Connecting with Your Customers:
To create an offer on any of your social sites, you’ll need to take your marketing to the next level and give your customers an offer they can’t refuse.
{ Did you just read that in your best Godfather voice? }
We can throw our stuff up on a sales page all day long but what’s really going to get people to click on it? What’s going to make them take that extra step and give you their email or better yet, buy something from your site?
It starts with knowing the difference between the features and benefits of your products or services.
Most of us confuse our list of features with benefits and we set up our marketing messages talking about all the cool things about our services or products { these things are called your features }. While it’s great to know that your business has been around over 20 years or that thing you’re selling is so small that it fits in your pocket, this is the way you’re going to get more people to click on your Buy Here link.
To dig down deep and find out your blog or business’ benefits, you’ll need to answer this question for your customers, “What’s in it for me?” You’ll need to list out the real reasons that your products or services can help your customers.
Is it something that’s going to save them time, save them money or make their life easier? These are the answers where you’ll find your company’s benefits to your customers.
How do you get People to Click on Your Links
Now that you’ve got your list of features and benefits, how do you use all this crunchy goodness of information to help you get more people to click on your links?
Before you start trying to squeeze as many benefits as you can into one sentence in your next Facebook post, I want you to do one more thing – work through the What’s In It For My Customers Test.
For your customers to click on your links, they need to clearly understand what’s in it for them. Think about these questions before you start pulling together the copy for your offer:
1. Are you offering something that solves a problem for your customers?
2. What problem does your offer solve?
3. Are your customers even aware of how your product or service is the solution to their problem?
When you answer the above questions, don’t just give me a one-word answer. Think about your answer, I mean, really think about it.
If your answer to any of these questions was yes, then ask yourself, “OK they get this but what information do they really know about my stuff? And how are they receiving this information from me?”
And if you’re not sure how to answer these questions, then you need to do some more work on understanding how your benefits help your customers. How can you can share this message with them if you don’t have a clear answer yourself?
The One Thing Your Offer Needs
After you’ve worked through all these questions and figured out the benefits of your programs or products, let’s look at the one thing that makes an offer so great that your customers will click on the link and share it with their social circle.
It’ll be so awesome that it’ll be an offer that they can’t refuse.
Your offer needs to show that your program or product has more value than risk. It’s just that simple.
For most people, the amount of risk is equal to a dollar amount or the amount of time it takes to do something. Everyone has their own number in their head about what’s too high and what’s the number that they’ll pay.
Think about how you can create an offer that shows them value and help ease their mind about the costs or time involved. Can you offer them free shipping? Bonus ‘if you act now’ products and money-back guarantees are other great ways to relieve your customer’s mind about risk.
Try to word your offer with something like this: For less than the price of lunch at your favorite restaurant, you can get this resource-rich workbook to help you solve your XYZ problem.
When you compare your costs to something they’re already doing every week, it helps to reduce their risk. Think of like this – your customers are not paying more for something that they’ve already budgeted in as an expense.
What’s the Next Step?
One of the biggest mistakes people make when they craft their marketing messages is they forget to tell you what to do next.
You read their posts and it’s full of amazing information. But what am I supposed to do after I read this great stuff?
Most people are just as busy as you are and if you don’t tell them what action they need to take and when to do it, chances are, they’ll skip right past your offer.
Make sure your offer has a clear call to action:
- click here to get the free worksheet
- call now to schedule your appointment
- enter your email for exclusive access
- subscribe now
- risk-free for you to try
- trial membership
And think of ways to add in a sense of urgency:
- deadline dates to buy before the rates go up
- early bird prices
- limited time offer
- special bonus for acting now
- try it free for 21 days
- don’t wait another minute
Just asking someone to sign up for your free newsletter isn’t a compelling offer anymore. People want to know why they should sign up. What kind of information are you going to give me?
Your goal with your offers is more than just getting someone’s email address.
Your goal is to establish trust and show your customers that you know what you know. You’ll show them what it’s like to buy one of your programs or products. You’ll let them know how you can help them and ultimately, they’ll learn what it’s like to work with you and pay you for your services.
And I know what you’re going to ask me so let just say it – yes, the best place to start is to give them something FREE.
I don’t care how much money you make, everyone likes to get something of value for free. It’s just how we’re wired.
But the trick is to find that thing that makes people WANT to download your free thing.
If you want to connect with your customer, give them something that wraps up everything we talked about – provide them with value, create a sense of urgency and show them with action-oriented copy about how this offer is helping them solve a problem when they buy/download/watch/whatever.
Here are some examples of free offers that don’t work anymore:
- Contact us forms
- Download our product specs
- Request a quote or free consultation
- An invitation to enjoy inspiration
Here’s what falls into the great free offers category:
- Ebooks with step-by-step guidelines about how to do something
- Free workshops
- Live and recorded podcasts
- Free printable cheat sheets and templates to help make their life easier
- Checklists to help them organize a project
- Free chapters from a paid ebook { to promote the purchase of the complete ebook }
- Videos with printable worksheets to help them work through the ideas in the videos
An offer they can’t refuse is more than a request for a quote.
It has to inspire them, give them ideas to move past a block in their business or help them brainstorm their way to get the answers they’re looking for to keep moving forward.
Your offer needs to convince your customer that your product or service is something that they want, something they need and it’s worth giving up their email address to get it.
Want to learn how to FINALLY make your marketing work and see results?
Get The Path to Purchase: How to use the Customer Buyer’s Journey
The Path to Purchase is the content development tool that will help you stop feeling stuck when it comes to creating content that actually converts.
If the whole customer buyer’s journey sounds like a cryptic map you can’t decipher, I’ve created this 3-step program to help you create compelling content for every stage of the customer buyer’s journey – from Awareness to Consideration to Decision.
When you start moving through this process by watching the exclusive training workshop and answer the questions in the workbooks, you’ll see your marketing content come to life.
You’ll uncover phrases and keywords that will resonate to make more sales. You’ll be able to develop your marketing content based on what people are thinking, what people are feeling, what people are saying, along with the keywords they are using for online searches.
Your journey to move your community into loyal customers begins with a single click to get access to the Path to Purchase.
