Marketing Secret #39
How To Use FREE Report Offers As “Bait” To Motivate Prospects To Call YOU!
I presume you have been wondering about the free reports??
If you haven’t please check and make sure you’re still breathing. You may be dead…and not know it!
I’m sure you probably did notice that all of the advertising tools I’ve shown you have offered a FREE report as “bait” to motivate interested prospects to pick up the phone, book an appointment or merely take action to connect with you.
The titles of the FREE reports should always be tempting. For example:
- How To Save Big Money On Luxury Vacation Cruises!
- How To Save Money At Tax-Time Using Techniques The Wealthy Use!
- How To Keep A Sluggish Market From Affecting The Sale Of Your Home!
- How To Generate Cash Flow That’s Free From Taxes!
- The Seven Biggest Mistakes People Make When Buying Printing!
- The Amazing Secrets Of Eliminating Back Pain Forever!
- How To Prevent being Ripped Off By A Contractor!
- The Little Known Secrets Of How To Buy Office Equipment at 50% Off Retail!
- 11 Sure Fire Ways To Fail With Infomercials!
Notice how the advertisements present the FREE reports as a solution to an emotionally aggravating problem…or an opportunity to get some “insider information” that can help the reader make or save money.
The purpose of the free report is to educate people and to start building a psychological relationship…with empathy as the foundation!
The FREE report provides helpful advice to demonstrate to prospects and leads, how they can benefit from working with you when they need your product and services.
But that’s only the surface reason that FREE reports work.
The underlying reason is even more important.
The reports deliver a non-threatening, non-salesy message that shows the prospect that you have empathy and compassion for their life and their concerns. The stories build a bridge of trust and concern that tells the prospect, subconsciously, that you are a caring and empathetic person.
This empathy is the building block of trust.
And trust, built in such a subconscious way, is the barrier that needs to be cracked first!
Once this trust is established, either from the first reports or later sequenced connections, when people are ready…who do you think
they’re gonna call?
That is what your FREE reports should do. Nothing more…nothing less.
The formula is really quite simple.
- Get Attention!
- Arouse interest and emotion
- Tell an interesting story in a believable way
- Offer an incentive to take action...NOW!
- Ask for action and make it easy for people to do so.
This is precisely what every single advertisement should do. Whether, it’s a small ad or larger ad. The FREE report is the bait that leads people to meeting with you…either now, or sometime in the future.
If you had not received FREE stuff from us, you wouldn’t be reading this.
The reports are written in a friendly, conversational style on purpose. They’re not “professional,” because “professional” reports bore everyone who gets them.
A very important point: The Reports won't Get Every Recipient To Do Business With You! Some Of Them, Over Time.
They’ll help you break the ice. When you call people up who’ve asked for the report, your follow up script can be as simple as:
“Hello, is the ________ residence?
Hi, Mr/Mrs/Ms________________.
This is ___________________ with ___________________ Company.
I was calling to ask whether you received the FREE report I sent you.
It was the one with the “dollar bill” attached to it.
Great!
I was just following up with you to see, No. 1, if you to the report, and No. 2, if you had a chance to read it yet.”
If they say they have received it but hadn’t read it yet, then you simply say something like:
"Great.I just wanted to make sure you received it, which you did. Since you haven’t had time to read it yet, would you like me to call you back in a week or two?”
See how easy this is?
Now, if they say they’ve read it, and they’re not interested – or that they haven’t read it and they’re not interested, you can say something like:
“That’s fine. Would you like us to keep you on our mailing list? We send information out about once a month or so.”
If they say, no, you say:
“Ok. We’ll be sure to take you off our list. Have a nice day.”
If they say yes, you can say:
“Great! I’ll keep you on our mailing list. How would you like to leave this? Would you like for me to call you back in the near future, or would you prefer to call me when you’re ready to ask more questions or talk about your need for ____________?”
See how friendly, non-threatening, non-salesy this is? If they tell you it’s OK to call back, then you call back. If they say the will call you, you can offer two options:
- “Ok. You’ll be hearing from us in the mail, and we’ll wait to hear back from you.”
- “Ok. You’ll be hearing from us in the mail. Now, if we don’t hear from you, say, in the next two months, would you mind if we called you then or would you prefer that we not call until we hear from you first?”
Nice and simple.
No pressure.
No sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Almost everyone is polite when getting your first call.
After all, they called YOU first! If someone is a real jerk, just take him/her off your list.
Just about everyone will agree to let you keep communicating to them. Many will allow you to call back, either right away, or in two to three months, as part of your followup plan.
This is easy, and it can be done by you or anyone else you delegate it to.
This is NOT COLD CALLING!
Just because the same tool is used, doesn’t mean the same formula is being used.
If you pass on this post-call step, you will pass on lots of transactions.
If you can’t even follow this simple script path, then have someone else do it, but for goodness sake, make sure this easy, follow up call
gets done!
One question that comes up often is the issue of the fact that we use “dollar bill” letters a lot.
If you want to improve your follow up success, just wait until you call people back, and say something like,
“…It’s the letter that had the “dollar bill” attached to it.”
You’ll almost always get the “Three Yea” response…they’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah…I got that!”. And then make a wisecrack or a joke or whatever. It does make the report slam them in the face…politely, of course.
Think about it.
One new client is worth how much to you?
If you can qualify a person over the phone, are you willing to invest $1.00 to make an unforgettable impression?
One sale can pay for a lot of “dollar bill” letters.
If you use the “dollar bill” letter, you won’t have to invest more than $100.00 before you get a sale. One of the most powerful forces in the world says so!
What force is that?
Human nature.
An even “Higher Authority” will back this up. The principle of sowing seeds works! Test it for yourself.
If you want to ensure your money, qualify people before you send the “dollar bill” report. Call them up to verify that they are, say, looking to put kids through school, before you send out the report. Just give it a test, and see what happens.
Also, you can, and should, test many different headlines and titles for your reports.
You can use numerous titles and headlines in your testing, for the same report. In other words, you don’t have to change the report, just the headline or title! That’s what’s so nice about the reports. Just one report can be called a hundred different things in testing!
If you need help with your FREE report writing, book a 30-minute no-obligation call with one of our team members.
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