My friend. Don Libey talks frequently about the following: Extraordinary companies are fearless. Ordinary companies are fearful. One attacts the future. The other defends the past. One is comfortable with challenge and the unknown. The other is comfortable with only the known and what once worked. One leads. The other follows. One takes risks. The other is riskless."
Back in the 1980's my largest client was Butcher/Forde, the political fund reaising agency in Newport Beach, CA. They were the power behind Howard Jarvis and his California Proposition 13, the property tax abatement proposition that had big national publicity. They mailed millions of direct marketing petitions to California property owners requesting their signature on an official petition to the legislature to reduce the California property taxes.
One night on my drive home, I started to think about how Butcher/Forde could apply the same type of petition marketing on a national basis. Two days later I called Bill Butcher, told him I had an idea I wanted to present to him. The following morning I was in his office.
Now, Bill was the type of person who would listen very intently. His eyes would pierce through a stare, that if you didn't know him, he could be intimidating to say the least. I made my presentation. When I was finished, he asked if I had 10 to 15 minutes. I didn't realize it, but he went right to talk to his partner, Arnold Forde.
Ten minutes later he returned to his office and said both he and Arnold had agreed to commit $200,000 each to my idea and wanted to start right away. Within 40 minutes Save Social Security and Medicare was born. Talk about boldness!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Ordinary vs Extraordinary Companies: Ideas
Extraordinary companies surround themselves with more ideas than they can handle. Ordinary companies spend a lot of time pushing ideas away, mainly because ideas require investment.
Ideas can come from anywhere ... any time of the day or night. Back in the late 1970's I was watching the Johnny Carson Show. Johnny was interviewing Bob Hope. He asked, "Bob ... if this was your last day on earth, what would you like to eat for your last meal?" Bob answered by naming his most favorite dishes from one famous restaurant after another.
That interview gave me an idea. I put it in my memory bank. A few years later I was at the Los Angeles Airport waiting for my plan to Santa Barbara, where I lived. The flight was canceled. So, I decided to rent a car and drive the 90 miles and asked if anyone waiting wanted to drive with me. One of my fellow passengers was the Executive Vice President of Triad America, owner of many restaurants across the country.
I told him my idea. Build a restaurant based upon Johnny's question to Bob. If this was your last day on earth, what would like to have for your last meal?
First of all, I went on to say, this is the closest ordinary America will get to a celebrity like Bob Hope. Second, you could have 10 or 12 celebrities' favorite meals on the menu and not have to maintain a lot of different foods in the freezer like most restaurants. The idea became a very successful restaurant by the name of Their Last Supper.
What does my story have to do with direct marketing? Nothing. But it has everything to do with where good, viable ideas can come from. They can come from anywhere ... at any time ... and hit you like the ad where some dumbfounded fellow hits his forehead and says, I could have had a V-8.
Good ideas are not about making sales. Ideas that build extraordinary companies are about helping people get fulfilled ... helping them solve a problem ... answering a painful difficulty or solving a problem. If your ideas do this well, money becomes the by-product.
Ideas can come from anywhere ... any time of the day or night. Back in the late 1970's I was watching the Johnny Carson Show. Johnny was interviewing Bob Hope. He asked, "Bob ... if this was your last day on earth, what would you like to eat for your last meal?" Bob answered by naming his most favorite dishes from one famous restaurant after another.
That interview gave me an idea. I put it in my memory bank. A few years later I was at the Los Angeles Airport waiting for my plan to Santa Barbara, where I lived. The flight was canceled. So, I decided to rent a car and drive the 90 miles and asked if anyone waiting wanted to drive with me. One of my fellow passengers was the Executive Vice President of Triad America, owner of many restaurants across the country.
I told him my idea. Build a restaurant based upon Johnny's question to Bob. If this was your last day on earth, what would like to have for your last meal?
First of all, I went on to say, this is the closest ordinary America will get to a celebrity like Bob Hope. Second, you could have 10 or 12 celebrities' favorite meals on the menu and not have to maintain a lot of different foods in the freezer like most restaurants. The idea became a very successful restaurant by the name of Their Last Supper.
