Feedback Form
Home Features Mastermind Forums About Advertise Blog Network Contact Be An Author

BUY BEFORE YOU BUY - GETTING PAID FOR LEAD GENERATION

BUY BEFORE YOU BUY - GETTING PAID FOR LEAD GENERATION

By Mike Schultz and John Doerr

Free is Fine, but Can I Pay Instead?

Marketing is expensive. Especially when you sell complex products and services, your investments in brochures, websites, ads, direct mail, and PR can be steep. After all, you need to educate your prospects and seduce them with your solution and its benefits. This is a bit more involved than grabbing people's attention with a free sample for an impulse product like a cube of bubble gum with a gooey surprise in the middle.

Consider ABC Consulting which offers strategic business consulting. They send out a mailer describing how their intense focus and expertise in their subject area have allowed them to help their clients realize hundreds of thousands of dollars in measurable results. They also roll out their impressive past project list with great testimonials from their clients exclaiming how ABC Consulting is the greatest firm on the planet Earth.

ABC Consulting then makes their offer, “Call us for a complimentary consultation on how we can help you save millions in your business operations.”

The big problem: when a buyer hears “complimentary consultation” they hear “sales pitch” even if that's not what happens when you run the meeting. So, while they may like to inquire further about your services, and maybe read a bit on your website, they are just not ready to engage you on such a personal, one-on-one basis because they fear being sold to. The result: the lead does not materialize from the free offer promotion.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, prospects might respond if they could pay for the consultation. Yet so many of us in services marketing neither offer samples that would be valuable to buyers, nor a way to pay-and-test the service.

Service Samples: Fee versus Free

Since you don't want to let an interested prospect fade away, you offer free white papers, webinars and seminars, or e-newsletters along with complimentary consultations and evaluations. This is a good strategy and will help you convert some interested suspects into live prospects.

But there is an oft-ignored business development strategy that lies between ‘free' offerings and full-blown service engagements: the paid service sample.

Product and software companies offer great free trials of their actual offering. But service firms often try to go from a direct marketing piece to trusted partner all in one step without giving the clients a taste of the actual service itself. This leap is one that many prospects simply won't take, especially from a marketing piece. The risk is too high.

What you want to do is have prospects engage you with small pieces of your service so they can get a sense of the value you provide. But, if all of your service samples are free (and many service firms only offer free white papers, newsletters, and consultations), you are missing a great opportunity to generate leads and showcase the value of your offerings.

Why Offer Paid Samples

5 reasons to offer paid service samples:

Market Value Assignment: People tend to assign more value to products and services they purchase vs. those that they get for free. So when they receive the product or service, they engage it more deeply than if they hadn't paid. Greater client attention to the sample gives you a deeper brand impression and greater recall. Even if they don't continue to buy, you still leave an impression in their minds that what you offer is valuable.

Value of Expectations Met: When someone pays you for something, they have their hopes up that what they paid for is worth their money and time. If your sample is not a thinly veiled sales pitch and is, instead, valuable in its own right, you've done two important things.
You've set an expectation that what your firm offers is valuable.
You've met that expectation by delivering value.

When someone buys something from a service firm all they are really buying is the expectation that what you say during the sales process, and what you actually deliver, turn out to be the same thing. If you can display this with a sample you establish a pattern with the buyer. When they move up to the full level of service, they feel secure that you will actually deliver on what you sell to them.

In-House Marketing List: If a prospect buys a service sample from you, even if the fee is nominal, they are now your client. Having a house list of satisfied clients is the golden goose of direct marketing. By offering service samples, your house list can grow in leaps and bounds, and drive serious improvements in response rates and revenue from further marketing.

Brand Benefits: Take your white paper to the next level with a bit of extra research and sell it instead of giving it away. Once you offer paid research instead of free white papers your cachet in the industry rises substantially. Offer a free seminar and prospects see you as marketers; add a registration fee and you are industry experts.

Subsidize Marketing Costs: If customers buy a sample before they buy your core service, you are essentially getting your customers to subsidize your marketing programs.

For example, you offer a seminar for $79 for your prospects instead of offering it for free. 30 people attend. That's $2,370 in revenue. Let's assume your total costs for running the event, including all marketing and event operations, are $7,500. You recover almost a third of the costs in revenue. Doesn't sound like much, but when you run the seminar 10 times per year the savings start to add up.
Offer the Sample—Deliver the Goods

It takes dedication and commitment to offer smaller chunks of services that actually provide true value. Delivering sub-par paid service samples will kill your brand and your sales faster than almost anything else you can do. If you offer a $500 sample that's cheap feeling, the customer will expect the same of your $50,000 solution. Not a good expectation to set.

