I remember when I was younger, I ran another small company that dealt with the restaurant and hospitality industry.
I struggled pretty hard to get my first few customers. I tried going door to door, shaking hands…. but it didn’t get me anywhere.
It just so happened that these industries were heavily marketed-to. Because of this, all of my potential customers had gatekeepers that would prevent me from even presenting my value proposition to the key decision-maker.
So then I changed my approach and started writing letters. I put together some short 1-pagers introducing myself and my services. Noting!
Then I started reading about marketing and sales. And as many marketing books have said before, this one suggested sending an introductory offer to my prospects. Today, I look back on this and think it’s so obvious.
But at the time, I was young and inexperienced… so this was like an epiphany from the heavens for me.
So I got very ambitious and decided to offer to work 1 week for free! Who could resist that? Even if nothing came out of it, at least I would make connections and gain experience. And who in the world could turn down FREE?
I thought I had found the Holy Grail.
I bought the finest paper, and hand-wrote the letters to my top-10 prospects. I made sure to do everything as perfectly as possible, paying attention to every minute detail.
Nothing! Not a single nibble. I was just beside myself.
Who could possibly turn down FREE? So I called each prospect to follow up. Because of the gatekeepers, I was only able to get a response from one manager who said that they had gotten the letter and would “think” about my offer.
What is there to think about? It’s free?
That’s when a business-savvy friend of mine gave me some advice. He suggested adding an expiry date to the offers. But the expiry dates should be no longer than 1 week from the date the letters were received.
At this point, I was feeling pretty defeated. I was ready to try almost anything. So I tried another list of 10 prospects, and sent out 10 more letters (printed via computer) with the short expiry date. I wasn’t really expecting any results.
To my surprise, I got 3 responses. This totally changed the way I look at human behaviour.
This is when I saw that people only appreciate something if
- They have to make an effort to get it
- You threaten to take it away
In other words, the value of anything is what you have to give up in order to get it.
This is why infomercials always end with something along the lines of “and if you order within the next 20 minutes, you’ll get a free puppy shaver” This is a compelling call to action that has a pain motivator for people that want to hold off until later before making a decision.
So how does this relate to coupons in general?
Most coupons you’ll see in the papers have an expiry date of about 1 year after publication. If they would just set the expiry dates at 1 or 2 weeks after publication, they would probably see a much higher ROI on their efforts.
Think about this next time you’re sending out lead-generation material or advertising a new offering.
Human nature is really funny sometimes.