Shownotes
5 Promotion Features that Get Results
Scarcity – This is going to disappear so act now. Limits – You can use time, such as good through a certain date. Or numbers like, the first 100 responders. Credibility – An explanation of why the promotion exists. It gives logic behind what is being offered whether it’s a price discount or something else. Ego/Exclusivity – Selecting a particular group of people makes them feel rewarded and special. This emotionally connects them to the offer. Value – Offering damaged or used products at a discount is not a great bargain in the eyes of a customer. They think it should be discounted. You want to create a situation where the customer perceives they are getting better side of the deal.Why It Works
Out of the Norm – In our case we don’t do a lot of discounting. So our customers are not conditioned to wait it out for a sale. So our discounting got attention. What’s out of your norm? Quality of the Product – Fresh new product at a discount – as mentioned earlier, justified for a specific reason.The Benefits
Win/Win – There are advantages for both you and your customer. Low Cost to Implement – Offer a special opportunity to a unique group of loyal customers so you don’t have any advertising expenses. Goodwill – Doing thoughtful things for your customers will build loyalty and equally good for you, they will tell others.DOWNLOAD the Checklist to use for your next promotion
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Transcripts
You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 157.
Speaker:Today, I'm going to share with you the five elements to
Speaker:set your next promotion on Fire attentive.
Speaker:Gifters bakers,
Speaker:crafters, and makers pursuing your dream can be fun.
Speaker:Whether you have an established business or looking to start one.
Speaker:Now you are in the right place.
Speaker:This is give to biz unwrapped,
Speaker:helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.
Speaker:Join us for an episode,
Speaker:packed full of invaluable guidance,
Speaker:resources, and the support you need to grow.
Speaker:Your gift biz here is your host gift biz gal,
Speaker:Sue moon Heights.
Speaker:So happy that you're joining me today,
Speaker:because this is a day of successes.
Speaker:For those of you who have been following my journey,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:already that I'm writing a book and I just send it
Speaker:off to the editor yesterday.
Speaker:Now this whole book thing is really new to me.
Speaker:Wasn't sure what the steps were going to be.
Speaker:It's a little bit crazy that I've just written the whole
Speaker:book. I have no idea yet what the title is,
Speaker:what the cover is gonna look like any of that.
Speaker:And it reminds me a little bit of people when they
Speaker:start their business,
Speaker:they jump right in and want to say,
Speaker:what's the name of it?
Speaker:Where is it going to be without doing some of the
Speaker:background work?
Speaker:It would be kind of like me figuring out what the
Speaker:title is and the cover without having written the book yet,
Speaker:but it's a natural tendency.
Speaker:So I get it.
Speaker:We're always driving to the result,
Speaker:the conclusion of what we're trying to do,
Speaker:what our goal objectives are without sometimes going back and figuring
Speaker:out truly the path to getting that result.
Speaker:And that leads me right into our promotions.
Speaker:Boy, I'm guilty of this too.
Speaker:Have you ever created a promotion that you knew?
Speaker:Absolutely. For sure.
Speaker:Was going to just bring the flow customers into your shop
Speaker:or get your website just humming.
Speaker:You knew it was going to happen,
Speaker:but then you put the promotion into play and yeah,
Speaker:it's okay.
Speaker:But nothing absolutely blowing the doors off.
Speaker:Well, I want to help you change that.
Speaker:I have five features for you that are going to set
Speaker:your next promotion on fire,
Speaker:light up your business and inject sales into your business.
Speaker:Not only so you have the revenue,
Speaker:obviously, so you can pay yourself,
Speaker:your employees and invest in the business,
Speaker:but it also energizes you and reaffirms that what you're doing
Speaker:in your business is right.
Speaker:That's why the success of your promotions is so important.
Speaker:It's not all just about the money.
