Whether you are running a freelance business or a well-established organization, your success would greatly rely on having a compelling marketing offer along with an appropriate call to action to facilitate your customers. It all comes down to whether or not your marketing strategies can pass the 3-second test.
What’s the 3-second test? It refers to the question: would your target audience know exactly what you are selling within 3 seconds or less and how it will help them in their lives? When someone is reading a sales copy, the most they give to skim through the content is 3 seconds, and then they move on if they don’t think what they are reading is engaging enough.
This is not only vital for selling consumer products but also for promoting professional services. You need to stand out among the pool of all the other service providers. You cannot generate revenue unless your audience can trust you enough to make a purchase.
Many startup businesses spend a lot of time on logos and other aspects of visual branding but miss out on preparing an effective marketing offer. It is advisable to at least take two days out of your first 100 days of working on your marketing efforts to create marketing offers that would help you sell your products or services.
You will probably have limited resources and time if you are just starting a business. You need to spend what you have wisely by focusing on creating a successful marketing offer that delivers results out of your targeted niche. This will help you make sales and establish you as an expert in your field.
An effective marketing offer is a gateway to getting quality leads. Promote your business mainly through a website. You won’t convert any site visitors without a marketing offer to convince them that what you’re selling is relevant and valuable for them. Along with generating new leads, a successful marketing offer nurtures your existing leads and makes them more ready to buy.
The term that we are talking about is actually quite vague. That’s why you might be getting confused about what exactly we are talking about. Let’s define what a successful marketing offer is, and then we will discuss the process to create marketing offers that are compelling and cost-effective.
The reason why this needs to be well defined is that many marketers trip over this concept. They cannot differentiate clearly between a marketing offer and an overall integrated marketing campaign. But if you have your ideas right, you will have the edge over your competitors and dominate the industry.
What is a Marketing Offer?
Sometimes the best way to describe a concept is to identify what it is not. Since many people get confused about a marketing offer, we thought we’d first let you know what it’s not. What needs to be classified as an effective marketing offer provides value and makes a website visitor fill up a form to get access to. When filled in a form, certain things don’t contribute substantially to generating a lead. These things should not be put behind forms.
According to this definition, the following website elements are not part of a marketing offer.
• Contact Us
The ‘contact us’ section or page of a website is usually placed behind a form but does not contribute to bringing in leads as effectively as a successful marketing offer. Your audience might just contact you with an inquiry about your product or service without any intention to proceed with the purchase.
Image taken from Strikingly user’s website
• Product-Centric Content
This content includes brochures, pamphlets, newsletters, and product videos. Although these are great tools to introduce to your audience and get them closer to their buying decision, they do not exactly form a marketing offer. You could place your monthly newsletter behind a subscription form, but all it would do is bring your audience closer to your sales funnel. They would still need to go through a couple of more stages before making a final purchase decision.
• Customer Case Studies
Customer case studies and testimonials should be most straightforward for your audience to access. They shouldn’t be hidden behind forms and are thus not part of a marketing offer. They represent customer feedback about your business and are needed to be displayed openly to convince your audience about your brand’s integrity and performance.
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Now that you know what a marketing offer is not, let’s look at what really comprises an effective marketing offer.
• Ebooks and Guides
Online content in the form of an ebook or guide helps your audience solve a problem. Ebooks are usually tailored to your niche’s interests and help you build an authoritative reputation among your audience. Your site visitors need to fill out a form to access your ebooks, guides, or other digital downloads. Thus these are elements of a marketing offer.
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• Discounts and Promotions
People are more likely to hand over information about themselves if they are enticed with a discount or coupon code in return. Discounts, coupons, cashback offers, free shipping options, and points for future purchases at a lower price are components of a marketing offer.
• Webinars and Digital Courses
Another way to convey to your audience that you know your niche and industry very well is by offering webinars and online courses. When your site visitors register for an online course, they will fill up their information for you to access, and in return, they get to learn about the course subject. Hence, a digital course can be a marketing offer.
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• Industry-Specific Reports
If you have prepared an industry-specific report, you can provide it as a marketing offer to your audience. In this case, the value that you are providing is that you are doing the market research, compiling it in the form of a well-organized report, and making it readily available. Your target customers will be willing to fill out a form to access that.
• Membership or Loyalty Programs
Customer reward programs are those that offer something to your existing and potential customers that gives them a sense of exclusivity, such as giving them perks or rewards that non-members cannot get. They can be used as an effective marketing offer as they definitely drive curiosity and excitement among your audience.
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• Free Tools
Some companies create marketing offers in the form of free tools. Free tools are a great way to get your website visitors to test your products without paying on the spot. Once they get familiar with the features, they will likely upgrade to the premium plan to get full access. Free plans are similar to free trials that allow your audience to test your apps and services risk-free.
6 Steps to Create a Successful Marketing Offer
Here are 6 steps to create marketing offers that help you to generate quality leads.
1. Get to Know Your Audience
Find out what your audience is really looking for. Look into their lifestyle, interests, the kind of problems they face, and the outlets they approach to resolve them.
2. Clarify Your Marketing Offer
Make it clear to your audience what you want them to buy from your business. How will your marketing offer make a difference in your audience’s lives? Your marketing content should state clearly the value that your product or service has for them. An effective way of doing this is to hit on the pain points of your target customers. Highlight the benefits of your product, and make your marketing messages simple, relatable, and memorable.
3. Make Your Offer Easily Accessible
This is something many businesses struggle with. You need to make your marketing offer easily understandable and accessible for your target audience. Do not assume that they will get it on their own. You really need to put in the effort to see it and get access to it.
4. Create a Compelling Call to Action
Adding clear call-to-action buttons help you guide your audience on how to benefit from your marketing offer. CTAs are essential these days. If your landing page does not have enough CTAs, your audience will feel lost. Even if they are interested in your product, they wouldn’t know what to do next to move closer to the purchase.
5. Build a Sales Funnel
Your target customers need to pass through several stages before they decide to buy your product. These stages are what form your sales funnel. Having a sales funnel backing up your marketing offer eases the process of filtering out the most relevant people among your audience.
6. Highlight Your Credibility
Don’t forget to build your trust credentials to encourage your audience to believe in your marketing offer. This is done by posting positive reviews and testimonials on your website and in your social media content.
Not to forget, the first and foremost thing you need to successfully implement all the steps described above is a professionally built brand website. If you are looking to build a website to represent and promote your business, make sure you check out our growing website building platform.
Strikingly offers ready-to-use templates to be used as your web design. We save you hours and hours of work by giving you ready-made website designs. You can add your content to your site without writing a single line of code. Our user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface allows anyone to create a website independently.
Once you get familiar with our tools, it gets even easier. Many of our users are running a complete business through their website built on Strikingly. We understand that everyone is not into IT and therefore provide 24/7 customer support to guide our users at every step of the way. Our free plan, our marketing offer to you, includes most of the features required for you to develop a basic website.
