If you’re not seeing the kind of response rates your business needs, I believe you will find the following ideas really useful.
Training the marketplace
The store that’s open from 9am to 6pm, but has a sign outside 24 hours a day, saying ‘We’re Open!’, quickly trains people to ignore the sign.
The business that advertises special offers, which are just not special, quickly trains the marketplace to ignore their future offers.
Here are a couple of questions, to see if we can find a way to massively improve your marketing response rates and help you avoid the most common mistakes.
How special are your special offers?
For a special offer to work, you need to focus hard on the ‘special’ part. A small discount or a slightly faster delivery time are not special.
Not even close.
That kind of generic non-offer is so predictable and of so little value, that it washes over people. Get creative. Make it truly special.
How accurate are your marketing promises?
You say you offer ‘outstanding customer service’. Are you absolutely certain that your customer service stands out from the best of your competitors? Don’t forget, your competitors care passionately about their customers and go the extra mile for them.
Get specific. Show people HOW you came to the conclusion that your customer service stands out from the competition.
In short: You can either train the marketplace to sit up and take notice or you can train them to ignore you. It takes creativity to earn their attention again and again, but it’s the only way forward if you don’t want to be ignored.
PS: Read this post on how a special offer went badly wrong, before you work on your next special offer!