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The Piggyback Technique For Getting More Sales
The Piggyback technique is a method that I've used for a number of years that works brilliantly well to get more sales from emails, blog posts and other marketing approaches.
It works by “piggybacking” your marketing and sales messages on the back of content emails, videos, blog posts or even transactional emails.
In the video I give a number of examples of how to do this so that your marketing gets noticed.
One tool for piggybacking marketing messages in transactional emais that I've started using is Receiptful. Well worth checking out.
Video Transcript
Hi, it's Ian here. Welcome to another 5 Minute Marketing Tip. This week's tip is about the mysterious piggyback technique. I'll tell you all about it after the break.
Hi, welcome back. We're in a different venue this week. We're visiting my parents at the minute, but that's not going to stop me sharing another 5 Minute Marketing Tip. This week's tip is all about the piggyback technique. It's something I've been using for a good few years now, and I've found it a very, very powerful way to get more sales. The essence of the technique is, that rather than having separate sales messages, so for example, if you were to send out a pure sales email or a pure sales letter, the trouble with that is that many people are so used to getting sales letters and things like that that they begin to put up their shields and not pay attention to anything that looks like it's overt sales or marketing. With the piggyback technique, what you're doing is you're piggybacking your sales message on the back of a piece of content that they do want to read.
Very often from me, you'll see a content email, and at the end of the content email, there's just a quick sales pitch or sales message about something that’s a logical progression from what was in the content. For example, if you were a LinkedIn trainer, what you might do is do a tip on improving your LinkedIn profile or your usage of LinkedIn groups. Then the end of that email, that one tip, you say, “If you'd like to get better results from LinkedIn, then click here for my LinkedIn training course, or call me for this program,” etc. The sales message is logically linked to what you shared in the email, but it's got 2 advantages.
Firstly, because you shared content first before going into the sales message, it means you can do a lot more of them. It's kind of a drip, drip, drip effect. If you tried to send a sales message email every day, people would pretty soon unsubscribe, but you can send a content email every day with a little sales message at the end. Secondly, because the sales message comes after you just delivered some great value through the tip, people haven't put up their barriers. In fact, they're kind of thinking, “You know what, that was quite useful. Maybe I do want to find out more, and maybe I do want to get some of these extra, more in-depth useful information and training.”
A piggyback like that works really well in a content email. Also works well in different circumstances. For example, if you do a content video, so you might send an email or just publish a content video on your blog, but then at the end of the video, then you have a sales message. I do that quite often. If I'm doing a survey, for example, after people have completed the survey, they'll often get a sales message about an offer I'm making, usually a good deal on that offer as a way of saying thank you for completing the survey. Or when I send out the results from the survey, at the end of the video sharing the results from the survey, I'll also make an offer. I'll have a sales message related to what I shared in the survey. Again, usually a next step and something bigger. Lots of different ways you can use the piggyback technique.
A really underutilized way, it's well worth looking into, is with transactional emails. According to Experian, transactional emails, like receipts and invoices and shipping notices, those sort of emails get an open rate that's 4 to 8 times as high as normal marketing emails. Basically, transactional emails always get opened. Why not add at the bottom of your transactional email, after they've seen their receipt, et cetera, some kind of sales message? Now that might be just a link to your latest blog post or something like that to get people back and consuming the content, or it could be notification of a new product you're releasing or something like that.
It'll get read because the email is being read a lot, and again, it'll pass under the radar screen because the email isn't all about the sales message. The first message of the email is about the receipt, and then you're piggybacking on that with a sales message. Now you don't want to make it too overt. People don't want their receipts to be filled and plastered and completely dominated by the sales message, but a simple promotion of a new product or something good for them at the end of a transaction email will work really well.
Now I'm sure you can think of lots of different ways yourself. The key thing to think is, what am I already sending people that they would want to open, like a content email or a transactional email, or a blog post or whatever it might be. How can I piggyback on that with a relevant sales message that will lead people logically to the conclusion, or some of them at least, that yes, they do want this? Do that. Sure you'll have good results with it. Cheers.
Ian Brodie
https://www.ianbrodie.comIan Brodie is the best-selling author of Email Persuasion and the creator of Unsnooze Your Inbox - *the* guide to crafting engaging emails and newsletters that captivate your audience, build authority and generate more sales.