When my kids were little, they would crack themselves up by
\npreparing strange concoctions in the kitchen, feeding them to
\nme, and watching me grimace.<\/p>\n
My eyes were closed, so luckily, I never knew what I was about
\nto ingest.<\/p>\n
One time, when it was dog biscuits, I was shocked at how
\nterrible they tasted, despite pictures and copy on the box that
\nmade them look like a gourmet meal at a 5-star restaurant.<\/p>\n
I pondered that dogs were willing to do a lot – come, sit,
\nfetch, roll over, play dead – for really small rewards.<\/p>\n
And then it gradually dawned on me that people are the same way
\n– a fact you can use to good advantage in your marketing.<\/p>\n
Example: back in the 80s, a friend of mine worked at a medical
\nad agency.<\/p>\n
The agency specialized in creating direct mail (DM) that invited
\ndoctors to medical symposia. These seminars were supposed to
\ndeliver content on the treatment of a specific disease, but the
\nbottom-line goal was to promote the sponsor’s drug.<\/p>\n
My friend did an A\/B split test with a DM invitation to a
\nsymposium. The only difference between the test cells was that A
\noffered a free pocket diary as a bonus gift to doctors who
\nattended and B did not offer the premium.<\/p>\n
When the agency mailed the test, mailing A offering the free
\npocket diary generated 6 times more response than mailing B
\nwithout it. We were all amazed because it was a cheap little
\npocket diary that cost the client about a dollar each, and the
\naudience was doctors earning six-figure incomes.<\/p>\n
“Don’t be amazed,” the client told us. “When doctors at our
\nsymposia ask our staff where the pay phone is, nine times out of
\nten they also ask us if we have a quarter they can use to make a
\ncall!” (Remember pay phones?)<\/p>\n
In my first job out of college, I worked in the marketing
\ndepartment for Westinghouse Defense, whose major client was the
\nU.S. military. We were tasked with maintaining a supply cabinet
\nfull of promotional items for Westinghouse salespeople to give
\nto the high-ranking military personnel who were our prospects.<\/p>\n
The most in-demand item was Westinghouse golf tees – plain white
\ntees imprinted with the famous “circle W” Westinghouse logo in
\nblue. The salespeople and their customers were so crazy for free
\ngolf tees we could not keep them in stock.<\/p>\n
People, even wealthy ones, are eager to get free stuff and
\ndiscounts. Recently a new bank opened in the upper-class town
\nnext to ours. They did the usual free balloons and hot dogs for
\nthe grand opening, and their parking lot was packed to
\noverflowing. I love hot dogs, but I’m not going to fight for a
\nparking space to get a free one.<\/p>\n
Any free gift given with inquiry or order is called a “premium.”
\nA “freemium” is a free gift enclosed with the mailing; e.g.,
\nrosary beads or a crucifix enclosed with a Catholic charities
\nfundraising letter.<\/p>\n
A “keeper” is a premium the consumer keeps even if he returns
\nthe product for a refund; e.g. The Folio Society offers a free
\n2-volume book set The Greek Myths when you order the Shorter
\nOxford English Dictionary for $19.95.<\/p>\n
They ship the whole thing when you mail the return coupon from
\ntheir ad; no payment with order is required. If you wish, you
\ncan just pack up and return the Dictionary when it arrives,
\npulling out and keeping The Greek Myths as a totally free gift.<\/p>\n
I know: I’ve done it. A consumer who orders just to get the
\nkeeper premium and then returns the product is known as a
\n“premium bandit.” Some direct marketers identify premium bandits
\nwith a code attached to the record in their database, and do not
\nfulfill the premium bandit’s requests for keeper premiums.<\/p>\n
Premium bandits are not actually thieves because all we are
\ndoing is taking advantage of an offer the marketer willingly
\nmakes.<\/p>\n
The marketer knows in advance that a small percentage of orders
\nwill be from premium bandits, and this is part of their cost of
\ndoing business. “No biggish,” as the kids say.<\/p>\n
I can also tell you that on more than one occasion, I was
\nplanning just on keeping the keeper premium, but when I saw the
\nproduct, I liked it so much that I changed my mind and paid the
\ninvoice.<\/p>\n
The premiums that work best (a) have a high perceived value, (b)
\nare unique, and (c) are relevant to the product.<\/p>\n
A great example is Gevalia Coffee giving away a beautiful
\nhigh-quality coffee maker (I know; we have two) when you signed
\nup for monthly shipments of gourmet flavored coffee. We ordered
\nto get the coffee maker, but the flavors were so good we kept
\nour subscription for a few months, which is what Gevalia was
\nbanking on.<\/p>\n
Action step: think about what items would make good premiums
\ncomplementing your offers. Source these items, incorporate them
\ninto your offer copy, and measure the change in response rate
\nvs. the same offer with no premium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When my kids were little, they would crack themselves up by preparing strange concoctions in the kitchen, feeding them to me, and watching me grimace. My eyes were closed, so luckily, I never knew what I was about to ingest. One time, when it was dog biscuits, I was shocked at how terrible they tasted, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":875,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions\/875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}