What does my story have to do with direct marketing? Nothing. But it has everything to do with where good, viable ideas can come from. They can come from anywhere ... at any time ... and hit you like the ad where some dumbfounded fellow hits his forehead and says, I could have had a V-8.
Good ideas are not about making sales. Ideas that build extraordinary companies are about helping people get fulfilled ... helping them solve a problem ... answering a painful difficulty or solving a problem. If your ideas do this well, money becomes the by-product.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
How A Direct Marketer Can Get Anything They Want
The great motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, has said, "You can get anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."
Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, put the same thought this way, "The only way to influence someone is to find out what they want, and show them how to get it."
Notice that both these masters of influence say that success lies in what others want.
Ignoring this simple insight is the most common cause of direct marketing failure. Over and over, one of our experts who regularly sit at our conference table has seen otherwise sharp direct marketers launch a product because they want to sell it, not because anyone wants to buy it.
He says. "Remember this always ... you will easily avoid embarrassing failures and discover great riches only when you look at markets through the other end of the telescope ... not the lens of what you want to sell, but the lens of what people want to buy.
Let me tell you something ... I've never bought an aspirin because I want a relationship with my druggist. I buy aspirin because I have a headache!
Headaches, problems, desires and human wants ... these are your markets! Solve a problem ... relieve a pain ... or, answer a burning desire.
"Identify these wants, these hungry crowds, as Gary Halbert puts it, and you can make more money than is likely good for you." Help enough people get what they want, and you can get virtually anything you want.
So, if you are preparing any direct marketing campaign, be it direct mail, a newspaper ad, a magazine ad or an e-mail campaign, make sure you focus on what your audience wants to buy ... by all reasoning, that's what you should want to sell.
Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, put the same thought this way, "The only way to influence someone is to find out what they want, and show them how to get it."
Notice that both these masters of influence say that success lies in what others want.
Ignoring this simple insight is the most common cause of direct marketing failure. Over and over, one of our experts who regularly sit at our conference table has seen otherwise sharp direct marketers launch a product because they want to sell it, not because anyone wants to buy it.
He says. "Remember this always ... you will easily avoid embarrassing failures and discover great riches only when you look at markets through the other end of the telescope ... not the lens of what you want to sell, but the lens of what people want to buy.
Let me tell you something ... I've never bought an aspirin because I want a relationship with my druggist. I buy aspirin because I have a headache!
Headaches, problems, desires and human wants ... these are your markets! Solve a problem ... relieve a pain ... or, answer a burning desire.
"Identify these wants, these hungry crowds, as Gary Halbert puts it, and you can make more money than is likely good for you." Help enough people get what they want, and you can get virtually anything you want.
So, if you are preparing any direct marketing campaign, be it direct mail, a newspaper ad, a magazine ad or an e-mail campaign, make sure you focus on what your audience wants to buy ... by all reasoning, that's what you should want to sell.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
All Of Direct Marketing Is An Emotional Medium
Herschell Gordon Lewis hits the nail on the head. He says, "In direct marketing, when emotion and intellect come into conflict, emotion always wins. Replace intellectual words with emotional words and you'll sell more because you'll trigger an emotional response."
He uses the following as examples:
Intellectual Word: accelerate Emotional Words: speed up
Intellectual Word: additionally Emotional Words: there's more
Intellectual Word: aid Emotional Word: help
Intellectual Word: avid Emotional Word: eager
Intellectual Word: challenge Emotional Word: dare
Intellectual Word: concerned Emotional Word: worried
Intellectual Word: hope Emotional Word: desire
Intellectual Word: famished Emotional Word: hungry
Intellectual Word: fearful Emotional Word: afraid
Intellectual Word: futile Emotional Word: hopeless
Intellectual Word: learn Emotional Words: find out
Whether you are creating a direct mail package, e-mail, magazine or newspaper ad, try writing utilizing more emotional words. They will make a big difference in response.
