Tiffany and Co.’s heart tag bracelet is a staple in the jewelry industry. Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte is synonymous with fall and life’s simple luxuries. The common thread between huge name brands that stay relevant for decades? A top-level signature offer. It can be so much more than a product — from one-to-one coaching sessions to wellness retreats, almost anything can be packaged as your company’s prized must-have. Here’s how to create a signature offer that helps you rise above the competition and smash your financial goals.
How a Top-level Signature Offer Benefits Your Business
Your signature offer is a confidence booster and a surefire way to wow your target audience. It’s like a business card for your business, the big, neon arrow that directs potential clients to your door. If you work in a highly saturated market, it’s the best way to make waves.
Long after you put out your signature offer, you can keep profiting, too. Expect to make tweaks and adjustments as your business and your market evolve, but besides the occasional tune-up, it’s a mint for passive income.
Finally, a successful signature offer also comes with a powerful bonus: word of mouth marketing. The fastest way to gain traction in your business is starting a trend that lets your customers do your promoting for you. You can bet that when a happy client recommends your brand to a family member or friend, your signature offer will be on the tip of their tongue!
7 Components of a Successful Signature Offer
Mapping out your signature offer means planning ahead to determine how it fits into the bigger picture of your business. If you want to create a product or service that helps you surpass six figures, you need to get specific. Here’s what to focus on.
The Definition of Your Purpose
Developing a successful signature offer is easier for brands that have a clear sense of purpose and the legacy they wish to leave behind. When you imagine someone talking about your business 10 to 15 years from today, what do you dream of being known for? Your purpose is the spine of your business; if you don’t know it, finding your niche (and sub-niche) is next to impossible. Without a niche, highly targeted products like these are off the table.
Having a handle on your purpose helps you identify what you’re actually trying to achieve in your business, and how you’re going to achieve it. In other words, it highlights your strengths. And your strengths pave the foundation for your signature offer.
Your Ideal Client Avatar (ICA)
Defining your Ideal Client Avatar (ICA) is the second most important step. You should know exactly who you’re selling to and why they withstand to benefit from your premiere product or service. Creating an ICA is essential to supporting your other products and services, too. (Need some tips on making your ICA profile? We’ve got you covered.)
You likely have other products and services that already solve your ICA’s pain points. That’s a good thing! Your signature offer shouldn’t do the heavy lifting for your brand; it elevates what you already excel in, bundling what you do best into one easily definable object or experience.
Feedback From Old and Current Clients
You might be thinking, it’s easy to email a survey or post a poll on social media to gauge client satisfaction — but what about lost clients? Don’t give up hope: Your former clients may be more receptive than you think. It’s about asking the right questions to the right number of people.
First, if you’re a small business and know you’ve lost fewer than 25 clients, reach out to every single one. If you’ve had thousands of customers come through your doors or virtual check-out line, use this sample size calculator by Check Smart to figure out how many people you need to get in touch with. To get started, Question Pro offers a good free customer loss template.
It’s a win-win: You determine what your signature offer needs to help your business do better, and you build the basis for a win-back campaign.
A Clear Picture of Your Signature Offer’s Value
Dig deeper into the “Why?” behind your best product or service. Why does your business need to provide a stand-out product or service? Why should your customers buy from you? If the only answer you can come up with is “It’s a good deal,” you need to think it over.
In fact, your signature offer should never be a steal compared to what other brands in your industry are selling. Differentiating yourself by knocking a $1K+ off your price tag is guaranteed to make you fail, especially if you serve high-end clients.
Before you release your signature offer, summarize its unbeatable benefits in a few paragraphs or less. Your target audience should know exactly how it will transform their lives and ease their pain points. Make the perks central to your advertising and marketing. Don’t be afraid to incorporate client testimonials once you make a few sales! Good reviews foster trust.
The Perfect Medium (or Method) for Delivery
Decide how you want your signature offer to land in your ideal client’s lap. For example, if you’re creating a series of educational videos for entrepreneurs leveling up in their business, do you want to offer a series of pre-recorded sessions? If so, how many sessions should be included? How often should your client receive them?
On the other hand, if you’re offering special one-on-one coaching sessions, your signature offer can’t be automated. That limits your capacity, so consider how you’ll balance it with preexisting products and services and day-to-day tasks.
The best way to carve out time for a product or service that can’t be automated is to automate other areas in your business. For starters, take a look at our overview of automating your business the right way.
A Timeline for Your Signature Offer’s Results (and Lifespan)
This is an often neglected step in the signature offer development process. To start, you need to incorporate around how long your clients should expect to see the benefits for themselves. Don’t wait until your signature offer hits the shelves (virtual or otherwise) to determine its expiration date.
How long your signature offer lasts is entirely up to you, but you should have a time frame in mind and expect to wait around five to six months to see optimal ROI. If you plan on growing your business to offer an entirely new product or service within the next three years, for example, your signature offer might take a back seat to the next best thing. If early marketing efforts yield impressive sales, you might ride the hype and make the transition in your signature offer.
Financial Projections for the Year (and Beyond)
The price of your signature offer has an impact on your bottom line. It’s crucial to project how much you want to make by the end of the year — and a few years down the road. For example, if you aspire to make $75,000 in your first year of doing business, and $150,000 by the end of your second year, what percentage of sales need to come from your signature product or service?
If you develop a concrete plan for short- and long-term brand growth, price accordingly for growth. Your signature offer should be in a higher price bracket that complements the rest of your pricing. (Check out Nick Kolenda’s pricing psychology tips for extra help.)
Having a solid client base is advantageous for promoting a signature offer at a higher price point. The amount you settle on should reflect the spending habits of your ICA. Experts agree that pricing too low suggests your signature offer isn’t high-value, which will likely scare off customers.
Premiere Products and Services: They Aren’t One-Brand-Fits-All
Businesses at any stage can have a signature offer. But that doesn’t mean that all businesses need a signature offer. If you cater to clients who love deals and bargains, for example, and you don’t foresee that changing, a signature offer will deviate from your brand promise.
Ask yourself the following questions before you build a signature offer:
1. Do you feel passionate about putting out a premiere product or service right now?
2. Can you see yourself standing behind that product or service for several months or more?
3. Will you enjoy marketing and advertising it through your social media platforms, Facebook Live events, and other mediums? Do you have a clear idea of how to convey the benefits to your target audience in natural, conversational language?
4. Is it the best possible reflection of what makes your business exceptional, or is there a better, more on-brand way to reel in potential clients?
5. If your signature offer is a hit, do you and your team have the time, supply, and capacity to consistently deliver?
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