6-23-2014
I?m going to do four things, if you?ll let me.
1. I?m going to teach you a magic word. 2. I?m going to teach you a magic truth. 3. I?m going to teach you offer packaging. 4. I?m going to melt your fear.
The magic word is ?experiment.? I?ll tell you when and how to use that
magic word a few paragraphs from now.
The magic truth is that advertising doesn?t fail. Ads fail.
A really good ad will work on just about any radio sta?tion. Believe it or not, there are surprisingly few stations out there with ?the wrong audience.? So if your sales presentation is mostly you telling advertisers that you?ve got ?the perfect audience? for them, you need to ask your best friend to tie you to a chair and slap the hell out of you until you promise to quit saying that.
Really good ads pay off in ways your clients can see. And when they can see that your ads are working, they quit saying things like, ?We?re all out of budget.? You?ll laugh out loud at the piles of money your clients can find when they?ve seen that your ads are clearly paying off.
The bottom line of the magic truth is this: You?ve got to make your client give you a really good ad.
And offer packaging is what makes an ad really good.
Now is the time to use that magic word. 1. Look at your client and say, ?I?d like to do an experiment.? They?ll say, ?What kind of experiment?? 2. You say, ?I want to make an offer so attractive that people feel like they have to take advantage of it.?
Two things will happen in that brief exchange. First, you?ll sharply reduce your client?s resistance when you use the word ?experiment.? Tell a client that something is true and they?ll go into ?judgment mode? to decide if they believe you. But you don?t want your client to be your judge; you want them to be your partner. And nothing makes them so clearly your partner as doing an experiment together.
Second, that word ?experiment? promises four things: 1) limited risk; 2) limited time window; 3) the excitement of adventure; and 4) ?We?re going to know something at the end of this experiment that we do not currently know.?
That?s a lot to pack into a single word, isn?t it?
Offer Packaging
The lowest possible cost of acquiring a new customer will not be achieved until you?ve packaged an offer that?s hard for the customer to refuse.
Note: ?Free? is no longer a magic word. If you allow a chiropractor to offer ?a free examination? and act like it?s a powerfully attractive offer, I?m going to tie you to that chair again and call your friend. Your listeners know that ?a free examination? is just another way of saying ?a free sales pitch.?
Powerfully attractive offers are usually based on A) a guaranteed flat rate for a service that?s usually priced according to the degree of difficulty, such as, ?We?ll open any clogged drain for $99, even if your clog is in the main line.? Or B), a series of impressive things that are included ?at no extra charge? after you?ve made your offer and named your price. The more surprising and attractive your list of things included at no extra charge, the more impressive your package will be.
Do the math with your client and you?ll both see that the cost of a powerful offer is much lower than the cost of ads that don?t work very well. It all comes down to the price of customer acquisition. Your client knows that the cost of convincing a customer to do business with them a second time is only a fraction of the cost of attracting that customer the first time.
So quit talking about your radio station. Start talking instead about the kinds of offers your client can make to your audience. Walk in their door and say, ?I?d like to do an experiment.?
There?s nothing scary about that.
In fact, it?s exciting.
So why are you still sitting there? Stand up. Go make some calls.
Roy H. Williams is president of Wizard of Ads Inc. E-mail: roy@wizardofads.com.
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