3 Profit Shots from a Trip to Disney

Last week my family and I visited Disney World where I was once again reminded of Disney’s amazing ability to extract maximum profits from its guests.

While there, I jotted down three profit shot strategies Disney uses to make it easier for people to spend money with them that you can use too.  These strategies are a bit more advanced, but the business owner who can figure them out for his or her business can create their own magic kingdom.

High Impact Marketing Strategy #1 – Create Your Own Buyer’s Club

My wife’s parents are Disney Vacation Club members, which essentially means each year somebody is going to Disney.

The Vacation Club is essentially a buyer’s club and really no different than Amazon Prime in its goals – to create a paid membership opportunity which offers exclusive and valuable benefits that “ordinary” people cannot get.

Doing this creates a protective fence around members and keeps them buying from you.

The big money question is how can YOU create a similar buyer’s club that essentially keeps your customers coming back time and time again?

What bundle of services and products can you offer at a special club membership rate that can only be had by paid members?

The Automatic Customer, by John Warrillow, is a recommended book to get you thinking about how to do this.

High Impact Marketing Strategy #2 – “Stacked” Package Offers

We were only in Orlando for six days, but Disney sucked us in for five of those days by presenting a “stacked” offer for their Park Hopper passes.

The difference in price between a three-day pass (which I wanted to do) and a five-day pass (which my kids wanted to do) was so small, it practically made our decision for us, which is why Disney says, “The more you play, the less you pay per day.”

Of course, in Disney’s case, they know once a person is in one of their parks, they are likely to spend a lot of money, so trying to get people to spend as many days inside a park is critical.

Is there some way you can do something similar in your business?

Can you create tiered offers that offer value for only a slight increase in cost, making it a no-brainer to purchase?

One simple way to do this is to create a tiered discount offer that increases based on the money spent, e.g. get 10% off when you spend $50 or 20% off when you spend $75.

High Impact Marketing Strategy #3 – Disappearing Money

I cannot say this is a Disney strategy (but I am sure they use it somewhere).  I first saw it while in Orlando at a Ted Thomas event years ago.  I thought it was smart and have used it many times since.

Essentially Ted gave everybody a gift certificate worth, on the first day of his event, $200 towards a purchase of products at his event.

On the second day it was only worth $150.

And on the third and last day it was worth $100.

The fact that it was like “real money” that was going away, made is a super-effective way to get attendees to spend more money with him

So, think about a way you can add “disappearing money” to your next promotion.

So that wraps up this episode of 3 in 3. I hope you found these Disney-inspired profit shot strategies valuable for you and your business.  If you'r interested more on some Disney-inspired ideas, check out this blog post I wrote in 2013 on how to sell like Disney, and until next time, keep on marketing!