EPISODE 73 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: SHOULD YOUR RUN A LOW BARRIER TO ENTRY OFFER TO GET MORE CUSTOMERS AND CLIENTS?

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
What do you do when all your competitors have running low barrier to entry offers to the point where heavy discounts become the industry norm and almost a requisite to do business? Do you jump on the bandwagon and join them, even though it means your bottom line takes a hit? Do you even need to offer discount promotions? How can you position your business as a high-end service, thus negating the need for regular discounts and offers? In this solo episode, I take you through the concept and give you my two cents on low barrier to entry offers. I cover why you need to think beyond the basics, the sales psychology behind offering discounts or not offering them, why you need to know your desired outcome and when it's appropriate and sometimes necessary to roll out a low barrier to entry offer.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Welcome to the Boom Your Biz Podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid. Each week, I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
We covered this a little bit in episode 62 of the Boom Your Biz Podcast. If you missed it, here's a quick recap of what a low barrier to entry offer is. The basic premise of a low barrier to entry product is this. A low barrier to entry offer provides a way for customers and potential customers to try a new service or product, or to visit you for the very first time without a huge commitment on their part. When done well, these can be really effective. When done poorly, you can lose a lot of money and also damage your brand reputation. This is why it's important to know your industry, know your ideal customer's perception when it comes to discounts, and to know your desired outcome.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Do you want to attract new customers? Do you want to entice old customers or clients who have dropped off to come back? Are you introducing a new product or service and want to drum up interest? Or are you just doing a low barrier to entry offer because everyone else in your industry does it and you think you need to to compete? It's important to know the why behind your offer so that you can design the entire experience around the next best step for your customers to take. We say low barrier to entries offers work so well in the beauty industry because they offer a service that people will want to have repeated. You don't just go and get your legs waxed once and then never do it again. As my fellow lash lovers agree, it just takes one set of eyelash extensions or one keratin lash lift for you to be hooked and want that result all the time.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
But when does a low barrier to entry offer not work? I believe the most common mistake business owners make when crafting their offer is not having an outcome in mind. If you're doing a deal just because everyone else in your industry is doing a deal, you're more likely to attract the type of customer who jumps from one special offer to the next. If you've worked hard to create and position your brand as premium, discounting can damage your reputation. Think about it. Have you ever seen a high-end fashion brand offer a discount? No. That would damage their brand. The industry that can benefit most from low barrier to entry offers, I would say the beauty industry. The industries where we say low barrier to entries totally flop, also in the beauty industry.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
We've worked with high-end beauty businesses who are keen on offering a low barrier to entry offer in the form of an incredibly cheap facial. This unfortunately didn't translate for them as the people who were attracted by the offer weren't able to afford to continue to visit for treatments unless they were heavily discounted or complimentary. In this case, the businesses didn't have their ideal client at the front of mind when they designed their offer, and they weren't thinking longterm with growth of their qualified customer base. A better option in this case was to offer a skin consultation with one of their experts, redeemable of the price for the next treatment or any products purchased. The ironic thing, the skin consultation wasn't free nor was it discounted.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
This allowed our client to draw in new customers. It absolutely wow them within knowledge and expertise and gently guide them towards the next best step. In this case, a booking in for a series of treatments or purchasing a product. If customers weren't qualified to purchase, our client didn't lose money on the skin consultation, and if they did purchase, the customer was then one step closer to becoming a regular or repeat customer. We've also seen businesses in other industries choose not to discount and do it in a way that actually adds value rather than giving the perception of good value through a lower price point.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Anyone who knows me and my team well knows that we are massive fans of Your CEO Mentor, their leadership beyond the theory program and the people behind the brand, Em, Marty and Tash. What I love about Your CEO Mentor is that they have a premium product, a really strong sales funnel, and they know their worth. They give tons of value in the form of free downloadables with almost every podcast episode, run virtual events, and by the time someone actually gets to purchasing the program, they've given so much value that the sale is a no-brainer.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