Speaker:It really does affect you,
Speaker:right? When a promotion doesn't go,
Speaker:well, you sit back and,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:you're kind of feeling blah,
Speaker:and that doesn't help you either in terms of the energy
Speaker:and the resilience and the excitement that you need about your
Speaker:business. Let's change that.
Speaker:But first I need to tell you how I came about
Speaker:these five features.
Speaker:It actually happened with the promotion that we did back for
Speaker:a business that I currently have called the ribbon print company.
Speaker:We have our own line of ribbon called pretty print ribbon
Speaker:that I have manufactured just for us at a factory in
Speaker:China. So when we order,
Speaker:we have to buy a minimum order,
Speaker:quantity in Nemo queue,
Speaker:and that equates to thousands of rolls of ribbon.
Speaker:And it takes literally months for us to get an order
Speaker:to be restocked.
Speaker:So finally our ribbon shows up.
Speaker:We're so excited to finally get it and fill some back
Speaker:orders. And we opened the box to find,
Speaker:Oh my gosh,
Speaker:a color Of ribbon that we didn't order.
Speaker:That was the most.
Speaker:I'm going to say obnoxious shade of neon pink that you
Speaker:could imagine we don't stock this color Nor would we ever.
Speaker:And we're like,
Speaker:Oh my gosh,
Speaker:what are we going to do with all that This ribbon,
Speaker:it was a disaster.
Speaker:So we thought we made the assumption that this color came
Speaker:in the minimum amount that we had to buy.
Speaker:So we're thinking we are sitting on literally thousands of rolls
Speaker:of this obnoxious color.
Speaker:So this was a big deal.
Speaker:Luckily, as we continue looking through the boxes,
Speaker:there was only a small amount of this neon pink.
Speaker:It was a replacement for some unusable ribbon that we had
Speaker:received in a prior shipment.
Speaker:So it was a make good if you will,
Speaker:but now what are we going to do with this crazy
Speaker:color? After a bit of foot stomping and some words coming
Speaker:out of our mouths that I won't repeat here.
Speaker:We figured out what to do,
Speaker:how we could use this at least to get rid of
Speaker:it, because we also had an inventory problem.
Speaker:We couldn't have this ribbon sitting around,
Speaker:taking up space.
Speaker:So we decided to do a flash sale to recoup,
Speaker:at least a portion of our costs.
Speaker:We could do a quick promotion,
Speaker:get rid of this stuff,
Speaker:reimburse ourselves for the cost of at least shipping and get
Speaker:this out of here.
Speaker:So we could kind of forget about it.
Speaker:Now don't get me wrong.
Speaker:It was beautiful ribbon.
Speaker:There was nothing wrong with it.
Speaker:In terms of the quality,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:it wasn't an inferior role.
Speaker:It wasn't dirty.
Speaker:The edges were clean,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:different things that we look at for the quality.
Speaker:It's just not a color that we stock and I don't
Speaker:want to stock it.
Speaker:So we decided to put together a short and sweet promotion
Speaker:with limited sizes and quantity of this ribbon.
Speaker:We offered it at a deep discount and explained that this
Speaker:was a one time thing in.
Speaker:We called the color never again,
Speaker:neon pink.
Speaker:It was offered to our VIP customers.
Speaker:Only through an email fulfillment was done on a first come
Speaker:first serve basis,
Speaker:by reply to that email,
Speaker:because we certainly weren't going to put this color up on
Speaker:it, our website,
Speaker:what were the Results we sold out?
Speaker:And we did have hundreds of rolls of ribbon.
Speaker:It wasn't like we had one or two.
Speaker:We sold out of all of our roles of never again,
Speaker:neon pink ribbon within 48 hours.
Speaker:I'd say that's a pretty successful promotion.
Speaker:Why did it work so well?
Speaker:And what can we learn from this to apply to all
Speaker:of our future promotions,
Speaker:Laurie and I sat down and went back and said,
Speaker:okay, w why did we get the results that we did?
