If you are using direct-response techniques in your ads (which are highly effective), you are taking a potential customer through at least one intermediate step before they decide to buy. In this specific how-to article, we’ll look at five ways to develop that momentum from your ads and generate more leads.
For example, newspaper inserts for car dealerships list a multitude of cars and their prices and features. These inserts help to pique his interest and motivate the reader to drive to the car dealership. At the car dealership, they will meet a salesman who will then try to sell them a car.
The prospect has already been buttered up. They saw the ad, and they were interested enough to drive to the dealership with the idea of buying a car (maybe today?) already taking root in their mind. If the salesman learns that they saw the ad in the paper, he’ll identify them as a mark — someone who’s more likely to buy than a regular Joe who walks in off the street just to kick the tires.
The salesman can afford to spend more time and energy persuading his “mark” because he knows they have already overcome initial barriers of resistance. He knows this because they took the time and energy to drive to the dealership. They did this as a response to the dealership insert in the newspaper.
USE THESE TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR RESPONSE RATE
The same principles will work for your business. In fact, they can work better for you and generate more leads than the car dealership sales inserts do. Try to use some of these methods to enhance your response rate:
1) If you offer a free report or manual, give it a name that inherently promises a benefit. In the advertising industry we call these kinds of reports “bait pieces”. They are offered for free to anyone who requests it. It provides genuinely useful information. It also includes a sales pitch for the company who offered them. If you were a remodeling contractor, a strong free report title may be something like this: “The three things you should do before remodeling your house that will save you thousands of dollars and many headaches.”
2) Think of ways to add value in a novel way. This can mean including small promotional items in your response kit that relate to your product or service in some way. It could be interesting “before and after” reports that feature photos and testimonials.
If you are selling high-priced services, consider giving away something like an iPod to a hot prospect that contains a video presentation on it. Include a note with it that says they can keep the iPod when they’re finished watching. Now that will really grab someone’s attention!
3) Refer to content on specific pages when promoting your free report. For example, include facts such as “On page 37, learn how to do so and so,” or “Page 19 demonstrates, using a series of photographs, exactly where most people make the most common mistake and what you should do to avoid it.”
4) Feature your offer at the top of your ad. Grab the reader’s attention with the promise of a benefit — such as a free report that will show them how to do such-and-such. This is what we call “leading with the benefit, following with the proof.”
5) Mention the offer quickly at the beginning of your ad copy and multiple times throughout. This will keep the offer in the forefront of the reader’s mind. Also, if they were unsure about responding to your offer in the headline but interested enough to keep reading, you are giving them another prompt to take action after you have presented a stronger, more compelling and persuasive case.
If you can increase the number of “takers” to your free offers, you are likely to increase your conversions and sales down the road. If your free offer is tuned to customer desires, you will be more apt to bring in interested customers and screen out those that waste your time. Implementing one or several of these five techniques on the front-end will save you time and make you money on the back-end.