in building a profitable business reputation:


VISIBILITY + COMPETENCE + WORD OF MOUTH = REPUTATION.


Advertisers and marketers have proven that the more times someone runs across your name, the more predisposed they are to buy. The effect grows when your name appears in contexts that imply that you are highly competent. If you speak before a group or publish articles in your area of expertise, you have a direct opportunity to demonstrate your competence.


Because of media publicity's indirect indication of ability, someone who hears about your work in the Dallas Morning News and then on Dateline NBC is more greatly influenced than by encountering your own advertisement or sales letter twice. The impact grows again if uninvolved third parties praise you, whether that's at a cocktail party where someone asks if anyone can recommend a good veterinarian, or in your brochure where named customers give your cleaning service rave reviews.


Thus, familiarity matters, but it performs the most magic when linked with demonstrations of competence and recommendations that can be trusted.


The impact of visibility cannot, however, be quantified and judged the way you can compare the circulation of a publication in which you've placed a classified ad, the number of readers who responded and those who ultimately bought. But don't be fooled by hardnosed marketers who argue that therefore publicity is not worth your time. Just be patient while the impressions add up. A large number of small mentions tend to produce a greater memorability than a small number of big "hits."


Whether you're just launching a business, or have a lengthy track record, you can take advantage of this marketing dynamic.


  • Inventory your preferences: Do you enjoy speaking in front of groups? Writing? Talking head to head with prospects? Basking in the media spotlight? Pursue your most comfortable opportunities first, and stretch a bit with an option that feels like a challenge.
  • Consider ways to ensure that prospects will not only have heard your name but know you're good at what you do. If you're a designer, make your business card a knockout sample of your work; if you're a consultant, create a newsletter that highlights your strategic thinking.
  • Invest time and energy in integrity and smooth customer relations so that your word of mouth is positive. Unfortunately, dissatisfied customers tell many more people how they feel about you than do the happy ones.
  • Resolve to keep at it whether or not the strategy feels like it's working. Go to another networking dinner and another even if you didn't appear to turn up a hot prospect; send out another press release even if not one person called after your media appearance. You're only getting close to the critical level of visibility when people say, "Gee, you really get around, don't you?" or "I see your name everywhere!"