If you can build and offer a service sample that is of high quality and high value, you will build the value perception of your brand, establish yourself as an expert, and develop prospects interested in your full solution set who are now already satisfied clients. At the same time, you can be getting paid for it. You don't even need a gooey surprise in the middle to make it interesting.





BUY BEFORE YOU BUY GETTING PAID FOR LEAD GENERATION - To learn more about this author, visit Laurie Stafinski's Website.

Like this article? Share it with your friends

Article Feedback
 Article Feedback No article feedback found.
  Leave Your Feedback
article feedback

Article Feedback
Staging Diva
Debra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website


To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us.

About The Author


Laurie Stafinski
(Visit Laurie's Website) These articles are provided by the experts at Rai nToday.com, the premier online source for insight, advice, and tools for growing your service business. RainToday.com’s offerings include: articles; interviews; research; premium content, interviews, and tools; webinars, seminars, and conferences; and Rainmaker Report, our free weekly e-newsletter read by over 37,000 professional services marketers, business developers, leaders, and practitioners.

Laurie Stafinski is a Platinum author on EvanCarmichael.com
About The Author

View Author Blog
View Author Blog

View Author Video
View Author Video

Free Downloads


Laurie Stafinski's

Complete
List Of
Sales
Articles

Name
Email
If you enjoyed this article, get Laurie Stafinski's Complete List of Sales Articles For FREE!

More Laurie Stafinski
YOU WON THE CLIENT NOW START MARKETING TO THEM
RAIN SELLING HOW RAINMAKERS LEAD SALES CONVERSATIONS
SALES CALL PLANNING WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE EVERY SALES CALL
FIVE STEPS TO GETTING THE FEES YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE
WHEN IT COMES TO MARKETING SERVICES WE DONT DO MARKETING
HOW TO CREATE A BRAND ONE PROSPECT AT A TIME
TOP 10 LEAD GENERATION MISTAKES MADE BY PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
BUY BEFORE YOU BUY GETTING PAID FOR LEAD GENERATION
THE POWER OF THE MARKETING PYRAMID
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SHORTENING YOUR SALES CYCLE OVER TIME
Free Downloads


 
 
 


Evan Elite Authors
David Barr  
Anne Barr  
Jay Kubassek  
Evan Elite Authors

Become An Author
Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details.
Become An Author

Evan's Latest Video
Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media
Evan's Latest Video

Business Opportunities
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"

How to Start An Online Business

Click Here To Learn More
Business Opportunities



Evan's Newsletter
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Evan`s Newsletter

Free Downloads
11 Ways to Build Business Icon 11 Ways to Build Business
10 Questions for your sales rep Icon 10 Questions for your sales rep
How to Get a Life Icon How to Get a Life
Establish Self-Beliefs Icon Establish Self-Beliefs
Optimize For Ask Checklist Icon Optimize For Ask Checklist
Free Downloads - Complete List

Entrepreneur Tools and Guides
Top 50 Raising Capital Blogs To Watch In 2008
Top 50 Raising Capital Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008
 
Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2008
Top 50 Marketing Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008
 
Entrepreneur Tools and Guides

SEO For Africa
SEO For Africa
Komlan Abe Adidogomé, Togo,
Komlan Abe
Adidogomé, Togo
SEO For Africa

If I Were A Startup...
John Zarei and Shaan Parekh , $516k to $1.5 Mil in 2 years
John Zarei and Shaan Parekh
$516k to $1.5 Mil in 2 years
Geoff Whitlock, $53k to $507k in 3 years
Geoff Whitlock
$53k to $507k in 3 years
If I Were A Startup... - Complete List

Famous Entrepreneurs
Ty Warner, Beanie Babies
Ty Warner
Beanie Babies
Satoshi Tajiri, Pokemon
Famous Entrepreneurs - Complete List

Entrepreneur Advice
Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerilla Marketing
Jay Conrad Levinson
Guerilla Marketing
Timothy Ferriss, 4 Hour Work Week
Timothy Ferriss
4 Hour Work Week
Entrepreneur Advice - Complete List

Popular Articles
(Premium Authors)

     New Career Path? Look Over Your Shoulder
By Trisha McFarlane
     HR: The Problem Collaborators
By Trisha McFarlane
     Knock It Off!- Lessons in Leadership from the Deadliest Catch
By Trisha McFarlane

Have A Suggestion?
Toronto Salsa Classes / Toronto Salsa Lessons Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
Have A Suggestion?

More Evan Carmichael
More Information