Breaking down relevancy: How marketers can master ‘the offer’

Michael Caccavale is the CEO Pluris Marketing.

In today’s deluge of messaging platforms – digital, direct mail, email, social media, mobile and so on – standing out from the crowd is a challenge that keeps marketers up at night. The playing field is huge, consumers are in the driver’s seat and savvy marketers are constantly iterating their practices to reach consumers in new ways.

And with that, there’s one trick all marketers must continually strive to master: the art of the offer—because if you’re not thinking about the call to action, well, you need to find a new profession.

An offer isn’t just a good deal: It’s a relevant, optimized piece of content that, when presented properly, will get consumed quickly and entirely—and (hopefully) enjoyed so much they’re compelled to share it and broadcast your message for you.

So, how exactly do you wrangle the offer?

Don’t get hung up on the product

Unless you’re still in the R&D phase and you’re planning to introduce a product to market, you shouldn’t be focused solely on broadcasting product messages and product giveaways. The success of your product may not live in the product itself, anyway – you need to have a good means to talk about it.

Try to come up with nontraditional offers that aren’t product-driven, while still resonating with your product market. To that point, note the next tip.

Think outside the box

Try to think outside of self-promotion and offer things consumers need that are associated with your brand.

If you’re a computer security company, maybe you run a fun social media campaign where the prize is a kickboxing class because your computer isn’t the only thing that needs protecting. (That’s a little corny, but you get the point.)

Mix it up

No, this doesn’t mean spray the market with multiple offers and see what sticks. Instead, construct a smart offer mix: look at personas, tweak your tone for different segments, change up your tagline, and so on.

You can package the same offer a number of different ways to speak to different audiences. Do your homework; be strategic; be relevant.

Measure. Measure. Measure.

It’s not simply about campaigns and click-throughs anymore, and it’s not about how many coupon redemptions you tracked. It’s a broad, data-driven look at your offer mix and what’s happening as a result of your delivery strategy. You need to measure, analyze and refocus your marketing efforts constantly via data-driven insights.

Looking at engagement is going to help you measure your relevancy – and help you better understand how to target your key constituents in the future. Need more help? Check out this guide to data analysis and creating conversion funnels.

Now, go forth and master the offer.

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