He uses the following as examples:
Intellectual Word: accelerate Emotional Words: speed up
Intellectual Word: additionally Emotional Words: there's more
Intellectual Word: aid Emotional Word: help
Intellectual Word: avid Emotional Word: eager
Intellectual Word: challenge Emotional Word: dare
Intellectual Word: concerned Emotional Word: worried
Intellectual Word: hope Emotional Word: desire
Intellectual Word: famished Emotional Word: hungry
Intellectual Word: fearful Emotional Word: afraid
Intellectual Word: futile Emotional Word: hopeless
Intellectual Word: learn Emotional Words: find out
Whether you are creating a direct mail package, e-mail, magazine or newspaper ad, try writing utilizing more emotional words. They will make a big difference in response.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Today's Electronic Direct Marketing: Even Small Products Make Money
I have long been a supporter of products that can be downloaded over the Internet.
In today's electronic marketplace, here's the ultimate marketing to the end user.
Available 24/7, distribution happens automatically. This story will thrill any one who has direct marketing running through their veins. It may just give you some ideas on how you can do much the same thing.
Often overlooked in all the online chatter about direct marketing is how the “little guy” can make some decent money. Sure, we all like to hear about the person who made millions, but what about the man or woman who had a good idea and earned enough money to make it worthwhile, but not enough to buy an island in the South Pacific.
Take Jamie Lewis, for example.
Jamie was born into a family of musicians; his dad a violinist, mom a cellist. Jamie learned, as one would expect, violin, cello and piano. But in high school, his ear heard another calling ... rock. So, he went into the music business as an artist. By the age of 18 he was composing, producing and developing hip-hop beats and instrumentals.
Fast forward a few years. Jamie was a struggling musician in New York City. He just wanted to make a living and knew that the Web was part of his answer. He didn’t know how.
The advent of powerful yet inexpensive audio software had led to an explosion in music creation and production for an entire generation. Unique beats can be created that individuals rap over or use as part of a song.
Seeing this large and growing market, Jamie set up a Web site to sell hip-hop beats. At first sales weren’t that good. Then he found ClickBank.
ClickBank provides product vendors ... e-book authors, software writers, game creators, and now hip-hop beat producers ... access to over 110,000 online outlets (with millions of readers) that are looking for products to market and sell. These outlets are called affiliate marketers.
An affiliate marketer is an individual or organization who operates a Web site, blog or other online channel that is devoted to a specific topic ... similar to a brick-and-mortar boutique retail store. The affiliate marketer doesn’t produce anything, but promotes other people’s products.
In Jamie’s case, it’s hip-hop beats. “It was like a light bulb went off,” he said. “Affiliate marketing popped out at me because it made sense and I was thinking, ‘Wow, I can really do this.’”
And Jamie really did do it with www.beats365.com.
“I soon found that the affiliates made my business,” he said. “I stopped promoting myself and focused entirely on developing new beats and other offerings.”
Because of ClickBank and affiliate marketing, Jamie “could sell my intellectual property for the first time.”
Now, OK, at this point you’re probably thinking you don’t know a soul that works with hip-hop beats for fun or profit. That’s the point, even very niche products can find an audience and make money. That’s the power of ClickBank and affiliate marketing.
One of the measures of a successful product is the “conversion” rate. Meaning, of all the visitors that visited a product site how many actually converted into paying customers.
Niche sites get a smaller number of visitors, but the conversion rates are much higher than other sites. “There is no doubt that niche sites convert really well,” Jamie said. And, high converting products are very attractive to affiliates that are looking for products to promote. “Almost everyone who promotes my site has had success with it,” he added.
In today's electronic marketplace, here's the ultimate marketing to the end user.
Available 24/7, distribution happens automatically. This story will thrill any one who has direct marketing running through their veins. It may just give you some ideas on how you can do much the same thing.
Often overlooked in all the online chatter about direct marketing is how the “little guy” can make some decent money. Sure, we all like to hear about the person who made millions, but what about the man or woman who had a good idea and earned enough money to make it worthwhile, but not enough to buy an island in the South Pacific.
Take Jamie Lewis, for example.
Jamie was born into a family of musicians; his dad a violinist, mom a cellist. Jamie learned, as one would expect, violin, cello and piano. But in high school, his ear heard another calling ... rock. So, he went into the music business as an artist. By the age of 18 he was composing, producing and developing hip-hop beats and instrumentals.
