It’s the bottom of the ninth and you are still on the mound after a beautifully pitched game. Your team is up by one point. But, you have runners on second and third. There are two outs and the count is 3-2. What do you serve up?
That’s the position we’re often in as marketers. In the offers we make to our prospects there can be a very fine line between big success and crushing defeat. Changing even just one word may give you a critical edge.
So to continue last week’s riff on offers, here are two more ways you can easily tweak an offer to increase sales:
#1: Demonstrate Urgency
As part of a promotion, a software company I’ve bought from and follow ran a study where they split tested the exact same offer, one with no time limit and the other with a time limited offer and countdown timer on the order page and in promotional emails.
You’ll easily guess which won, but the extent might surprise you; The time-limited offer beat the other by 450% – four and a half times the number of sales.
The lesson is clear – Stating a clear deadline with legitimate reason and demonstrating urgency with an actual timer works.
#2: Lower a Threshold
Another factor you can adjust in your offer is threshold. In other words, how easy is it to take the next step with you.
Warren Buffet isn’t alone when he says he prefers a one-foot hurdle he can easily step over rather a seven foot bar he has to clear. And our prospects feel the same way.
For example, an information marketing company you may have heard of – GKIC – ran a promotion for a $997 product. After the initial offer, they sent an email to people who visited then abandoned the shopping cart. The email had a simple pitch: “Either a) you really don’t want or can’t afford the product; if so, that’s cool, this message isn’t for you, or b) you like it, but just aren’t sure enough to make the investment. In that case, what if you could get it for $1?”
The $1 offer ($1 today, then three monthly payments after a 30 day trial) more than doubled the number of sales they made. They generated revenues most businesses would have completely missed.
These two examples are striking, but even little tweaks at each point in your marketing funnel can add up. Just a 3% increase in conversions at each of, let’s say, five points in your funnel multiplies to a little over 15%. And as the above examples demonstrate, that may be extremely conservative.
So in your business, how could you “change up” a standard offer for an immediate profit surge like the two outlined here?
