The offer can be about anything, even an item you already have used in the past. However, if it is a willy-nilly product or service that does not reflect well on your brand image, this will do more harm than good.
Today’s digital brochures, emails or posts are just used to drive your reader to a well-planned one-page website. Depending on your readers’ likes, you can present a variety of offers to help you gather more information regarding your readers. Such as email, landing pages, direct mail, just naming the options used by most people, which get results.
Look at the contacts in your CRM. How many contacts can you send a personalized message to, using first and last name? People no longer tolerate bad spelling, wrong names, or forwarded mail. So, if your answer is I am not sure, get on the personalization trend.
Multi-channel marketing is a favorite with direct mail. If you have a name and address in your CRM, use direct mail to get another communication channel. Maybe email addresses? Why not? That is the second-best channel to use paired with direct mail.
Why should you give away anything? Because the point of this lead generating tactic is to identify prospects, you need to push them to give up something, such as an email address. Or, as a wise old owl commented, “you got to give to get something in return.”
By offering something free, you make it easy for people to say, “Yes” and disclose other ways to make your communication more personalized.
Think of unique ways of surprising your customers with an unexpected offer. For example, a salesperson can call a customer and offer 10% more product free if they can ship it to them ten days earlier. If there is a premium product in a line of goods, offer the premium product to customers, usually buying the regular, at the same regular product price. Work closely with the customer in a trial period to measure results.
Why not simply mail the free items directly to your list?
That prevents you from finding out who is interested and pinpointing those who are most worthy of getting a sales call. Remember your giving to get something in return.
Customers may or may not know if there is a specific problem holding the company back. When you use a problem-solving method and show the value in an offered solution you present, that is many times greater than handing out promotional items.