In the beauty industry, a simple value add doesn't cost you any extra and adds huge perceived value. It could be to include a quick LED session at the end of a treatment package. From a customer's perspective, it feels amazing. From a practitioner's point of view, that's time you can spend grabbing fresh towels and anything else you may need for the next client. From the business owner's perspective, that's a no-cost win-win. If you know your desired outcome from the get go, you can design the whole experience around that desired outcome. It's important to highlight here how much you need a solid sales and nurturing strategy in place before you run this kind of offer. Your team need to be trained across the numbers in terms of margins, targets, and they need to have that upsells down path.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Everyone on your team needs to understand the clear pathway from initial inquiry through to customer buy-in and customer loyalty. Here's another example for you. Say you're a personal trainer. Your desired outcome might be to funnel people into your 12 week body transformation program. You might offer a free outdoor group training session to women in your local area. Your desired outcome may be to get at least two participants to sign up to your program. Once you know your outcome, you can map out the customer journey and be really strategic about how you funnel them from the introductory session through to your program. You know how to mention your 12 week body transformation program by name, talk about how long it takes to see results, and mention that people who train in groups and have accountability get better results than those who go it alone.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
If however your goal is to get more clients and you offer a range of services from nutrition, coaching, to one-on-one sessions, to your 12 week program, the lack of logical next best step makes it harder to get your potential clients from where they are to where you want them to be. Bear in mind that your low barrier to entry offer is not going to convert every time. But when you have that clear strategy in place, it's easy to pinpoint the one or two things you could've done differently in order to make it work. If you're winging it, there's less opportunity to learn for next time. I see this in so many forms of marketing, not just low barrier to entry offers.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
It's all well and good to focus on the front end, that is getting people through the doors. But if you're not supporting your offer with a solid structure and some bigger picture thinking, it's like trying to build a house without a solid framework. Your low barrier to entry offer is the front door. You can paint it to look pretty. It gets people in. But at the end of the day, it doesn't do much to support your business' actual stress. If you don't have a solid strategy in place, you may feel like you're constantly jumping from promo to promo, which in my opinion is the fastest path to burnout and staff turnover. There's a frantic, almost desperate energy to running constant sales and promotions that you just don't see in premium and high-end businesses.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
Discounts are what we call push marketing. They push customers towards a certain offer. Push marketing certainly has its place, but you may need to make sure to balance out your push marketing with some pull. Pull marketing is where you meet your client in the space where they're searching for what you have. The best example of that would be Google ads. By retargeting people who've visited your website previously or have entered search terms that match what you have to offer, you're able to position yourself in front of potential customers that are actually likely to convert to a sale much more easily than if you run generic ads elsewhere.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
85 to 90% of people who land on a website will not make a booking or inquiry the first time they land. That's why it's important to have your pixel set up in order to capture their information and be able to retarget them on social media and also Google. This is where your low barrier to entry offer can work, following them around so that they can see it everywhere and they get that repetition and brand awareness piece that is so important when it comes to converting a cold or lukewarm audience. When it comes to creating low barrier to entry offers, you really need to have that customer journey mapped out and you need to be really clear about what comes next. Being vague is the worst puzzle thing you can do here.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
One thing to bear in mind is that when it comes to discounting and special offers, is that there's always going to be a percentage of people who take you up on your offer who are just bargain hunters. They may even be regulars. They take advantage of every offer you have going, but don't make the mistake of thinking that being a regular customer makes someone a loyal customer. In fact, the clients who take advantage of every special offer you present them are likely to be shopping around for everybody's special offers. While this isn't always a bad thing, it's important to bear in mind that the point of a low barrier to entry offer is to eventually have your clients paying full price for your products and services.

Sonya McIntyre-Reid:
So to recap, if you're thinking about running a low barrier to entry offer, it's important to note A, why you're doing it, B, how it fits into your overall sales and marketing strategy, C, if it's consistent with your brand, and D, what the customer journey looks like from the initial offer through to reaching your goal. I'm also going to chuck in there that it's also important to balance those push marketing offers with the pull marketing. I used social media, as an example in there. PR is also a fantastic example of that pull marketing. The real beauty in a low barrier to entry offer is what you do after you get the customer in the door. There's a lot of potential here to turn your customers into raving fans. But as with all things marketing, it comes down to designing that customer journey and nailing the customer experience.