A self-liquidating offer is a free offer or gift that activates prospective clients to participate in a marketing dialogue where you sell a high-value, low-cost product or service that will generate sales to offset the costs of promotion, advertising, and client acquisition. When done right it can also directly lead directly to profitable sales.
How we utilize this strategy
The best way to understand this marketing tactic is to see how it applies to your business. Since I don’t know what your organization does, let me start with how we helped Creative SEO Marketing implement this ultra-lucrative concept. Creative SEO offers a free educational webinar titled, “Do-It-Yourself SEO: How to get thousands of dollars every month in FREE Google Advertising.” We know those responding to this free offer are interested in search engine optimization (SEO) and are ready and motivated now. During the webinar, I outline the process of SEO and the ways to accomplish search engine dominance. The education provided is comprehensive, and I give away all the tools and resources we use daily to serve our in-house SEO clients. During the presentation, usually somewhere toward the middle and end of my presentation, I make two paid offers to attendees. My first offer is a very low-cost, high-value product which in our case is a customized bi-weekly Search Engine Research Report. This comprehensive report outlines your brand’s most profitable keywords and key phrases, how they rank in search engines, your backlinks, and a website audit. This report also shows your competition and their search engine rankings. The Creative SEO bi-weekly reporting service is normally offered at $19.95 a month. For webinar attendees, we deeply discount this service and offer it for $2.49 each, or $5 a month (for 3 months). This gives webinar attendees an objective performance tool, while they try to “do-it-yourself,” at a very affordable price. My second valuable offer is for our Local SEO Setup, which is one of our primary services. After I go over the entire process of setting up search engine optimization we offer this service to attendees at a 50% discount from our regular price of $590, or $295.
So, here’s the important math:
Let’s say we advertise on Google to signup prospects for our free Do-It-Yourself SEO Webinar and get 100 people who are interested in participating. To acquire these 100 participants, it cost me $2 each. That means I spent $200 to get 100 people to watch our free educational webinar. During this webinar, 3 people decide to purchase the customized bi-weekly Search Engine Research Report, and one participant decides they don’t have the time and resources to “do-it-yourself,” and retain us to work with their company to set up their local SEO. For the bi-weekly research reports, we charge for the three months. That’s $15 per sign-up, and 3 times $15 equals $45. Then there is the one person who loved our presentation and wants to hire us. This initial Local SEO Setup is billed at $295. The math is very simple, $295 added to $45 equals $440. We paid $200 to acquire these prospective clients and in turn, profited $140 ($340 – $200 = $140). I know, you are asking yourself if these numbers make sense. So, paying $2 to obtain an already interested party, using targeted ads, is very reasonable. More important the calculus I just described assumes only 1% of the attendees purchased our service. Truthfully, if I give away a free education, and only one person out of 100 looks me up, I probably need to look at what else is not working right.
The Outcome
In our example, we are marrying two very profitable marketing tactics when combining a Self-Liquidating Offer and Education-Based Marketing. The benefits of a successful SLO are obvious. You are building brand awareness, prospect, and lead generation, paying for your advertising; and in some cases making a profit directly from these efforts. The benefits of Education-Based Marketing are enormous. No one wants another salesperson in their life, but everyone wants to learn something. If you can stop selling your product, and start educating your target audience, you have created the best situation for the eventual sale.” –Ritchie Havok
- It creates more informed customers, who will make more informed decisions.
- It avoids the unpalatable hard sell.
- Changes the buying criteria, and turns a no into a yes
- It focuses on the client, not you.
- It showcases your knowledge.
- Establishes you as the authority and industry leader
- It’s naturally search engine friendly.
Education-based marketing is smart for marketers, smart for clients, and smart for new prospects and existing customers. The best way to understand this marketing tactic is to see how it applies to your business.
Call now and learn more about how you can utilize these incredibly profitable digital marketing tools to supercharge your sales and customer acquisition. 1-800-322-1100