Fast forward a few years. Jamie was a struggling musician in New York City. He just wanted to make a living and knew that the Web was part of his answer. He didn’t know how.
The advent of powerful yet inexpensive audio software had led to an explosion in music creation and production for an entire generation. Unique beats can be created that individuals rap over or use as part of a song.
Seeing this large and growing market, Jamie set up a Web site to sell hip-hop beats. At first sales weren’t that good. Then he found ClickBank.
ClickBank provides product vendors ... e-book authors, software writers, game creators, and now hip-hop beat producers ... access to over 110,000 online outlets (with millions of readers) that are looking for products to market and sell. These outlets are called affiliate marketers.
An affiliate marketer is an individual or organization who operates a Web site, blog or other online channel that is devoted to a specific topic ... similar to a brick-and-mortar boutique retail store. The affiliate marketer doesn’t produce anything, but promotes other people’s products.
In Jamie’s case, it’s hip-hop beats. “It was like a light bulb went off,” he said. “Affiliate marketing popped out at me because it made sense and I was thinking, ‘Wow, I can really do this.’”
And Jamie really did do it with www.beats365.com.
“I soon found that the affiliates made my business,” he said. “I stopped promoting myself and focused entirely on developing new beats and other offerings.”
Because of ClickBank and affiliate marketing, Jamie “could sell my intellectual property for the first time.”
Now, OK, at this point you’re probably thinking you don’t know a soul that works with hip-hop beats for fun or profit. That’s the point, even very niche products can find an audience and make money. That’s the power of ClickBank and affiliate marketing.
One of the measures of a successful product is the “conversion” rate. Meaning, of all the visitors that visited a product site how many actually converted into paying customers.
Niche sites get a smaller number of visitors, but the conversion rates are much higher than other sites. “There is no doubt that niche sites convert really well,” Jamie said. And, high converting products are very attractive to affiliates that are looking for products to promote. “Almost everyone who promotes my site has had success with it,” he added.
5 Savvy Tips For Direct Marketing Yourself
These tips come from Bob Bly, long recognized as one of America's best and most creative direct response copywriters.
All great ideas are passed on, as in this case from Bob's colleague Joe Pulizzi. Here are some savvy tips for marketing yourself with social media and blogs:
1.) Have your own blog ... and post to it at least 2 to 3 times a
week.
2.) Find 10 to 15 blogs that really matter to your niche ... read
their posts ... and comment when you have something helpful to say.
3.) Publish great content on your blog ... and share it out on Twitter,
Facebook, and LinkedIn.
4.) When you start your blog, begin to think about writing posts as
chapters for a book ... after 6 months of blogging, you may have
more than half the book done. A printed book is a business card
that will never be thrown away.
5.) When you are asked to give content away ... as a guest on a
webinar, a presenter at a conference, or writing an article for a
newsletter - say yes. Give your expertise away.
All great ideas are passed on, as in this case from Bob's colleague Joe Pulizzi. Here are some savvy tips for marketing yourself with social media and blogs:
1.) Have your own blog ... and post to it at least 2 to 3 times a
week.
2.) Find 10 to 15 blogs that really matter to your niche ... read
their posts ... and comment when you have something helpful to say.
3.) Publish great content on your blog ... and share it out on Twitter,
Facebook, and LinkedIn.
4.) When you start your blog, begin to think about writing posts as
chapters for a book ... after 6 months of blogging, you may have
more than half the book done. A printed book is a business card
that will never be thrown away.
5.) When you are asked to give content away ... as a guest on a
webinar, a presenter at a conference, or writing an article for a
newsletter - say yes. Give your expertise away.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Benefits Of A Direct Marketing “Ancient Mariner”.
In my opinion, those of us who started in direct marketing back in the 1960’s and 1970’s are a tremendous asset and advantage to have on your marketing team today. Day in and day out we prove the saying … “what’s old becomes new again”.
That’s because we were taught to be a direct marketing general practitioner. I like to say, “Not only were we trained to be the ‘chief cook’ but also a ‘bottle washer’.
