How Two Companies Use Marketing Premiums to Increase Sales | Ep. 80 | Business Podcast
Summary
Using a marketing premium to increase sales is an old school marketing technique that has just as much power to convert people into customers as it did twenty years ago.
I explain how two companies use premiums successfully, and how one of them got me to buy their subscription product just two weeks ago.
Copy these two examples to increase the sales in your business!
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Hello, friends. Welcome to the show. Today we’re talking about how to use premiums to increase your sales. Welcome to build a business success Secrets. The only podcast that provides straight talk for entrepreneurs. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, starting with an idea or growing your business, this show is for you. We’ll teach you how to build a strong mindset, powerful body and profitable business so you can achieve success. And here’s your host, Brandon. See White. I want to start this episode with a story about Sports Illustrated,
Even if you’re not a sports fan. I know you heard about the magazine in the early 19 nineties, magazines were taking a huge hit to the subscription base, and Sports Illustrated specifically was down about 7% with their subs, and this essentially put them on the verge of bankruptcy. So they had to do something to change that trend and come back and save the magazine.
And what they came up with was a premium, and the premium was the football phone. And if you’re not old enough to remember the football phone, go to YouTube and type in Sports Illustrated football phone commercial, and you will see what they did. Now here’s the even more interesting part about the football phone Is that in those commercials they probably spent 85% of their time talking about the football phone. They didn’t talk about the weekly scores you get.
They didn’t talk about the exclusive interviews. They didn’t talk about the action photos, and they didn’t even talk about their world renowned swimsuit issue. They talked about the football phone and how cool it was and how all your friends would be jealous, that you had the football phone and that you could give Sports Illustrated as a gift. And they would send that person in the football phone and how all their friends would be excited that about the football phone and be jealous and all this crazy stuff.
It’s all about the football phone, and that’s what premiums are there an additional thing that are quote unquote free but really aren’t free because it’s in the price. But you focus on that to sell your main product, and they did it so successfully that they actually net net got a million subscribers, and it totally changed that. Magazines, life and even today, still around in a in a day of the Internet, where magazines have a really tough time of surviving. But that’s what fundamentally changed their entire business.
What got me thinking about premiums recently was an email I received from Phil’s Cookie Fondo. Now you might ask yourself, What is Phil’s Cookie Fondo? Well, Phil was a professional bike rider, and he used to train in Malibu, and a lot of the pros actually train in Europe and in Jonah, Spain is one of the one of the places, and they’d always say, Hey, Phil, you know why you train in the United States in Malibu of all places And he would say, It’s a great place to train.
Well, Phil had a great career in cycling and then retires and wants to do something for the community and comes up with Phil’s cookie Fondo that supports no kid hungry and make sure that kids have food in schools and things like that as a cyclist, cookies or something that you love because they fuel you on these long rides and he puts together this Fondo. And this past year they couldn’t have it because of Covid, and he’s obviously trying to keep momentum going and had a cool little thing. Fondo at home and it was fun. He sends his email and he says, Hey, why don’t you subscribe to a monthly subscription for my cookie mix? But there was a premium, and the premium was a week before Valentine’s Day.
And it’s this neck Gaiter that has little cookies on it with hearts. And I was like, I want that gator and 80% of the whole email Really long form sales letter of what it was was about. The Gator had pictures of the Gator. It talked about the Gator. The first paragraph was, Hey, subscribe to this monthly cookie mix thing for 1995 and the rest of it’s about this gator. Well, I wanted the Gator. I would not have bought the cookie mix subscription, which I will probably forget to cancel. Well, at least that’s what I’m gonna tell my wife because I did cook all the cookies and they’re really good. Uh, I was like, Well, maybe I’ll just let it go for another month, but you see what happens.
You see the psychology here? So I wanted that neck Gaiter, and sure enough, I subscribed and it was the premium. And it just hit me one day because I got that the gator. I was super excited. I put it on, went out and rode my bike, and I was right and I was really thinking like, Why don’t we use premium as much anymore? And and a lot of people do use premiums, but not as much as they used to. And back in the days when it was a lot more direct marketing, direct mail and commercial type things, and the thing about it is the effectiveness of it hasn’t gone away.
I really learned about premiums from a guy who’s a master copywriter named Perry Belcher, who’s a direct marketer, and I He invited me to a workshop in Las Vegas years ago, and it wasn’t really incredible if you ever get a chance to go to that, because copyrighting is as important as almost anything in advertising, and it is important to think about as you have these premiums because you are spending most of your time talking about the premium. But Phil’s Cookie Fondo premium is really what sparked this whole idea of what could we do in our business? what premium could we offer to increase our sales? One thing to remember in this whole idea is that it’s got to be related.
Uh, Gator is related to biking. It protects your neck from the sun. Cyclists always use it in covid used to cover our mouth. I’ve been using a gator here on the Northern California coast, mainly because sometimes gets cold, and I really don’t want a scarf per se because not scarf weather here. But Gator sort of seals that air gap between my jacket and my neck so it relates, just like the football phone relates to sports. It makes sense, so if you can think of something that makes sense, so that’s really what got me thinking about premiums and their effectiveness, and why the heck we’re not using them As much as you start to think about how you can make a premium work in your business, the psychology of the consumer or your potential customer is that they think about the value of that product and that they’re getting this thing of value and that it seems really cheap.
You’re getting a phone and a subscription rate to the Sports Illustrated in In Phil’s case, I think the price point was 1995 a month for the monthly subscription and a Gator cost 1995 retail these days. Now, the real cost of that gator is probably a dollar or less, which is built into that price. And you can build that out in your marketing math so that you know you’re not going to lose money. Think about this whole psychology and how you position it as you come up with your idea and I’ll leave you with the challenge.
Figure out a premium that you can offer your customers and discover how it can increase your sales. Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of Build a Business success Secrets. Before we go, let me ask you a quick question. Are you the type of person who wants to get 100% out of your time? Talent and ideas? If so, you’ll love our monthly Built A Business Success Secrets newsletter. It’s a monthly playbook about the inner game of building a successful business. Recent issues have shown how to avoid losing money on Facebook, and Instagram paid ads with this science backed strategy. How to build a pitch deck to raise money in 13 simple slides.
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