The 3 Vital Elements of Successful B2B Direct Mail, Part 2 Your Offer

Posted: January 21st, 2011 by Suzanne Stock 0

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You can have the best data and creative in the world, but without an effective offer your mailing is destined to underperform.

So what makes for an effective offer?

First you must bear in mind that a successful B2B marketing offer can be a lot harder to achieve than one aimed at consumers. B2B decision-making processes are typically more complicated and decisions are seldom made on the spur of the moment.

You may be selling a great product or service at an amazing price. But presuming that people will be persuaded to buy or switch suppliers on this basis alone can be a serious mistake, as many fledgling marketers find out at their expense. 

Of course, most business buyers are hard-wired to save money, but they seldom buy on price alone. There are very often other factors at play, such as customer service, supplier loyalty, brand familiarity, reliability, spare parts, hidden charges, suspicion of the unknown, etc. The list goes on. These are all variables that can be difficult to overcome on the strength of a single mailing, especially if you are selling big ticket items with complex buying cycles.  

Before you can be considered as a serious contender, you will need to engender trust. In such circumstances, it is important that you look towards building a relationship – if only subconsciously. This involves sending your prospects a series of phased communications over a sustained period, each time coming from a subtly different perspective, while all the time driving home your offer. If your offer is properly researched, the enquiries will begin to happen. 

Another way  of kick-starting relationships is to offer your prospects a free white paper, technical report, etc, (downloadable from your website) in exchange for signing up to a mailing list, newsletter, blog, etc. This can be a very effective way of persuading people to engage with you over the long term. But bear in mind that what you are offering must be of pinpoint relevance, of excellent quality and be perceived by the recipient as being of genuine value to their cause, otherwise they will feel cheated and the exercise will work against you.    

The irresistible offer

If your B2B product or service is relatively inexpensive and you’re going for the instant sell, then your aim should be to make your offer so compelling that people would be silly to not take you up on it –in other words, you make it irresistible. 

An irresistible offer doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. In fact, the simpler it is the more effective it will be.  For example, none of us can resist an old-fashioned money-saving two-for-one offer or an outstanding ‘no-brainer’ bargain.  B2B marketers frequently use this strategy as a hook to entice people to pull out their credit cards. It’s known as the loss leader principle, and, with a little imagination, it may be adapted to virtually any type of product or service. OK, you may lose money on the initial deal, but, if you’re doing your marketing right – i.e. cross-selling, up-selling, etc – once you’ve broken through the trust barrier, a predictable percentage of these customers will go on to spend more money.  Like so many aspects of marketing, once you get your offer right it becomes a numbers game.  

The main thing to remember is that, whatever your offer, it must be based on an intimate knowledge of your marketplace. What buying hooks are your prospects likely to respond to?  If you’re unsure, it’s vital that you do some research and try testing your offer before you roll out your main campaign. Don’t just presume, test!  

Next time – part 3: Your Creative