Back some 40 years ago, I was a Marketing Product Manager at The Amsterdam Company. There were 7 of us. Two times a week the company owner conducted a “Green Chart” meeting. The green chart was an 11” x 17” piece of green tag paper containing the updated results of every mailing made for the last several months. Our Honeywell 1600 main frame computer hadn’t been programmed with a results spreadsheet. That forced several secretaries to spend many hours updating the information the chart contained. They too were in each green chart meeting to lend their updating background knowledge.
The company owner conducted the meetings by discussing the results of each mailing on the chart. He would make the decision to roll out, wait for more results or kill additional mailings based on the updated trends shown on the chart. Then, he would assign tasks to the 7 Product Marketing Managers. Update the art and copy; order the printing; research list continuations; recommend new list tests; negotiate prices and order product for inventory; test new premiums (gifts); test new offers … and so forth and so on.
Thus each of us were involved in every mailing from “soup to nuts”. However, we soon had so many mailings to manage, we were then assigned the responsibility of a Product Division. Pens. Key Tags. Miscellaneous Ad Specialties. Business Forms. Storage Products. Business Products. Consumer Products. That’s what the owner called our “Vertical” responsibility. We also had a “Horizontal” responsibility affecting each Vertical. List Research. Premium (gift) Research. Competition Research. Sweepstakes Rules & Regulations Research, etc.
The result: Each one of us were so well trained that we learned and felt the “heartbeat” of each Product Division. We felt the rhythm of “the music”. At any given time we could step in and take over if any one of us were sick or on vacation. But, more important, it didn’t take long to discover absolutely everything in direct marketing is intertwined. Or … akin to a concert being beautifully performed by a well known orchestra. List (Market); Offer (Why Should I Buy From You?); Copy(Features and Benefits); Graphic Layout (Presentation) are all in turn affected by Timing.
And, each of these play a role in the company’s living and breathing “heartbeat”. One is never exclusive of the other. It’s the director on your team feeling the complete music the marketing orchestra makes who will deliver your company’s success.
Like everything else in our instant 24/7 society, direct marketing management today seems to come from collection of unconnected specialists. Those who are a whiz at list research do not know the first thing about writing killer copy. Conversely, those from whom great copy flows on a daily basis have little or no concern about lists and market research. It’s not their job.
Sadly, this fractured specialist approach shows up in today’s “committee managed” direct marketing. Committees are forced to read the notes that make the music. Because of their compartmentalized training, they truly do not know how to throw the printed notes away and feel the music. Those very successful direct marketing companies are lead by people who understand how to integrate all the marketing functions in order to bring out the true living and breathing “heartbeat” of their company.
There’s a place for the specialist. Like our green chart of 40 years ago, specialists provide the necessary information for the proper decision making. But, just like yesterday’s family doctor, those of us who were trained to be a “chief cook as well as a bottle washer” truly are very important to have on your team to jump start your company’s heartbeat for success.
(Editors Note: The “gang of 7” Product Marketing Managers mentioned above you may or may not know by their individual names. But I guarantee you have heard of all the companies they went on to manage, own, buy and/or sell. Today, collectively, these companies enjoy over $800 million in annual sales or donations.)
That’s because we were taught to be a direct marketing general practitioner. I like to say, “Not only were we trained to be the ‘chief cook’ but also a ‘bottle washer’.
Back some 40 years ago, I was a Marketing Product Manager at The Amsterdam Company. There were 7 of us. Two times a week the company owner conducted a “Green Chart” meeting. The green chart was an 11” x 17” piece of green tag paper containing the updated results of every mailing made for the last several months. Our Honeywell 1600 main frame computer hadn’t been programmed with a results spreadsheet. That forced several secretaries to spend many hours updating the information the chart contained. They too were in each green chart meeting to lend their updating background knowledge.
The company owner conducted the meetings by discussing the results of each mailing on the chart. He would make the decision to roll out, wait for more results or kill additional mailings based on the updated trends shown on the chart. Then, he would assign tasks to the 7 Product Marketing Managers. Update the art and copy; order the printing; research list continuations; recommend new list tests; negotiate prices and order product for inventory; test new premiums (gifts); test new offers … and so forth and so on.
