In the marketing world, offers are the key lead generation. Without them, you have no way to convert site visitors into leads. They are also a critical tool for nurturing existing leads to the point of purchase. So, how do you create an offer, and what makes a good one? A good marketing offer is too good for an Internet user to pass up.
It is, literally, an offer they can’t refuse. So how can you create an offer that your prospects won’t refuse? Here’s how you do it.
 

Identify the Needs of Your Target Audience with Buyer Personas

This is the image or personality of your best prospects. Developing personas makes it easier for you to know how to reach them and how to create an offer they can’t refuse. How do you develop a persona or profile for your target market?
If you are just starting your business you need to first define the problems and the goals your prospects experience. Understanding their challenges and goals allows you to provide the solution to help them. If you have been in business for a while, you should already have this information.
Of course, your ideal clients are not just one persona; you will likely have 3 or 4, or even more, different personas. Here is where you can start. Let’s say your product or service is aimed at working moms of young children. You should look deeper.

• Working moms that work from home
• Working moms with infants
• Working moms with toddlers or school age children
• Working single moms
• Working moms in management positions

Now you have five different specific personas that will each have different challenges and goals. So, you should create five different marketing strategies to target each persona and their different needs. You will need to create an offer for each strategy and persona that appeals to where they have a need.
 

Create an Offer that is Valuable to Your Target Audience 

The basic formula is this: if you require a site visitor to complete a form in order to obtain your offer, the value of that offer needs to be compelling enough to convince them to fill out the form. Internet users don’t just pass out their contact information to anyone. And your lead-capture form creates a point of tension. They must decide if the offer is worth surrendering their contact information.
Cheap, mediocre offers will not only cause users to pass your offer by, but it will give your business the reputation of devaluing consumers by offering crap offers. You seriously don’t what that reputation.
An offer is valuable if it addresses the problems, needs, or interests of your target audience. This value could also mean different things for offers used in different stages of the sales process.
In one of the sample buyer personas above, working single moms, this consumer is a one-person-show. They work a full-time job to support themselves and at least one child, and typically receive little support from anyone else. They may be on some form of government assistance like food stamps and free school lunches for their children.
What is a need this consumer has that you can meet with an offer?

• Free samples
• Free trials
• Something to help kids with homework
• Something to make household chores easier
• Something to make the family/home safer
• Something mom can do to supplement her income
• Something mom can do to save money

The list could go on and on. The key is to discover where this working single mom has the greatest itch that relates to your industry, then create an offer to scratch it.
 

Beginning Steps to Create an Offer

Here’s an exercise that will help you put together the offer your audience won’t be able to refuse.
Spell out the Basics:

• What are you offering? _______
• How much does it cost? _______
• Who are your target buyer personas for this offer? ________

Outline the Benefits:

• The primary benefit is ________
• An important secondary benefit is ________

Identify any possible Objections:

• What are the main objections to the offer?
• How will you counter these objections?

Come up with ways to make the offer Urgent:

• Why should someone buy this now?
• What can I add to make this offer even more compelling?

Creating compelling offers for your marketing campaigns takes research and work, but it isn’t rocket science. With some experimentation and testing, you should be able to create an offer for each buyer persona in your target audience that will boost sales considerably.
How have you crafted previous offers to generate leads? How has that method worked? Our readers would appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Why not share them in the comments below.