The travel industry has known for years how effective it is to package up things. In fact I was once the Marketing Manger of a major travel agency network and I saw sales quadruple when I packaged up a series of ordinary holiday offers. You see, one day one of my wholesalers came to me and said that he could provide me with a large volume of return airfares to Bali, 10 nights accommodation plus a free massage per stay. Now the reality was that the cost of providing a free massage would cost this wholesaler about two bucks per customer! A nice offer but by itself it seemed a bit light on. So I said to him how about we provide a massage every second night (5 in total) and also add in a facial or body cleanser…and let’s take it one step further and package it all up as a Our Famous Pamper Pack. Well…history has it that it sold like hot cakes…In fact we ran out of hotel rooms! Plus we went on to create Family Packs, Adventure Packs and Romance Packs…all selling with similar results.
Now there are a couple of reasons why this packaging worked so well. First of all, us humans love buying an experience and that’s what these packages were selling… experiences. By themselves they were simply a list of items – airfare, accommodation and massage – but as a whole and with a fancy name they became so much more.
The second reason for their success lies in the fact that the massage had such a low real cost but a high-perceived value. When we think about a massage we immediately think it’s worth fifty, sixty even a hundred dollars a go. So when you’re receiving five across the course of 10 nights this seems like a great offer.
Packaging up goods or services isn’t the solitary domain of the travel industry…I believe any business can create compelling packages that give their customers an additional reason to buy. Here are some examples:
- A furniture store could create a First Home Buyers Package that for one low price could offer a bed, lounge suite, dining table and chairs plus a coffee table.
- Dry Cleaners could offer the Spring Clean Pack that includes the dry cleaning of all dooners, pillows and blankets for one low price.
- Designers could offer a New Business Starter Kit that includes design of a logo, letterhead, envelopes, with comps slip plus all printing.
One thing to be very mindful of when packaging up your products or services is that customers need to feel that they are saving a good amount of money by purchasing the package versus the individual units.
Now, list at least three reasons why this would be a worthwhile marketing idea for your business.
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And three reasons why it wouldn’t work.
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If it still stacks up, then start your TO DO list to get this idea underway…
That’s it for now. You’ve still got two business building ideas to come over the coming days. And then they all dry up, unless…
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Yours in success…
Tim & Luke
Small Business Big Marketing
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