Why Are You Paying For A “So What”? Part 1
Updated: Sep 25
When someone sees your ad, your gallery, or hears you answer the phone for the first time, they get a first impression. I recently wrote an article about the value of the first few seconds of an encounter. This one however, is about that seminal moment when a prospect receives the offer you have given them in a “consent marketing” engagement. One inarguable truth about direct marketing is that the “strength of the offer controls the rate of the response.” The brilliance behind any great offer is that it has the capability of starting a transaction in the commodity space or a relationship in the luxury marketing shopper’s mind.
The first immutable fact you must wrap your mind around is that the way they feel has everything to do with how far down the sales funnel they will venture. The second fact is that "their perception IS their reality.” The takeaway from these two truths?
The offer needs to be strong enough to make them feel its power and it has to be received as credible.
In his book 100M OFFERS, Alex Hermozi advises ”charge as high of a price as you can without cracking a smile.” If you are in the luxury marketing space you sell value, price is simply a reference point. Cost is subjective to the perceived value. If you don’t establish value and benefits before you address price, you may as well take out your 357 and shoot yourself in the foot. It feels about as good.
Value and price are not one and the same. The largest issue with online shopping relative to luxury marketing space is it assumes that the consumer knows the value when it publishes the price. That is why only .05 - 2% of buyers who place something over 7k in a shopping cart ever go through with the transaction. The luxury buyer NEEDS context to move through to the end of a transaction at least 98% of the time. The larger the transaction, the more their feelings of trust in the representative matters.
The above paragraph is why people who abide by the 5 Steps to Sales Success method invariably outperform the sales professionals around them.
I have intentionally focused on the precursors to the offer but here we go on the offer itself; to reiterate a fact - “the stronger the offer, the stronger the rate of response.” Remember that offers are perceived so their strength is subjective based upon the past experiences and reputation opinions of the receiver. We therefore should be compelled to offer something to the buying public that has as much of a universal appeal as possible. The offer may be intended to mine (as in gold) as much contact information as possible from buyers in all phases of the sales funnel and be considered a strict “lead generation” friendly offer. Other offers are more bottom-line oriented and contain incentives to encourage the recipient to purchase and finalize a transaction. Neither is wrong or right, they are simply designed to achieve contact with shoppers at different phases in the sales process.
In the piano industry the consent based strategy of providing a specially curated list in exchange for a shopper's contact information has been extremely successful from a harvesting point of view. The list has not been as much of a starting point for many of the prospects who receive a list in exchange for their information. Why? Because the care and concern invested in the lists that have been given the buying public have been professional but uninspiring. To be direct: a lot of very good piano dealers have paid an average of $35-$85 CPL to serve up an inventory list which when received by the shopper creates more of a “so what?” reaction then an “oh wow.”
The most powerful first impressions have been the exception to the rule. They were the DirectFlow clients who included video and some personal demo content but they have been few and far between. The manufacturer videos are nice and do lend credibility but lack in a local community and authentic feel.
In the retail realm some offers have become a catalyst for skepticism. The FREE consultation, inspection and estimate among them. Their instant impact has been watered down by abuse. The “percentage off” offer probably sits on the throne of abuse. The only thing it truly accomplishes is establishing the fact that you are willing to drop your drawers to sell something or that you have “jacked up the price” (I, being Jack, can use that cliche) so you can offer a percent off and still get the margin you were shooting for. Many times service and retail businesses use these mostly ineffective tactics for the lamest reason; because they always have.
The offers which carry more weight in the closing scenarios are still: rebates, financing, buyers guides and templates but they primarily serve people pretty far down the funnel. They are helpful, especially if the fish is close to the boat, but they have little value in restocking the pond.
Offers I’ve had success with in the past have been very straightforward and easier to understand the value of. Instead of a percentage off, a dollar figure with no strings attached to a qualified target is a winner. I served 50 dry cleaner locations nationally with $10 gift certificates for years until I jumped full time into luxury marketing. Folks brought in an average of $25 worth of cleaning to get their $10 redeemed which covers the cleaner’s cost and brought them new clients worth an average of $750 annually. These are figures from decades ago so they would all need to be adjusted. Tiered certificates work too…but I’ll refrain from launching into an “offers” webinar type writing and get to the inspiration for this article. The “inventory of savings list” which has been wildly successful in harvesting leads in the piano industry.