Speaker:And we've identified five things that this promotion had that made
Speaker:its performance so strong.
Speaker:So here we go,
Speaker:the five features to set your next promotion on fire.
Speaker:The first feature was scarcity.
Speaker:We had a specific quantity of ribbon,
Speaker:and we did not set an expectation that we would ever
Speaker:be getting this again in the future.
Speaker:So people had to make a choice to buy quickly if
Speaker:they liked that color ribbon.
Speaker:And we had had requests for some neon type colors before,
Speaker:but if they really liked it,
Speaker:there was no time for them to hem and haw.
Speaker:Think about it a little bit,
Speaker:because we already told them,
Speaker:honestly, that once it's gone,
Speaker:it's gone.
Speaker:So they needed to respond quickly.
Speaker:That's scarcity.
Speaker:The second feature is limits.
Speaker:In this case,
Speaker:the limit was time since we were fulfilling orders on a
Speaker:first come first serve basis.
Speaker:Hesitancy could mean loss of the opportunity we did in fact,
Speaker:run out of the product before all requests were completed.
Speaker:Unfortunately, because some people got excited about the ribbon and were
Speaker:just too late,
Speaker:but that does set the stage for future promotions because they
Speaker:see that when we say there's only a limited amount,
Speaker:there truly is only a limited amount.
Speaker:Another way you could use this limit of time is to
Speaker:have deadlines on your offers.
Speaker:Perhaps it's a holiday special promotion only,
Speaker:or discounted prices only valid through X.
Speaker:So a different way to use a limit of time.
Speaker:The third feature to set your promotion on fire is credibility.
Speaker:And this is really important.
Speaker:We explain to our customers why we were doing this deep
Speaker:discount sale on the product.
Speaker:And then it wasn't part of our normal offerings.
Speaker:It was completely true and made sense to our customers in
Speaker:terms of why we were dropping the price.
Speaker:It wasn't a sale,
Speaker:totally unrelated to what we normally present and without explanation.
Speaker:So it wasn't coming from left field and then being like,
Speaker:what? This is not what we normally see from the ribbon
Speaker:print company.
Speaker:So customers,
Speaker:weren't confused.
Speaker:We had explained the situation and the resulting promotion credibility.
Speaker:So important,
Speaker:being honest and upfront with your customers,
Speaker:particularly if you're doing something out of the norm versus what
Speaker:they've come to know and expect from you.
Speaker:I call this fourth feature ego slash exclusivity.
Speaker:I mentioned,
Speaker:we offered this first to our VIP customers.
Speaker:I wanted to reward the most loyal customers first,
Speaker:had we not sold out,
Speaker:we would have then offered it to the rest of our
Speaker:customer base,
Speaker:but this made our VIP's feel special.
Speaker:And I like to give back to those who have helped
Speaker:us grow over time.
Speaker:And it also invested in us kind of like the Maya
Speaker:Angelo quote.
Speaker:It's not what you say or do.
Speaker:It's how you make someone feel.
Speaker:And of course we want all of our customers to feel
Speaker:special, but this was a limited quantity.
Speaker:So we offered it first to a limited amount of people.
Speaker:There are lots and lots of ways that you can make
Speaker:your customers feel special.
Speaker:And I'm just now thinking that could be a very good
Speaker:podcast topic,
Speaker:making your customer feel valued and special can be done through
Speaker:email promotions,
Speaker:just to a list.
Speaker:So only people who were on your list,
Speaker:maybe people who come in for a special promotion in your
Speaker:shop, that's available just for the day.
Speaker:So it's only people who are showing up live.
Speaker:You can also do this for events,
Speaker:lots of different ways.
Speaker:You can add different levels of exclusivity.
Speaker:It doesn't need to be just dollars.
Speaker:Like the people who spend the most money with you or
Speaker:that kind of thing.
