The Follow Up Offer

This is such an effective tactic, and yet I so rarely see it.

It is called the follow up offer and it is so easy to accomplish.

Let me break this down by focusing on a specific scenario. Let us say you have a big special coming up on DVD players. So you get all of your marketing done focusing on this great special. You get a bunch of postcard printing done and send them out to your potential customers telling them about the great deal on your DVD players and encourage them to come in as soon as possible.

So a person comes in and they make their purchase. They walk away with this new DVD player, and when they make their purchase, you ask them if you can get their name and address to send them follow up offers. What do they have to lose? So they give you their name.

Now, before this DVD event even began you actually got two different batches of postcard printing done. The first one was to advertise the DVD player, while the second one was set to be sent out to everyone who made their purchase. This one instead offers them a special sale on the actual DVDs.

You tell them to bring in their receipt and they can get a two for one deal on any DVD they want, or you have a special list set up that offers them different deals on those DVDs. You know they are going to want them because they just bought the DVD player. This is what makes the follow up special so effective, and because it is linked to the original deal, you encourage people to shop with you again.

You are not only getting them to come back into your store, but you are encouraging them to look to you for their DVD needs in the future, as well.

This practice obviously goes well beyond just the example I am giving here. The follow up special is something specifically linked to the original deal. You are telling that that because they chose to accept the first special, they now get an additional special in return.

This shows customers just how much they can save with you, and helps turn what was just a casual customer looking for a good deal into a long term one because they no know what kind of savings they can get if they stick with your company.

You can use the follow up idea on the actual receipts that print out. Encourage them while they are still at your store to turn around and get something else.

The best kind of marketing is the kind that builds on previous marketing pushes. This is the centerpiece of the follow up special. I suggest you take a look at your company and see how you can get something like this to work for you.