Thus each of us were involved in every mailing from “soup to nuts”. However, we soon had so many mailings to manage, we were then assigned the responsibility of a Product Division. Pens. Key Tags. Miscellaneous Ad Specialties. Business Forms. Storage Products. Business Products. Consumer Products. That’s what the owner called our “Vertical” responsibility. We also had a “Horizontal” responsibility affecting each Vertical. List Research. Premium (gift) Research. Competition Research. Sweepstakes Rules & Regulations Research, etc.
The result: Each one of us were so well trained that we learned and felt the “heartbeat” of each Product Division. We felt the rhythm of “the music”. At any given time we could step in and take over if any one of us were sick or on vacation. But, more important, it didn’t take long to discover absolutely everything in direct marketing is intertwined. Or … akin to a concert being beautifully performed by a well known orchestra. List (Market); Offer (Why Should I Buy From You?); Copy(Features and Benefits); Graphic Layout (Presentation) are all in turn affected by Timing.
And, each of these play a role in the company’s living and breathing “heartbeat”. One is never exclusive of the other. It’s the director on your team feeling the complete music the marketing orchestra makes who will deliver your company’s success.
Like everything else in our instant 24/7 society, direct marketing management today seems to come from collection of unconnected specialists. Those who are a whiz at list research do not know the first thing about writing killer copy. Conversely, those from whom great copy flows on a daily basis have little or no concern about lists and market research. It’s not their job.
Sadly, this fractured specialist approach shows up in today’s “committee managed” direct marketing. Committees are forced to read the notes that make the music. Because of their compartmentalized training, they truly do not know how to throw the printed notes away and feel the music. Those very successful direct marketing companies are lead by people who understand how to integrate all the marketing functions in order to bring out the true living and breathing “heartbeat” of their company.
There’s a place for the specialist. Like our green chart of 40 years ago, specialists provide the necessary information for the proper decision making. But, just like yesterday’s family doctor, those of us who were trained to be a “chief cook as well as a bottle washer” truly are very important to have on your team to jump start your company’s heartbeat for success.
(Editors Note: The “gang of 7” Product Marketing Managers mentioned above you may or may not know by their individual names. But I guarantee you have heard of all the companies they went on to manage, own, buy and/or sell. Today, collectively, these companies enjoy over $800 million in annual sales or donations.)
A Simple 7-Step Formula for Succeeding Online
(Here's another "pearl of wisdom" from Gary Bencivenga. If the last one didn't convince you to subscribe to his "Bullets", this one surely will. Information on subscribing to his "bullets" is at the bottom of this blog.)
If you want the easiest, surest and most rewarding way I’ve found to succeed online, here is the simple 7-step formula:
1.) Carve out a niche. Be known for something specific. Use the rifle, not the shotgun. When in doubt, go narrower than others in your field.
2.) Give something valuable away free. Within your narrow specialty, create an e-zine (or course, collection of tips, series of mistakes to avoid, seasonal recipes, any regular communication) that demonstrates your expertise and is so helpful, interesting and informative, your prospects will want to keep getting it regularly.
3.) Promote your free e-zine every way you can — in Google ads, articles you write for the media, speeches before trade groups, press releases, radio interviews, communications with your customers, take-ones at related retail outlets, space ads, newspaper classifieds, direct mail, co-ops and swaps with others in your industry, etc. Explore any and all avenues.
4.) Capture e-mail addresses. Never give away your valuable free tips on your website! Share them only in exchange for an e-mail address when someone signs up for your e-zine. Consider offering one of your best free tips in the form of a free report to induce people to sign up. This automatically gives you permission — and the means — to stay in touch with your market, building your most valuable direct marketing asset, your list.
5.) Pile on the value. Work hard to make your free e-zine so valuable and interesting, your prospects eagerly open it. As in romance, woo your new prospects with your bouquets of insight and pearls of wisdom. Don’t be shy about opening up and getting personal. Become a friend. Resist the urge to keep lunging at them with sales lust. Your goal: get your prospects into the habit of welcoming your e-mails like love letters because they are so valuable, useful and interesting … not in the habit of deleting them on sight because they are self-serving sales pitches. The rule: establish trust before you sell with lust.
