Let’s say you create stellar content that is valuable and relevant to your customer base. You have a broad audience you know is interested. Most importantly, your product is reliably great and well worth the price you’re offering it for.
So, what’s stopping people from actually making the purchase?
Even if you have all your boxes checked, it can still be tough to stand out. The market is full of small businesses run by smart entrepreneurs who are creating the right kind of content that will appeal to their audience (aka their potential customers). But when everyone is fighting for attention, it can feel like nobody ends up getting attention. This is the big challenge faced by content creators in today’s online market.
Even though it can feel like nobody is getting the attention they deserve, that’s not exactly true—the people getting the attention (i.e. making sales) are those who have an unbeatable offer. This offer is what will take their audience from saying, “Well, maybe,” to saying, “Oh, YES.”
You might be thinking that putting an unbeatable offer out there for your customers is an unfair expectation. You’ve already established your product is pretty fairly worth its price. It would almost be unfair to you as the seller to offer it for any less, or so you’re thinking right now.
An unbeatable offer, however, isn’t about offering your product for less than it’s worth. Instead, an unbeatable offer is about making a customer feel as if they have a great opportunity they don’t want to pass up. They don’t necessarily have to save all that much money or get that much more value on top of what you normally offer—they just have to feel as if they are!
When you make your customer feel excitement about this kind of opportunity, they go from being merely interested in your content to being confident in making that investment in what you do.
Understanding the Fundamentals of Content Marketing
All of marketing is about building up to that sales pitch to your customers. If you’re going along with the wisdom we’re trying to express in this blog post, you’ll be including an unbeatable offer as part of that sales pitch. But before you do any of that, your strategy is going to start with content marketing.
To set up your sales pitch via content marketing, it’s important to understand two important factors: the role of content marketing and, of course, your target audience.
The Role of Content Marketing
The thing that’s so great about content marketing is that it doesn’t feel like marketing to the consumer. You’re providing them with content—whether it’s photos, videos, a blog post, or an educational course—that they find interesting and engaging.
Because that’s why people are online in the first place, right? They want to be entertained. They might even want to learn something. But they definitely don’t want to come online and be sold to. So if you want to get their attention, you have to give them content that they enjoy.
Content marketing gets their attention, but it does something else important as well. It makes your brand memorable to them, what many people refer to as “building brand awareness.” It also demonstrates that you’re an expert in your field and makes you somebody they can trust.
Target Audience Analysis
Doing content marketing right is all about knowing your audience. How can you be expected to create the kind of content they like if you don’t know who they are first? Take some time to do an analysis of your target audience—demographics, interests, disposable income, and time they’re most active online.
When you’re ready to go deeper, you can ask yourself what pain points they have and what wants or needs you will fulfill. The more specifically and directly your content can speak to your audience, the more likely it is that they will respond to it.
Defining an Unbeatable Offer
Next comes the slightly more challenging part. It’s easy enough for you to create content that your audience will want to consume. But then as soon as you start pitching something they have to spend money on, they might be inclined to nope out of there. It’s not that they don’t like what you have to offer—it’s just they aren’t inclined to spend money so freely.
But then they realize they have an opportunity that isn’t going to last forever. They need to act now or they might miss out.
This is the power of an unbeatable offer.
What is an Unbeatable Offer?
When you hear the term “unbeatable offer,” you might be thinking that this is some outrageous discount. While a discount like 50% off could definitely be considered unbeatable, you don’t need to go that far. Instead, if you want to get those lead conversions, you just have to make it feel as if they’re getting something special.
That doesn’t even have to be a discount. It could be value added in the form of a discount for a future purchase, or it could be a small freebie of some kind, such as a sample of a future product. To be unbeatable, an offer should have:
- Value—something that makes it appealing to your leads
- Relevance—something that is specific to them and what they want
- Uniqueness—something that they won’t get anywhere else
The reason that marketing sometimes flops is because a lead thinks to themselves, “Well, if I want this later, I can always come back.” An unbeatable offer makes them realize this same opportunity won’t be around forever. If they come back later, they might not get the extra value added!
This is why there’s a strong connection between an unbeatable offer and enhanced lead conversions. When there’s a reason to act now or miss out, your customers are inclined to make their move.