Speaker:The best way to look at ego and exclusivity is where
Speaker:is there the best match of what you're offering to,
Speaker:what your subset of customers slash prospects need,
Speaker:and then pointing out to them that they're special and that
Speaker:the value you're getting and that you have air quotes over
Speaker:here, self selected them for that offer.
Speaker:Doesn't that make you feel great when someone says,
Speaker:I thought of you,
Speaker:and here's why all of us want to feel identified and
Speaker:special and valued.
Speaker:And this idea of presenting a promotion through exclusivity does just
Speaker:that. And the final feature is value.
Speaker:Now, in this case,
Speaker:we offered the ribbon at a 50% discount because we wanted
Speaker:to move it out fast.
Speaker:Remember this was a make good,
Speaker:so we didn't actually buy this ribbon,
Speaker:but we did have to pay for shipping from China.
Speaker:Remember, and it also meant that the color that we thought
Speaker:we were getting was now low in inventory.
Speaker:So we were going to have to restock that pretty quickly.
Speaker:I feel like I want to make a caution here that
Speaker:whenever you are discounting your product,
Speaker:your retail price make to know all of your costs.
Speaker:And if you are going to deep discount,
Speaker:like we were doing at 50%,
Speaker:make sure you're not losing on the deal or at least
Speaker:covering costs like we were doing here.
Speaker:I know the first thing that people think of when you
Speaker:think of doing a promotion is a price discount.
Speaker:And I really want you to try and get out of
Speaker:that mentality.
Speaker:There are so many other ways you can do promotions and
Speaker:bring in sales without just automatically resorting to dropping your price
Speaker:on the product for us in this particular situation,
Speaker:it made sense.
Speaker:The five features again are number one,
Speaker:scarcity, number two,
Speaker:limits number three,
Speaker:credibility four was ego and exclusivity.
Speaker:And number five is value before we move on into why
Speaker:this worked so well.
Speaker:And the benefit to this promotion,
Speaker:let's hear a word from our sponsor who just so happens
Speaker:to be the ribbon print company.
Speaker:This podcast is made possible.
Speaker:Thanks to the support at the ribbon print company,
Speaker:create custom ribbons,
Speaker:right in your store or craft studio in seconds,
Speaker:visit the ribbon print company.com
Speaker:for more information,
Speaker:Couple of reasons why this promotion worked so well for us.
Speaker:The first one is infrequent sales.
Speaker:Although we do have promotions from time to time,
Speaker:we have not conditioned our customers to wait for a sale
Speaker:to stock up on supplies.
Speaker:So as a consequence,
Speaker:when we do promote a new product or reduce our pricing,
Speaker:because remember I was just talking about the fact that not
Speaker:all promotions need to be a price reduction,
Speaker:but when we do our customers really take notice.
Speaker:The second thing is the quality of the product with this
Speaker:promotion. As I'd mentioned,
Speaker:also, the product was not inferior.
Speaker:It was perfect ribbon.
Speaker:There was nothing wrong with it.
Speaker:It just wasn't a good color,
Speaker:never again,
Speaker:neon pink.
Speaker:So it wasn't damaged in any way was also not leftover
Speaker:reused or one of the displays.
Speaker:So the value of the product was 100%,
Speaker:even though the price was 50%.
Speaker:Now this might not always apply to you for a promotion,
Speaker:but I wanted to bring this up because this is an
Speaker:angle you can put into your promotion.
Speaker:Copy. If the quality of the product is still of high
Speaker:value and you're offering it as a discount.
Speaker:So it worked so well for us because we were having
Speaker:a sale.
Speaker:When we normally don't do a lot of sales to our
Speaker:customers and the product,
Speaker:wasn't something that was inferior,
Speaker:which qualified for a price reduction,
Speaker:somewhat of a magic combination.
Speaker:If you ask me,
Speaker:I want to know cover what the benefits of this promotion
Speaker:were, and I'll identify three of them for you.
Speaker:And this is something that I'm thinking you don't consider necessarily
Speaker:when you're putting together promotions.