6.) Never sell hard in your e-zine or free course. Instead, dance the two-step. The biggest mistake even savvy marketers make in their e-zines is selling too much, too soon, too hard, and too often. Let your e-zine be an oasis of value in a desert of hype. Always, and especially in your first several communications, let the value of your free information far outweigh your sales copy.
Eventually, after you’ve proven your value to readers and it’s time to sell something, dance the two-step. First, mention that you have a great product that enhances the valuable, free tip you’ve just shared in your e-zine. To learn more, "click here."
Second, when readers click on the link, they land on a dedicated page elsewhere, where you can sell your product or service as hard as you want.In other words, never sell too hard, too often or too early in your e-zine! Doing so makes your reader perceive it as a vehicle of hype, not a trusted vehicle of value.
Once your prospects categorize your e-zine as sales hype, you will lose them by the score. Game over! Their door will shut as closed as a coffin, as tight as a tomb. Your e-mails will bounce off their mailboxes like corks off granite. In your eagerness to sell, you will have trained your best prospects to shun you. You will have taught the legions of people who were ready to trust you, who had hoped you were different, to conclude that you’re just like all the rest — just another "me-first" marketer pushing too hard to sell, not serve.
Once you’ve painted yourself into this portrait, your identity remains fixed. Every time your prospects see your name on an e-mail, they’ll automatically think "sales pitch" and most will delete you on sight. You will have committed list suicide. Don’t make this fatal mistake!
Remember — use your e-zine to deliver pure, rare, refreshing, beautiful value — interesting, useful tips that your market is yearning for and delighted to receive. Introduce sales messages only occasionally, briefly, lightly, as I’ve described above, using the soft two-step — tying a brief mention of your product into the valuable tip you’ve just shared, then using a link to a hard-selling page that resides elsewhere.
A Little Secret for Boosting Your Sales Up to 400%
7.) For even better results, capture their physical addresses. Once your prospects have a relationship with your e-zine, offer them another free gift. It must not only be valuable, but something you have to send to their home, such as a report, CD, DVD, paperback book, newsletter, cool poster, free sample, gift certificate, etc.
Why something physical? Because this gives you the right to ask for — and get — their physical address. And why is that so important? Two reasons … First, a physical gift normally has higher perceived value than, say, an e-book. But far more important, getting a physical address enables you to send a compelling direct mail promotion with your gift, and to follow up later with additional direct mail.
And why is that important? Let me relay the experience of my friend, the late Gary Halbert, from whom I originally heard this idea. Gary reported that sending your direct mail promotion to the physical addresses of prospects who originally signed up online usually pulls up to 400% higher sales than the same copy delivered on the Web only.
* * *
And that’s all there is to it. Repeat these seven simple steps for every major product or service you want to sell. Are there other roads to Rome? Of course! But for me and others I respect in direct response, this has been our express lane.
So saddle up, marketing gunslinger, and ride out to claim your stake of the Wild Web frontier. Yes, the hills are full of renegades, bandits, and wolves. But you will prevail. You, Top Gun, are packin’ better ammo!
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy this
Bullet, or my entire Bullet collection, just send them an email with this link: http://marketingbullets.com/index.htm
P.P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared. If you ever wish to unsubscribe, just let me know and I will vanish from your life like a shadow in the night.
If you want the easiest, surest and most rewarding way I’ve found to succeed online, here is the simple 7-step formula:
1.) Carve out a niche. Be known for something specific. Use the rifle, not the shotgun. When in doubt, go narrower than others in your field.
2.) Give something valuable away free. Within your narrow specialty, create an e-zine (or course, collection of tips, series of mistakes to avoid, seasonal recipes, any regular communication) that demonstrates your expertise and is so helpful, interesting and informative, your prospects will want to keep getting it regularly.
3.) Promote your free e-zine every way you can — in Google ads, articles you write for the media, speeches before trade groups, press releases, radio interviews, communications with your customers, take-ones at related retail outlets, space ads, newspaper classifieds, direct mail, co-ops and swaps with others in your industry, etc. Explore any and all avenues.
