When James Carville was running Bill Clinton’s campaign for president in 1992, he kept his staff sharply focused on what he felt was the big issue with the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid!”
If we applied that same idea to marketing, we might say, “It’s the offer, stupid!” The offer you make—and the way you make it—is one of the key factors determining the success or failure of your marketing.
Your offer is the basic deal you’re proposing, the exchange of value. Bottom line, customers want to know: What am I getting? And what will it cost me? All the creativity and pretty pictures in the world won’t matter if you aren’t offering them a deal they want!
And ideally, you want to make customers an offer that’s difficult for them to refuse, right?
So it’s worth spending some time thinking about the offer you’re making and how you word it. Could you make a stronger offer? Could you describe the offer in a way that makes it more appealing? Could you bundle in other services that make the offer more attractive?
Credit cards do this. You’re not just getting a credit card, you’re getting all those other rewards and services bundled in with it. The truth is, you may never use those other services, but at the time of purchase it helps overcome your resistance to make a decision. You think, “Look at all I’m getting! Not bad!”
So it’s important to think about ways that you can strengthen and enhance your offer. Henry Ford said, “No one ever went broke trying to see how much he could give the consumer for his dollar.”
Give Them What They Want
Strengthening your offer is especially a good idea if you are being underpriced by your competitors. Step back, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and see if you can offer something that would increase the perceived value of your product or service enough to make the price difference a non-issue.
Here’s an example. Way back when people actually used cameras with film (remember then?), Kodak was losing market share among amateur photographers because everyone was using discount film, and Kodak couldn’t compete on price.
As a result, when amateur photographers got mailings from Kodak, they just tossed them out unopened because they perceived Kodak as being more expensive. Kodak was definitely losing the war of the wastebasket.
So we had to find a different way to get inside the heads of amateur photographers—and get them inside our envelopes. We thought about what amateur photographers might be interested in and created a mailing with the following line on the outer envelope:
You are invited to become a Kodak field tester.
Inside, we described a program for enlisting amateur photographers to test the various Kodak films and tell us what they thought. They could even send in their photographs, and the best photos would win prizes.
Now this gets attention! And it changes the game, it gets their mind off the price, even makes the subject of price somewhat irrelevant.
The result: these mailings began to get read instead of being tossed out, and Kodak began to regain its share of the amateur photographer market. And we did it by making them an offer that was hard to refuse.
Did this cost more than a conventional mailing? Of course it did. But it worked!
The most expensive marketing effort is the one that doesn’t work, no matter how cheap it was to produce. The least expensive marketing effort is the one that works like gangbusters, even though it may have cost a lot more to produce.
So be careful. Don’t fall into the common trap of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.
Here’s another question: Even if you can’t change the offer, could you word it in such a way that makes it more appealing to the customer’s mind? Can you describe your offer in a way that enhances the perceived value of what they get, while lowering the perceived cost?
An ad from DeBeers Diamonds showed a diamond ring and had this headline:
How to make two months’ salary last forever
They didn’t change the price of the diamond ring, but this puts that price in a whole new light, doesn’t it?
What do I get? The emotional value of something my wife or girlfriend will treasure forever. What does it cost me? Only two months’ salary. Sounds like a no-brainer!
The point is, tinker your offer. And if at all possible, test different offers. Your customers will reward you with their business.
