… continuing on from yesterday, here are 3 more ways to “give with the one hand while holding the other hand ready”:
#4 Take ’em out to a banquet
Claude Hopkins was at it again, selling Cotosuet, the fake butter. This time, he showed up at a client’s doorstep and said, “I’d like to take you to a banquet tonight.” The client pointed to his dusty work clothes and said he wasn’t dressed for a banquet. “No matter, I’m also going in my plain clothes,” Hopkins told him, and whisked the man away to the banquet.
The client had a great time. “Please don’t come to my office on Monday, he begged Hopkins when it was done. “I can’t refuse you anything after tonight and I’m loaded with your product already.”
But come Monday, there was Hopkins again — not to talk about Cotosuet, but about how he could help the client with his regional advertising. Which, incidentally, included buying more wagonloads of Cotosuet.
#5 Take a bet on ’em
I have one more Claude Hopkins story, and if you’re wondering why I keep going back to that guy, it’s because he worked so hard and did so much. In his career, he profitably advertised chicken incubators, automobiles, cough medicines, felt boots, beer, tires, soap, oatmeal, toothpaste, “germicides” (for people, not plants), plus probably a hundred other products.
And each time old Claude had to advertise something, his go-to method would be to offer a free sample — preferably a cut-out newspaper coupon, which could be redeemed for the full-price item at a local grocery store or pharmacy. In other words, the advertiser would actually pay retail to have prospects try the product.
Crazy? Likely to lead to ruin? Not if you think long term, says Claude:
“Try to hedge or protect yourself, and human nature like to circumvent you. But remove all restrictions and say, “We trust you” and human nature likes to justify that trust. All my experience in advertising has shown that in general people are honest.”
#6 Take an interest in ’em first
Zooming forward to 2019, here’s one I saw from email marketer Josh Earl. Josh has his own email list where he talks about marketing and copywriting. But at one point recently, he turned off his automated welcome email that people get first thing when they subscribe.
Instead, Josh goes in, does a bit of Internet sleuthing about the new subscriber based on the email address, and then writes a custom welcome email just to that new subscriber.
Costly? Yes. Not scalable? Yes. Likely to kick off the relationship on a much stronger note? Yes.
And there you go — 6 ways to use the principle of reciprocity in your marketing: give them your trust first. If you take a bit of time and put in a bit of thought, you should be able to apply at least one of these ways to make your current marketing more effective. And a couple of points to wrap it up:
In many of the stories above, the reciprocity happens before (and not instead) of the actual selling job. In other words, after you do something that elicits reciprocity, you don’t talk about your product or ask for the sale. Instead, you say, “I have this plan for how to help your business be more profitable…”
And finally: Don’t get needy. Yes, reciprocity by definition means you are taking the first step. That doesn’t mean you have to become needy — about being liked, about getting a response, about getting the sale, about getting a yes.
Instead, come up with your plan, carry it out, and move on with your life. If it works, great. if it doesn’t, that’s ok, because you now know you should make your great offer to other prospects instead.
And of course, if you want to know about other ways to make your business more profitable or to make more sales, then I have this plan that might help you. It involves writing emails to your prospects and clients along the following lines:
https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/