When is a great price a great offer?- Adrian Blackburn
December 3, 2012
Sometimes, however much you think a price or promotion can’t fail, it just does. When you work in sport and come up with a creative offer that may seem too good to be true, for example ‘buy one get one free’, you might just need to take a look through your customer’s eyes. Much like shopping for a pair of shoes with your better half, they might be a fraction of the price in the latest discount retailers but if you wouldn’t buy them at full price, why do you want them now? This argument doesn’t always hit home- she will buy the shoes anyway!
Make the free one the one they really want, a big game and a free less attractive game will not get anyone excited. If you were the customer, what would make you make that purchase? Bundle more attractive fixtures together so although they may be buying more than they first anticipated, they are getting games they really want to attend. However much you dress up an event, if someone doesn’t want to come along, it really doesn’t matter if it is free. As the old saying goes, “you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.”
A difficult fixture or event might be the troublesome child as far as sales go, so sometimes just accept it, move on and go for the big wins. It might take your sales team a hundred calls to make a difficult sale, but only ten for the attractive one.
The one overriding message is that if she buys the shoes at half price that simply means she will have money left for that special hand bag which, as she describes it, is now almost free as she saved that much on the bag.
Adrian Blackburn is the Head of Corporate Relations for Bolton Wanderers FC. Adrian is responsible for all business to business sales including matchday hospitality, sponsorship and advertising. He has worked at BWFC for five years and also held a similar position with The Wigan Warriors Rugby League Club.
Adding experience in the Financial Services sector he worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland as Product Development Manager for their £2 billion insurance division with a real focus on innovation with brands such as Tesco Finance, Virgin Money and Natwest.
In 2003 he graduated from Leeds Business School having studied for an MBA.
Adrian Blackburn’s 
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