This is in the days of Videos, not DVDs. This man sold vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. I’ve seen this idea work with both..but let’s take the air purifiers.
He would put an ad in the newspaper describing how the indoor air pollution was up to five times as bad as the outside air pollution. He offered a free video, and gave that video a value of $89.95
the ad said something like “Stop in to pick up your free video “How To Instantly Make Your Indoor Air Clean And So Fresh It Will Make Your Nostrils Tingle!”.
His first few ads said that he would mail them the video. He did, and nobody that received the video came in the store. Something was wrong. Eventually he realized that the video was answering the consumer’s questions, and there was no need to come in the store.
So here is the brainstorm; He said, in the ad, to come in the store and pick up the video.
Of course, the only people coming in to pick up the video were people who were interested in how to clean their indoor air. These were people who had a problem, usually pet or smoke odors, and wanted their problem solved as soon as possible.
So they came in to pick up the video. The salesman (sometimes me) told them that they could have the video, but could we ask a couple of quick questions first. The answer was always “Yes”.
You see, nobody really came in because what they wanted was another video. What they wanted was to solve their problem. So we would find it very easy to simply anser their questions, find the right solution for them, and send the best product home with them for a no risk two week trial.
Id the air purifier wasn’t everything they wanted, they could return it within two weeks for a complete refund. Seventy five percent of the people kept the air purifier.
But they wouldn’t have come in the store unless we offered the free video.
Of course, if they asked, we gave them the video...whether they bought from us or not. They were duplicated in quantity for less than $2.00 each.
We ran the same ad, offering the free video, for over a year. It was the single most profitable marketing idea that we implemented that year.
So the formula is: Offer a free DVD (now) on a problem that really bothers some of your local market. Make sure you sell a great solution to that problem. Make sure they have to come in to get the DVD. You can also deliver the DVD. But never mail it, or you will lose the customer.
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