Speaker:The first is it was a win,
Speaker:win. It was a win for us.
Speaker:And it was a win for our customers in situations like
Speaker:this, both of you as a business owner and your customer
Speaker:win, that's the sign of a successful promotion.
Speaker:We got rid of our never Again,
Speaker:neon pink,
Speaker:and many of our customers got a fun color of ribbon
Speaker:at a low price.
Speaker:If they keep their pricing strategy solid,
Speaker:when they use this ribbon.
Speaker:In other words,
Speaker:they don't reduce the price of their ribbon just because they
Speaker:purchased it from us for less,
Speaker:their margins are going to be greater to.
Speaker:The second benefit is,
Speaker:was a low cost to implement this promotion.
Speaker:I gave you a lot of detail about what we did,
Speaker:because I wanted you to see that we didn't have to
Speaker:invest a lot of time into putting this together.
Speaker:Yes, we had to do a photo and we had to
Speaker:make an email and send it out to a specific list,
Speaker:but we didn't have to add product to our website heavily
Speaker:promoted anywhere,
Speaker:or spend money to make money.
Speaker:And the final benefit is Goodwill.
Speaker:We could have sold this product at full price,
Speaker:and I know it would have sold out that way too,
Speaker:but by reducing the price we showed our customers that we
Speaker:like to work in.
Speaker:Good faith with them.
Speaker:Another win-win idea for a more altruistic twist.
Speaker:So How can you use this?
Speaker:What we Did with our promotion was in a way the
Speaker:perfect storm,
Speaker:it combined a number of promotion.
Speaker:Success features into one,
Speaker:take a look at your business,
Speaker:your products and your customers.
Speaker:How might you be able to apply several of these elements
Speaker:into your next promotion?
Speaker:You don't need to use every single one of them like
Speaker:we did to help ensure that you do this in this
Speaker:crazy business world of ours,
Speaker:right? We hear things that we want to do.
Speaker:And then so quickly they vanished from our mind.
Speaker:I've created a download for you that covers these five features.
Speaker:All you need to do to get that is jump over
Speaker:to gift biz on rapt.com
Speaker:forward slash one,
Speaker:five, seven.
Speaker:You can print that out,
Speaker:put it in a file that you use when you're doing
Speaker:promotions, hang it somewhere,
Speaker:give it to a marketing manager.
Speaker:If you have one,
Speaker:but try out these five features so that you can totally
Speaker:rock your next promotion.
Speaker:I am so excited for all of you to hear the
Speaker:podcast for next week.
Speaker:So I'm going to give you a little insight and teaser
Speaker:into what's coming up.
Speaker:We are going to be hearing from Aaron Roth of arc-on
Speaker:mounts. He has integrated into the creator in a big way
Speaker:and talks with us about how to do live.
Speaker:And we all know on social media live is everything.
Speaker:Whether it's Facebook,
Speaker:whether it's Instagram,
Speaker:he's got some great tips for us.
Speaker:And I have to tell you a discount coming just for
Speaker:you on his products to ensure that you don't miss this
Speaker:episode or any episode of gift biz on wrapped.
Speaker:If you're listening on iTunes,
Speaker:click that little subscribe button.
Speaker:That way each new episode will be downloaded directly to your
Speaker:phone. The minute it goes live on Monday mornings,
Speaker:I'll see you.
Speaker:Then Episode is all wrapped up,
Speaker:but your gift vis journey continues.
Speaker:It's your time to experience the pride and satisfaction of turning
Speaker:your passion into a profitable business.
Speaker:Join the gift biz builder program and access valuable lessons,
Speaker:worksheets, and a live Q and a sessions.
Speaker:Addressing your specific challenges.
Speaker:You also have the opportunity to connect with a community of
Speaker:gift biz builders,
Speaker:just like you head over to gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped.com/gift biz builder,
Speaker:and get started today.
