Business

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture about a marketing strategy in a business class. Professor: So, we've been talking about strategies stores use to increase sales of their merchandise... to sell more of their items. What I wanna talk about now is one particular strategy, which is using what's called a second interest. A business wants to sell one product, so they offer a second product, or service-the second interest-for free if you buy the first one. Basically, the store gets customers to buy stuff by offering them something else that interests them as a bonus. OK, so a second interest can lead to immediate sales of the first product, or it can be used to help retain customers ... to keep them coming back to the store to buy additional merchandise. So let's see how a second interest helps immediate sales. Offering a free bonus helps convince people who may be undecided about whether they wanna purchase an item. So, for instance, a store that sells computers may use this strategy by offering a deal-if you buy their newest model of computer, you get a free video game you can play on the computer. The customer who isn't quite sure whether they wanna buy the computer will be more likely to buy it because the free video game also interests them. Now, a second interest can also be used to increase sales by helping a business retain customers... keep them coming back, so they'll continue to buy merchandise from you in the future. For instance, the computer store could offer free computer lessons to its customers on a regular basis. Maybe once a month, customers can come into the store for a lesson. Free lessons keep customers coming back in... so the store maintains contact with its customers. As a result, since they're in the store often anyway, whenever they need something computer-related-like a printer or ink cartridge-they're more likely to buy it from that store.