Now that you've set a price for your services or products,
you've got scope to do some special offers or discounts for
the customers you want to attract.
There are lots of different ways of providing incentives
for people to become customers, or to bring back the customers
you want to buy from you again. Keep your eyes open for what
other people are doing. Can you spot the special offer that
The Joy of Business uses to bring in new customers? Over the
last few years, Boots the Chemists has become masters of the
special offer, especially since their hold on the market has
been eaten into by the voracious supermarkets. Wander round
Boots and see what they're up to - you'll see Buy One Get
One Free (making you spend twice as much money as you meant
to, and helping Boots' cashflow) money off coupons given out
at the till, Advantage Points to encourage customer loyalty
and all sorts of offers.
Here are some of the main ways of generating new business
using special offers and discounts. .
Bundling
You probably have several things that you sell. You might
sell web site development and Search Engine Marketing, or
you might sell training courses and one to one coaching. One
of these will be easier to sell than the other. You can take
the two things, and put them together in a bundle, so that
the overall price is lower than what the customer would pay
for these things individually. The customer feels that they've
got a bargain, and you've got double the amount of work coming
in.
Microsoft have, of course, taken this to extremes, so that you
get a whole bunch of software together (Microsoft Office,
for example) and you pay far less than you would if you bought
the software individually. Microsoft got into trouble for
going too far with this approach and was taken to court because
they used bundling to put their competitors out of business.
However, as long as you can be sure that everyone wins from
what you offer, bundling is an ethical way of building your
business.
Time limited special offers
Everyone loves a bargain. People can often be reluctant
to put their hands in their pocket and buy what you're offering.
You can use these aspects of human psychology to encourage
people to buy from you. By telling people that they get money
off if they book now, or buy now, you can gently push the
people who want to buy, into actually signing up.
The classic example of this is if you're organising an event,
make sure that you get publicity out well in advance and offer
a substantial discount for booking before a certain date.
This means that you reduce your stress levels about whether
or not you'll have people coming along, and you've got the
lovely money sitting in your bank account, which helps your
cashflow.
It also means that you can use our next clever marketing technique
when you get to the next stage…
Everyone's doing it
People don't want to be the only person who's doing something
or buying something. People buy books because they've seen
other people reading them, or because they're number one in
the bestseller market.
If you want to do a fun experiment, go onto Western Road in
Brighton with a friend, and both stare and point up to the
sky. Notice how many people will stop and stare as well, trying
to find out what you're looking at. People will copy what
you're doing.
So in marketing, we want to encourage people to think what
we're selling is popular. In fact, it might be so popular
that your potential customer gets worried that they'll miss
out.
This might be making sure that people think that you're busy
with lots of clients, telling people that you only have 25
boxes of stock left or that places on your course are booking
fast.
There are lots of ways that you can make sure that plenty
of business comes your way. If you want to read more about
the psychology of marketing, read Influence by Robert
Cialdini - it's a great book that will help you through marketing, and give you some tips to boost your own business.
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