By Jeffrey Hedquist
How can we get people to respond? Reward them for listening by making the commercial entertaining or relevant to their life – solving a problem, relieving a pain.
Pay or reward them for taking a survey, coming to the store, visiting the advertiser’s web site, filling out a form, submitting their contact and demographic information.
When we do that, whether it’s with a sale, offer, discount, free service – in other words, a bribe, tell ‘em why we’re doing it. It lets us share some truth with the audience, giving us a chance to build rapport with them. Here’s an example of how it could work for a furniture store:
Last fall at the big show in NY, we fell in love with a beautiful Tiffany-style lamp, and we figured you would too. So we bought 300 of ‘em. Well, we still have 73 left. These beautiful lamps with stained glass shades sell for $590 each in most stores and on sale for $295. We’ll sell you one of these lamps for $147. That’s less than we paid. Why did we decide to lose more than $50 on each sale?
We’ll clear out some inventory, you get a beautiful lamp for less than you could, even if you bought 300 of them, but here’s our thinking: when you come in for your Tiffany style lamp, you’ll see the oriental rugs on display, you’ll walk through the exquisite room settings, you’ll get to see and touch one of a kind furniture pieces, and you’ll most likely fall in love with something else here.
Offering you this work of art for only $147 is our way of luring you into our store. You may not buy anything else, but we believe you’ll come back when you want to buy furniture.
There are all kinds of ways advertisers entice prospects to interact with them: loss leaders, free consultations, promotions, free bonuses, sales, test drives.
Ask your client exactly why are they offering their enticement. What do they expect to happen? Then explain that to the audience.
Let the listener know why the advertiser’s doing it – to bribe, lure, entice, seduce or encourage people to come in.
When you explain the bribe, you tell the audience what you’re doing. It’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual hype, and it can help remove the barrier between sellers and prospects.
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