Shoppers have always valued choices. The Sears catalog was a huge success back when print was king. It ceased being, unnecessarily, in 2011 because it didn't go digital. Had there been some visionaries on the staff, it was in a position to lead the way with selling online products universally before Amazon, but Sears didn’t embrace technology. It was the death toll; BUT as you can see, shoppers still like choices and shop Amazon in droves. The subliminal smiling arrow that points from A-Z under the logo assures us that Jeff Bezos was going to go for being as comprehensive as possible about offering every choice that he could. The “list” or “catalog of choices” method has been around forever but is being used haphazardly by many luxury sellers; it never reaches its full potential as a lead and sales generator. Why? Lack of respect and effort.
When you realize, as a marketing investor, every time you accomplish a view that you are paying for it, it should pull you out of apathy. Might I add that every time you purchase an impression, that the impression you pay for is an investment in your reputation. Why would you pay for a first impression that is not 1000% impressive? An impressive, first impression, what do you think? Not a bad idea?
The reality is that in our busy world today many business people favor things that are “set it and forget it” oriented. The problem with that is that almost nothing of value holds its value without care, concern and maintenance. That includes serving up a shopping list to people looking for piano information for a short term or future purchase. A digital offer that sends people to a list has more capabilities to impress, promote, educate and give incentives than any other format. Since we are digital and not print oriented we can not only display and provide inspirational videos for instruments but give custom offers on each one. The challenge? The “set it and forget it” mindset. Instead of serving each piano up as an opportunity most are listed with a picture, description and a price. No offer, even if it is available only by contacting a sales representative. We have the opportunity to be more transactional, and should.
Why pay hard earned dollars for a “so what?” reaction by the shoppers? We are better off with a shorter, more inspirational list. The offer, as stated previously, controls the rate of the response. Where they are missing the boat is by getting the fish up close to the boat but not enough of them in the boat.
Don’t mistake my article as a total redirect and think we should “go all ecommerce” with the list method. We shouldn’t; but we’re not "sweetening the deal” when we get to the list. We’re not being exciting and inspirational, we’re treating it like, "well, here’s what we promised, is there anything here that interests you?” without any short term benefit or urgency statements or special per instrument designations or offers. Here is an example… short and sweet:
“THIS PIANO QUALIFIES FOR A SIGNIFICANT REBATE. Buy a new piano for a used price. Details cannot be published per manufacturer restrictions.”
No we don’t want to publish a price on every instrument but on some we could say:
Market Value $9,500. Savings Price $7,200
Being creative and purposely unpredictable with creative incentives that require sales conversation is the goal.
What we aren’t doing well enough is giving individual offers after we get the bite on the big offer for them to see the list. We need to start selling instead of simply listing individual pianos. Videos about “what a special opportunity this piano is for an accomplished player ready to move up” or “for the beginner who shows promise” speak to specific needs and benefits and are not called out loud enough if they are solely in a printed paragraph.
So you get it, instead of treating the list like a chore that must be built so we give them what they expected according to the main offer, treat it like something with which to deepen relationships. A place to “sweeten the pot” and get dialogue about pianos and piano types started.
In summary, it makes little sense for us to monitor and refine the ad series and get someone with interest in a piano to view an unimpressive list. Let’s think about the "miss" involved in getting someone to offer up their contact info to see a list and then give them a “so what” experience instead of one that may intrigue them to further action. You’ve already invested the dollars and effort to build the list; why not make it a strong first impression? Invest a little creativity. Do some demos on the pianos, entice the shoppers with some language and savings references that make them want to learn more and talk to a specialist.
Make them feel like knowing you is a positive; don't simply disseminate value information. If you don’t present things like you are excited about what you have to show them, why should they be? Anything worth doing…
“Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak” - Zig Ziglar
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