Customers need a good reason to buy from you. And the quality of your product or service alone isn’t enough.

That’s unfortunate, I know – but wake up –  life’s not fair and the good guy doesn’t always win.

The best product doesn’t always prevail either. Customers won’t flock to your door because you think you’re twenty times better than every competitor.

You need to drive business by being proactive, creative, aggressive and persistent.

Offers and special promotions have to be in your marketing toolkit. But for many small businesses, offers are nothing more than an afterthought.

Big mistake. Huge opportunity missed.

Branding’s over-rated

My colleagues who work with big brands won’t like this. But the small business owners and marketers I work with get it.

There’s absolutely no reason why a small business should run an ad with the sole purpose of “branding.”

Ok, I take that back. There are three reasons a small business should ran a branding campaign:

1. Vanity
2. They were talked into it by an ad agency – branding specialists, no less.
3. They don’t understand the link between marketing and sales.

If your small business is spending your money on branding (or ‘getting our name out there’ as its sometimes called)  you’re not spending it on what really matters: SELLING.

Make your marketing actionable

Instead, move your customers to take action. And take it now. For virtually all of your marketing efforts, you need a hook, a pull, a motivation for the customer to buy. Use compelling offers with an incentive the buyer cares about and watch your responses increase across the board.

Offers make you money – not cost you money – if you do ‘em right.

Hit them were it counts

Know your target. If you’re selling conservatories at five grand a pop then your customers won’t be motivated by a £15 voucher. The offer has to match the scale of what you’re selling – but it doesn’t have to be about money off.

One of the best offers I’ve seen recently was this from a Chinese Takeaway:

“Free Coke & Won-tons with every order over £30”

That offer is a thing of great marketing beauty. Here’s why:

The takeaway owner knew that her average customer spend was £27. The offer was designed to push up that average spend. The coke and won-tons cost her 65p.

Not only did her average spend go up to almost £33 – a 22% increase, almost all of which was profit – but her volume of sales went up as well because people came to her Chinese Takeaway as opposed to the other two or three that they could have chosen in the area. See. The right offer can be a truly beautiful thing.

How to use offers and incentives

Easy ideas for offers include discounts off the next purchase, (to bring people back buying form you again sooner than would otherwise happen); a coupon for a complimentary  product, and entry into a high value draw, say.

If you want to make an impression, reach for high value and think sexy. When we offered a £400 iPad entry levels in our contest went through the roof. It was a smart spend, I can tell you.  Cheap options won’t get buyers’ attention and they don’t make you stand out

Use offers strategically. If your sales process is lengthy, for instance, you can use the offer as an incentive to speed up the process.

Don’t forget the focus of the offer is always to increase sales AND profit!

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