Welcome back to our mini-series on marketing offers! Last week, we talked about how the first step of creating an offer is to go through detailed planning. One very important part of that process is determining what exactly you want to accomplish.

Think about why you want people to respond. Are you building a list? Or trying to close sales?

Is more, more? Or is less, more?

If you’re striving for the former, use your offer to aim for a high volume of responses. If you feel sheer volume will not equate to high value, use the offer to qualify — and weed out some — prospects.

There is no right answer, as each strategy is different and will generate a different response rate for you. Depending on where you are in the sales cycle, as well as your confidence in your audience, one of these approaches may be more beneficial for you.

Some types of offers are better suited to give you quantity, whereas other offers will be delivering more quality.

We’ve gathered a list of various offer examples of each.

For higher quantity, consider:

• Gifts
• Premium Items
• Free Guides
• White Papers
• Sweepstakes
• Books
• Newsletters
• Challenges or Quizzes
• Free Research or Survey Results

For higher quality, consider:

• Free Demos
• Catalogs
• Case Studies
• Sales Calls
• Free Trials
• Free Seminars
• Informational Sites

You may have noticed a pattern that the examples of quality offers tend to be more focused, more detail-oriented, and more aligned to  the product or service you’re selling. Coincidence? We think not. You’ll get less interest, but that interest will be genuine.

On the other hand, with the examples that generate quantity, audience members may be responding just for the offer and not because they are close to a purchase decision.

Of course, one offer won't usually fit all. Consider how offers can work in sequence and — over time — help narrow down your audience to a very small but very motivated niche group of target prospects. Implementing this idea of an “offer chain” could be a great way to develop and further build upon your relationships with both prospective and existing customers.

The best way to use offers is to be smart about how you use them. That means choosing offers that will effectively get you what you’re looking for. In some cases, you’ll be able to accomplish all you need from a single offer, other cases will require multiple offers.

Quantity or quality is up to you. Just be sure that the offer fits.

Up Next: Email Offers – What’s Hot, What’s Not, and What’s Working Now