Leveraging Social Hooks
Even though your unbeatable offer is what comes in at the end and seals the deal, don’t overlook the importance of getting your audience’s attention right from the start. This is what we refer to as the hook in marketing—or the social hook, in terms of social media marketing.
Social hooks are what get people to stop their scroll through the never-ending content on social media. Social hooks make your audience stop and pay attention to you. But they can’t be outrageous or sensational without merit—they need to tie back to what it is that you’re offering.
You can use social hooks to tap into your audience’s pain points or their wants. Pique their curiosity. Get them excited. Once you’ve put them in that mindset, it’s easier to open them up to the unbeatable offer you’re going to make that ties back to what hooked their attention in the first place.
Need some ideas for social hooks? We have just what you need. Our list of 100 Scroll-Stopping Social Hooks for Course Creators gives you all the ideas you need to capture people’s attention and open them up to what you’re offering.
Using this Strategy to Craft Your Own Unbeatable Offers
We’ve established what an unbeatable offer is—at least, we’ve explained what it is in theory. But it’s always easier to understand the effectiveness when you put it into practical action. So, let’s go through how you, as a content creator, can actually go about crafting your unbeatable offer.
Here’s the strategy you can follow:
Research and Insights
Start by understanding your audience’s pain points. What are their fears? What’s at stake if they don’t get what they want or need? Crafting a customer avatar—a profile of a person who exemplifies who you think is most likely to buy your product and get the most value from it—will help you target a content strategy as specifically as you can.
You can do research by looking at testimonials or engaging with your audience on social media. Look at who is engaging with you and what concerns they are expressing in their comments and messages. You can also look at the people who are engaging with competitors in your field, as your customer bases likely have a lot of the same overlap.
Value Proposition Development
The next step is to figure out how you’re going to make your product appealing to that target customer. You want to clearly articulate the problem your product solves, as well as any unique selling points that make you different from your competition. Make sure your message is clear and concise—remember that a confused mind always says no.
The best value propositions are the ones that focus on benefits as well as features. Although features are tangible aspects of your product, benefits are the ways that they make life better for your customer.
The benefit that course creators have here is that, in the case of their content, the value they are offering is knowledge. You want to educate your audience. You’ll pitch your product or service to them later, emphasizing the way it can complement the knowledge they’ve acquired with your course. But from the get-go, what you’re offering is undeniably valuable: You’re giving them industry insight.
Then when you conclude your course with the chance to gain something further (via your product) and that value added is available only there and then, your audience will be more inclined to take advantage of it.
You win because your customer wins—they’re getting something they understand that they want and need.
Creating Irresistible Content
Now’s the time to express that value to that target audience. You need to create engaging content for social media that will draw your target audience in and help them understand that you know what problems they have, you empathize with their problems, and your product exists to solve their problems.
Social media exists to build connections, and your brand’s relationship with your customer is no exception. Although this is not a connection between two friends or acquaintances, it’s still a connection where two parties (you and your potential customer) feel united by the same priorities and interests. Hence why it is so important you align your content with your audience as specifically as possible.
Of course, the quality of your content matters. This gives you the professionalism factor, which increases your audience’s perception of your authority. And when you encourage engagement, such as by asking questions or prompting discussion, you’re letting your audience feel as if they relate to you the same way they relate to a friend.
Now they like and trust you. They see you as an expert in your field who understands their problems. You have a product that could solve a problem they have—a problem that you, of course, understand.
The only thing that’s left is for you to give them a reason to take advantage of what you have to offer now instead of waiting for later—an unbeatable offer that provides added value for a limited time.
Put This Plan Into Action
We know you put a lot of time and energy into creating content you expect will resonate with your followers and increase brand awareness. That’s great—and it’s an important part of generating leads. But all these new leads won’t do you any good unless you can convert them to customers. The more, the better!
By implementing the lessons from this blog post and adding a valuable offer onto the content you’re already using to connect with your audience, our expectation is that you’ll start seeing it reflect in your sales. An unbeatable offer is what takes your content from being merely entertaining to being an irresistible investment worth their immediate action.
If you’ve already got a process in place, it’s smart to evaluate it and ask yourself where it’s strong—and where it can be improved. Did you know we offer a free marketing audit, so you can pinpoint any holes in your funnel or where you might be losing people before you make the official pitch? (Yes, it’s free!) Go ahead and check it out today to see how our team at Till can help you.
