Audio Cassettes as a Premium “Hands up Marketing”
Article by KC Truby
Set your self apart from the competition and increase your marketing response by 45% to 150% by using cassette tapes as a premium.
In my experience two major objectives drive marketing by accountants. First as a group accountants truly wish to help their clients live a more prosperous and rewarding life. Second, accountants want to be seen as someone who does more for their community then just fill out tax returns. When prospects know and understand the higher calling of the Practice Builder accountant it automatically generates a steady flow of quality prospects.
Knowledge Centered Selling by the use of audio cassettes can provide both. The accountant that teaches the prospect how to be more successful will set themselves apart from the “Bean Counters”. The worst mistake an accountant can make in attempting to differentiating themselves in the market is using the clich? “We provide good service” to the prospect this is a meaningless comment. Every one says it. But as Clara used to say “Where’s the beef”
Audio cassettes providing help on cash flow, tax planning, selling at high prices, hiring the right employees and finding new customers are tangible evidence that you are actually helping your clients live a better and more prosperous life
Giving away free audio tapes as a marketing tool truly sets you apart from every one else in the market. The strongest feature of giving away cassettes is the perceived value of cassettes. At Barns & Nobel an audio tape program cost .00 up to several hundred from mail order companies. A FREE offer to provide real answers to real problems gets you noticed.
The most powerful word in marketing is FREE. 2,700 advertising messages reach your prospects every day through newspaper, radio, bill board direct mail and even printed ink pens. But the word FREE will stops a prospect dead in their tracks to review what you are offering. It’s just human nature.
I call this “”Hands up Marketing” a small ad or post card offering the FREE cassette will out pull standard marketing by 45% to 150%. Once a prospect has told you they are looking for solutions, by raising their hand and identifying themselves, the rest of the sale is easy.
Another popular use of free audio tapes is the referral gift. Practice Builders has promoted the idea of the referral gift for years. Cassettes make the perfect gift because they have such a high perceived value yet cost less then .00 in most cases. In the meantime the cassette offers a third party instruction on how to solve the problems that face the very people who you wish to help.
You can create your own audio tapes by writing the lessons you have observed from your own clients. The most effective cassettes are done in a story fashion. Take the information that your clients need and tell about your personal experiences regarding the solutions. Recording a cassette is actually pretty easy compared to video taping. In video you have to compete with Television producers who spend hundreds of thousands per hour to create top notch programming. In audio, you only have to compete with Howard Stern.
You may also wish to use cassettes that someone else has created. In the last several years I have sold over 1,000,000 cassettes to accountants across the country. They buy the tapes for 99 cents in large numbers down to .85 in small lots. The accountants’ then private label the cassettes using Avery label #5198 and their laser printer. By putting your name, firm and phone on the cassette you have created a permeate billboard for your self. Tapes have a tremendous shelf life, many accountants report still having cassettes left over from Woodstock. When Practice builders called me about this article they were looking at a tape that I did in 1991. Five years ago.
500 accountants across the country currently use the Business Builder Training Tapes that I have created. During the past 4 years I have written 48 different tapes covering a wide variety of business problems.
About the Author
Since 1987, KC Truby has taught 16,000 accountants how to find and sell more new business clients. 2,000,000 small business owners have his tapes on sales and cash flow. He was also named one of the “100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Industry”, by Accounting Today magazine.