Soft-sell offers get a lower conversion rate than other DRTV pitches—about 20 percent. Generally, you want to secure a 50-percent to 85-percent conversion rate on DRTV offers, says Hawthorne. But soft sells can be made to work when the price point is considerably higher than the average DRTV product that falls in the $19.95 to $39.95 range.
4. Free Shipping
Born largely out of the e-commerce arena, free shipping has become a hot button for consumers. This offer can be used successfully to drive fast response, says Perlstein. Since the viewer knows she can go online and find free shipping offers and still not pay sales tax, this approach helps put DRTV offers on a level playing field with promotions in other channels.
5. Upsells
The most dramatic challenge facing the DRTV industry is the rocketing costs of media. Both Hawthorne and Perlstein point to media costs as the reason one-step offers have become nearly extinct in DRTV. When a consumer calls in to order a product from a DRTV spot, she is likely to be solicited to purchase a host of add-on products or upgrade to continuous service.
Hawthorne adds that the need for strong back-end sales puts pressure on marketers to develop DRTV spots that present good deals to allow room for upsells on the phone order.
The key to successful upsells is selecting the right products and offering them in the most effective order. You want to look for products related to the main item promoted in the spot. For example, if you’re selling an exercise videotape, you could offer other tapes in the series or exercise aids, such as balance balls.
The order of the upsells is important, too. The first upsell needs to have the closest tie-in to the main product and should be the most expensive of the upsell items, says Hawthorne. Your take rate should start high on the first item—about 20 percent—and then taper off to anywhere between 5 percent and 15 percent on the following upsells. He adds that the average number of upsell pitches made per customer is between three and four.
Presenting so many add-on offers increases the length of time customers are on the phone with sales reps, say Perlstein, so you want to be careful not to turn a positive response into a negative one with upsell after upsell. He finds that a maximum of three upsells can be pitched without aggravating callers.
But not all upsells have to be products, states Perlstein. Another form of an offer upgrade is to convert a customer from installment billing to a single payment.
And the big kahuna of upgrade offers is to persuade a single-order customer to sign up for a continuity that delivers automatic shipments.
Make your offer sweet enough up front, and the back-end results could produce a continually replenished honey pot.
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