July 02, 2019
If you want to attract new customers, you need a WOW!
I’ve been devising‘ customer attraction marketing campaigns’ for a few decades now and it’s clear to me that less than 5 percent of businesses worldwide, use proper ‘direct-response marketing techniques’ in their overall advertising plan.
I speak at conventions in Australia and overseas, with the majority of attendees in my audience being ‘business owners or managers’.
And when I ask how many of them are ‘using direct- response marketing tactics’ to lure prospects, only a handful of people raise their hands.
Most are wasting money on bus and taxi advertising, billboards on the freeway and generic ‘branding imagery’ on social media.
If you want to attract more prospects quickly, my belief is you need to do the following:
- Identify your ‘most profitable’ target audience (so you can look for more people who ‘look’ like them!)
- Create a ‘wow factor’ to take their eyes off the price!
- Fix your website/webpages!
- Your website is now your Director Of First Impressions, so make sure it has the right direct- response ingredients to keep visitors sticky and interested!)
- Use a‘problem/solution’ strategy in all communications, demonstrating how you are the answer to your prospects’ challenges!
- Collect data online and offline – and reap the benefits through repetitive trade!
Replace Price Discounting With ‘Wow Factor’ Added Value!
In my view, ‘price-discounting’ should be your very last resort when it comes to marketing your products or services.
It’s obvious that if you are constantly discounting your prices, you are taking your brand from the penthouse to the basement without taking the elevator!
You don’t want to be in the ‘race to the bottom’ – you want to provide prospects with ‘added value’ and therefore maintain margin and a good brand persona.
Not many of us have an ‘organic wow factor’ (in other words, an incredible component that is not easily duplicated by any competitors).
Therefore, I’m in the business of providing clients with ‘artificial wow factors’ that distinguish their products or services from others.
1. Win $1 Millon By Staying At This Resort!
My Fijian resort client was sitting on 34 percent occupancy when he came onboard my Private Marketing Consult Program – because his hotel was 20+ years old and 30 minutes from Nadi airport.
Other newer, sexier hotels had opened at Port Denarau and had stolen market share.
I discovered that his major flow of customers was from travel agents on the east coast of Australia – so our challenge was to provide these agents with an incentive to book guests into his hotel (Hideaway Resort) rather than others.
So we created a $1 Million Giveaway Incentive aimed at Australian travel agents, providing them with one entry into the chance to win $1 Million for every room night they booked.
This $1 Million prize was ‘insured’ which meant that the Hideaway Resort simply paid a modest premium of about $8,000. (We do ‘Insured Prize Giveaways’ regularly)
And guess what – within a couple of weeks, the occupancy rate had skyrocketed from 34 percent to 98 percent and stayed there for the three months of the promotion!
Let’s face it, whoever walked into a travel agent during this period and enquired about a Fiji holiday, were immediately recommended to stay at the Hideaway Resort because the travel agent would get a free entry into the $1 Million draw for every night booked!
A stunning result because of an exciting ‘wow factor incentive’!
2. Candy Shop Transformation!
Whether you’re a franchisee or owner/operator, you need to look at your ‘first impressions’ and determine if they have ‘wow’?
Whilst these days one’s website is traditionally the ‘Director Of First Impressions’, for retailers, obviously the shopfront can make or break the business.
A client in Sydney called Lollies n’ Stuff boasts about being the International House of Candy – but the exterior of the three retail stores didn’t communicate the incredible ambience of the interior of the stores.
So I quickly provided my ‘Disney-style’ revamp recommendations and the result has been spectacular to say the least!
No one could possibly walk past the refurbished exteriors of these stores without being tempted to go inside!
It’s a ‘wow factor’ on steroids and perfectly provides the appropriate ‘message to market match’.
The owner of this business has decided to stick with my program forever, as this ‘wow factor’ (along with lots of social media ideas) has monumentally changed his revenue!
Logo - BEFORE & AFTER
Shop-Front - BEFORE & AFTER
3. Loyalty Programs To Stimulate Repetitive Trade!
In order to enjoy similar benefits to Netflix, you need customers/ clients to be coming back over and over again.
It amazes me that 98 percent of businesses DON’T collect any data of their prospects or customers.
They simply let them walk into their business, purchase something and then leave without providing any personal details!
Let’s face it, even the giant fast food chains have millions of customers a day, yet not one collects data at the counter! Just crazy stuff!
And very few businesses collect data online via webpages or their website – it just astounds me.
You can be one of 80,000 people in a sporting arena and the code won’t know your name or contact details!
We live in the world of Amazon and if you don’t start mirroring their ‘data collection techniques’, there’s a good chance this giant will wipe you out!
Take a hair salon for example. The best way to stimulate loyalty and repetitive trade would be to do something like the following.
For every $50 a customer spends, they get one Movie Point – save 10 Movie Points and get a $50 Gift Voucher to go to the movies!
Note that this $50 Gift Voucher represents just 10 percent of the $500 that the customer has spent – and how much more horsepower this has compared to putting a sign outside the salon promoting ‘10% off’!
So my mantra is always to determine what discount you are prepared to give away – AND THEN TURN THAT DISCOUNT INTO A HAPPY MEAL TOY BONUS!
You’ll find the ‘value added bonus’ will blitz the corny discount offer!
So next time you are considering price discounting, stop and consider how you can turn that discount into a ‘wow factor bonus’ and I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the result!
And of course, if you are looking for someone to fast-track such ideas, feel welcome to contact us at;
