There is no rule about whether you make single or multiple offers. If you walk into a shop, you expect multiple offers. There may be a few shops that sell only one thing but I can’t think of any examples. A shop that sells only cupcakes, will have many varieties of cupcake and it may be academic whether some lines are really cupcakes. (Giant cupcakes are cakes, surely?)
It’s hard to make a single offer with no variations or alternatives. Getting it out there may be all you need to find inspiration for variations.
Let’s say you’re a training agency and you have offered a course successfully for several years. Demand has stayed constant and whilst the course itself has evolved, there has been no need to develop an alternative.
You find your profit margins fall, even though participation in the course remains constant. You have increased fees but fear further increases might reduce sales. Here are few things you might consider.
Context
Are there ways to extend and develop the course that were not available to you at the start? Your context will have changed over the years in at least two ways:
- Your success will mean you are likely to be surrounded by experienced people, loads of course materials and a network of supportive past students. These may help generate new ideas and so long as your organisation is able to implement them, you may find it easy to generate new options.
- The wider context has changed. For example, new technologies make online courses a possibility for every organisation.
Probably most training agencies get stuck, not so much by offering only one course, as providing only one type of course, eg at a certain academic level or committed to face-to-face courses and so resisting online courses.
A well-known tool which can help organisations find new directions is the SWOT analysis.
Demand
Demand, although part of your context, deserves its own heading. Listening to what prospective students ask for may be a valuable insight into alternative offers. There are two main sources for this information:
- Current and past students may request further courses. They might ask to explore a topic in greater academic depth, seek to develop their knowledge in related areas or seek support as they apply what they learn in their own contexts.
- People who have considered the existing course and decided it is not right for them may still be looking for something you could supply. If you can find out what they want, they may sign up for an alternative course.
Of course, all successful businesses need to be in touch with and listen to their markets and this is why most businesses offer more than one option.
Sales Funnels
Multiple offers may play various roles in an organisation’s sales funnel as:
- Incentives for interested people to sign up and maintain contact. A sample of the course content, given away when visitors subscribe offers a taste of your course and subscribers add their email addresses to an email list of prospects. Incentives might be an ebook, an email sequence or a report. They can also be video or audio recordings.
- A training agency selling a high-end course may find some customers need more elementary courses to prepare for it. With academic courses, people may be permitted to take part only if they have completed a more elementary course. Providing elementary courses means you have a pool of students to consider advanced courses with you.
- An upsell, is where you sell something else as a result of signing up for a course. Sometimes, it is an associated course that will extend the value of the main course. Other times the upsell may be to a more advanced course. This latter option may be offered towards the end of the course, whilst the former may be more useful if offered at the beginning.
Making Choices Between Multiple Offers
If you have the choice between offering one course or several, it is worth considering how you market your offers.
If you offer one course, the customer has two options, take it or leave it. Offer two courses, perhaps at different prices, and the customer is more likely to choose one.
You might have several courses on offer but if you’re able to discuss the customer’s needs, you may be able to narrow down your offer to two options.
Note this cuts across the single versus multiple offers and shows how you can structure your offers to market them. Having just one offer means people can say no (they can always say no of course) whilst several options can be confusing. Narrowing the choice to between two offers, makes a yes more likely because it reduces confusion and tailors the offer to the customer’s needs.
So, the answer to the question: single or multiple offers? Have several but try to simplify the choice for customers. To do this you need several alternatives from which you can select two offers for each customer according to their needs.
How do you structure your offers?