Three Keys to Great Offers that Attract New Leads

New customers are the lifeblood of any firm, even those doing lots of current business. After all, one never knows when existing clients are going to go elsewhere or cut their order volume.

Rather than chase prospects, salespeople can have leads flock to them by making great offers. Consider the following three strategies.

1.      Give before you get

 What customers can try — they often buy. Therefore, an excellent way to get new leads is to give people something for free. Do it smartly, and the benefits way outweigh any costs involved.

So what should you give away? Someone who hasn’t done business with you yet is likely curious about sampling and evaluating your signature products and services. So, give away a slice of your prized offerings— something which reflects the expertise and quality of your company. Examples include:

• free recorded seminar with a few actual tips you charge for if you are a consultant
• an information packed e-book
• a trial run of your B2B service with no strings attached
• the installation of a piece of machinery for a short period of time (the puppy dog close)
• a base model with less features than your premium model

The key is to be impressive and make the freebie top-notch and delivered with excellent service. Also, don’t cut corners as this will backfire and make you look cheap. To control costs on tangible goods and time consuming services, offer freebies to carefully vetted people which are likely to transact with you, instead of to the general public.

As an aside, don’t invest too much in branded items like mugs or pens for new leads; those are more suitable as rewards for existing customers and brand evangelists.

2.      Partner up

 Another way to snag a significant amount of traffic is to mine the customer databases of another business with a similar demographic and a substantial amount of clout.  Acting as a host for the promotion, the other business allows your company to lavish its loyal customers with special and exclusive offers.

For example, if you’re selling ice cream, pair with a cake company. If you’re selling luggage, have a travel company be your host. These host-beneficiary campaigns work best when customers hear about the promotion at the host business, but have to come to your storefront or website to redeem coupons or vouchers in order to actually receive the gift or discount. This gives you the chance to woo these prospects on your own turf.

If the host wants to offer a promotion and pair it with yours, the two of you can tempt new prospects with an affiliate bundle, which is not just for B2C.

3. Develop a live brand experience

 Fanfare can pique the interest of prospects and get them to try new products. Your business can attract new leads by blending a live promotional event with demonstrations, special celebrity endorsers, games, music and other entertainment. This hoopla, of course, should surround a strong, captivating sales presentation accented with multi-media and capped with an irresistible sales offer with a limited time window.

Attendees should get to test products and talk to salespeople on the spot where possible. An offer and campaign of this nature work best offline, but live webinars and live event streaming can deliver a virtual experience for customers.

These offer strategies can be combined for maximum effect. For example, the host-beneficiary plan or live promotion can be paired with free gift giving.  The beneficiary and host can also plan to stage a live event together.

Whatever strategies you choose to attract new leads, make sure you narrow your focus to target your most lucrative demographic and follow-up with additional contact, or else this is money down the drain.