books &mark joyner &viral marketing Martin Lee on 09 Jul 2007 11:54 am
The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner
I just finished reading a book The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less
Here are some key points that I have extracted from the book.
The core imperative of business is your offer.
When you make an offer, you don’t want to make just an ordinary offer. You want to make The Irresistible Offer.
To do that, you have to answer four questions in the prospect’s mind:
1) What are you trying to sell me?
2) How much?
3) Why should I believe you?
4) What’s in it for me?
The first three appeal to the buyer’s logic while the last question goes to his emotions. These are addressed through three key elements:
1) A high ROI offer
Even if you employ all the sales tactics and gimmicks in the world to get a buyer, you will end up with a very disatisfied customer if your product sucks. It is no longer sufficient to “sell the sizzle without the steak“.
2) A Touchstone
A touchstone is a simple statement of clarity that addresses as many of the four questions mentioned above as possible. Some examples (Are you able to guess where they came from?):
“Pizza hot and fresh to your door in 30 minutes or less or it’s free”
“10 CDs for 1 Cent”
“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight“.
3) Believability
What you promise has to be believable. For example, if you hype up your offer and then give a tremendous discount, people will get suspicious.
The process does not end after you have created your irresistible offer. Mark talks about The Great Formula, having which you can have business success.
1) Create the irresistible offer.
2) Present it to a thirsty crowd.
3) Sell them a second glass. This is where you will make most of your profits. Upsells, cross-sells, follow-ups and continuity programs.
Mark Joyner then mentions about the use of offer intensifiers to boost your offer’s effectiveness. These can be done through the use of urgency, added value (or bonuses), risk reversal, scarcity, pricing tricks, uniqueness, brand value and recommendations.
About twenty-five percent of the book is devoted to the topic of viral marketing. Think about it. If you can create “The Irresistible Offer“, you can certainty get many people to talk about you!
The viral marketing model can be summed up as follows:
The Frame -> Entry Point -> Sign Up -> Target Behaviour -> Training -> Transmission -> Repeat
In conclusion, I can say that this is a pretty decent book.
If you do not currently have a well defined offer and a touchstone that conveys it’s message clearly, perhaps it is time to develop one for your business.
on 11 Jul 2007 at 11:30 am 1.Paul said …
I haven;t read the Irresistible Offer but I did read The Grat Formula and there’s a lot of words to cimmunicate the simple concept that you put across so concisely in your article Mark
on 11 Jul 2007 at 11:35 am 2.Martin Lee said …
Hi Paul,
I did read a reader’s review on Amazon and he mentioned that “The Irresistible Offer” was very similar to “The Great Formula”.
Something like a rehash of a concept stated from a different frame.
on 13 Jul 2007 at 7:52 am 3.Matt Hegedus said …
I love the brevity! Thank you very much.
Matt Hegedus
on 13 Jul 2007 at 12:08 pm 4.Martin Lee said …
Hi Matt, you are most welcome!
on 12 Sep 2007 at 1:51 am 5.Ben said …
It seems a good example of the Great Formula in action is Mark’s Simpleology. After he creates the irresistible offer with a free Simpleology 101, he then sells a second and third glass with Simpleology 102 and 103.
on 12 Sep 2007 at 2:27 am 6.Martin Lee said …
Hi Ben,
Yes, I agree. In that aspect, Mark certainly practices what he preaches!
on 12 Sep 2007 at 11:28 am 7.Kenneth Kwan said …
Hey, think about it… if you don’t cross sell something that is useful to your clients, eg the 2nd glass, you are actually depriving them of the opportunity to get better value.
on 15 Sep 2007 at 7:21 am 8.Charles Yang said …
Hi Martin, thanks for sharing.
I remember copywriters stressing that the “offer” itself is actually much more important than the salesletter.
on 16 Sep 2007 at 1:40 pm 9.Martin Lee said …
Hi Charles,
Yes, an important part of the salesletter is the offer.
An average salesletter with a incredible offer is likely to do better than a incredible salesletter with a lousy offer.
It all starts from the offer.
on 07 Dec 2007 at 2:41 pm 10.Des said …
Free Gifts. I always try to offer them free gifts. But the idea is to make the free gift or bonus more appealing than the product itself.
on 10 Dec 2007 at 5:16 pm 11.Martin Lee said …
Hi Des,
Yes. Bonuses can greatly enhance the value of the primary offer. In some extreme cases, people make the purchase just to get the bonuses!