The key to an effective marketing campaign is a great offer. Whether you’re using brochures, direct mail sales letters or in-store signage to promote your offer, your campaign’s success depends much more on its offer than it does its presentation.
Many business owners and marketers spend more time focusing on making their posters or brochures look the part than on making sure their offer is effective and truly appealing to their target audience.
Creating a good offer can be challenging, especially if your business is new and has little data on what its target customers respond to. Despite the challenge, it’s worth investing a significant amount of time and effort in creating your marketing offer.
Below, we’ve provided four tactics that you can use to create a great offer for your next brochure. From free samples to loyalty discounts, read on to learn what goes into an effective brochure-based marketing offer.
Offer a free sample of your product
Does your business sell a specific product? If your business offers a product that can be broken down into a smaller sample, try offering a free sample to work out if your target market is interested in what you’re selling.
Free samples are ideal for cafés and restaurants – after all, who can say no to a free taste of your latest snack? They’re also great for businesses that sell high-end items that people like to test before purchasing.
Remember, samples don’t need to be physical. If you own a car dealership that sells luxury automobiles, your free sample could be a test drive in your latest vehicle for people that belong to your target audience.
Give loyal customers a great discount
Does your business depend on customer loyalty? If you sell a product that people need to buy frequently – for example, a home cleaning product or something that has seasonal demand – building customer loyalty is a great way to increase sales.
The best way to increase the amount of revenue each customer generates for your business is to focus on retention. If your target audience has a monthly need for the product you sell, retaining them for a year results in a 12 times revenue increase.
One of the best ways to retain customers is through a customer loyalty program. Use your next brochure to promote a discount or free giveaway for customers that come back to your store in order to build a loyal audience of responsive customers.
Selling a service? Offer a free quote
Does your business sell a service? Giving away free samples can quickly get out of hand for a service business, since every free giveaway is a significant sunk cost for your business. A much better solution is to offer a free quote or estimate.
This is particularly valuable for prospective customers if your service business is built around an expensive service such as home renovation, business services or automotive repair.
Promote your free quote or estimate service in your brochure and you’ll offer your target audience a valuable service that also contributes to your business’s marketing efforts by generating a steady stream of engaged, motivated sales leads.
Give away a complementary product
Sometimes the best way to promote your product is by giving away a different item for free. A complementary item – an item that matches the product or service your business offers – can engage and catch the interest of your target customer base.
This is a staple of direct mail marketing – a field in which marketers often give free complementary products such as pens, writing pads and office accessories – to the large B2B firms they’re targeting.
If your business offers a product or service for which an affordable complementary product is available, use it to your advantage. This type of offer typically generates high quality, motivated leads for your business to market itself to.