4.) Capture e-mail addresses. Never give away your valuable free tips on your website! Share them only in exchange for an e-mail address when someone signs up for your e-zine. Consider offering one of your best free tips in the form of a free report to induce people to sign up. This automatically gives you permission — and the means — to stay in touch with your market, building your most valuable direct marketing asset, your list.
5.) Pile on the value. Work hard to make your free e-zine so valuable and interesting, your prospects eagerly open it. As in romance, woo your new prospects with your bouquets of insight and pearls of wisdom. Don’t be shy about opening up and getting personal. Become a friend. Resist the urge to keep lunging at them with sales lust. Your goal: get your prospects into the habit of welcoming your e-mails like love letters because they are so valuable, useful and interesting … not in the habit of deleting them on sight because they are self-serving sales pitches. The rule: establish trust before you sell with lust.
6.) Never sell hard in your e-zine or free course. Instead, dance the two-step. The biggest mistake even savvy marketers make in their e-zines is selling too much, too soon, too hard, and too often. Let your e-zine be an oasis of value in a desert of hype. Always, and especially in your first several communications, let the value of your free information far outweigh your sales copy.
Eventually, after you’ve proven your value to readers and it’s time to sell something, dance the two-step. First, mention that you have a great product that enhances the valuable, free tip you’ve just shared in your e-zine. To learn more, "click here."
Second, when readers click on the link, they land on a dedicated page elsewhere, where you can sell your product or service as hard as you want.In other words, never sell too hard, too often or too early in your e-zine! Doing so makes your reader perceive it as a vehicle of hype, not a trusted vehicle of value.
Once your prospects categorize your e-zine as sales hype, you will lose them by the score. Game over! Their door will shut as closed as a coffin, as tight as a tomb. Your e-mails will bounce off their mailboxes like corks off granite. In your eagerness to sell, you will have trained your best prospects to shun you. You will have taught the legions of people who were ready to trust you, who had hoped you were different, to conclude that you’re just like all the rest — just another "me-first" marketer pushing too hard to sell, not serve.
Once you’ve painted yourself into this portrait, your identity remains fixed. Every time your prospects see your name on an e-mail, they’ll automatically think "sales pitch" and most will delete you on sight. You will have committed list suicide. Don’t make this fatal mistake!
Remember — use your e-zine to deliver pure, rare, refreshing, beautiful value — interesting, useful tips that your market is yearning for and delighted to receive. Introduce sales messages only occasionally, briefly, lightly, as I’ve described above, using the soft two-step — tying a brief mention of your product into the valuable tip you’ve just shared, then using a link to a hard-selling page that resides elsewhere.
A Little Secret for Boosting Your Sales Up to 400%
7.) For even better results, capture their physical addresses. Once your prospects have a relationship with your e-zine, offer them another free gift. It must not only be valuable, but something you have to send to their home, such as a report, CD, DVD, paperback book, newsletter, cool poster, free sample, gift certificate, etc.
Why something physical? Because this gives you the right to ask for — and get — their physical address. And why is that so important? Two reasons … First, a physical gift normally has higher perceived value than, say, an e-book. But far more important, getting a physical address enables you to send a compelling direct mail promotion with your gift, and to follow up later with additional direct mail.
And why is that important? Let me relay the experience of my friend, the late Gary Halbert, from whom I originally heard this idea. Gary reported that sending your direct mail promotion to the physical addresses of prospects who originally signed up online usually pulls up to 400% higher sales than the same copy delivered on the Web only.
* * *
And that’s all there is to it. Repeat these seven simple steps for every major product or service you want to sell. Are there other roads to Rome? Of course! But for me and others I respect in direct response, this has been our express lane.
So saddle up, marketing gunslinger, and ride out to claim your stake of the Wild Web frontier. Yes, the hills are full of renegades, bandits, and wolves. But you will prevail. You, Top Gun, are packin’ better ammo!
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy this
Bullet, or my entire Bullet collection, just send them an email with this link: http://marketingbullets.com/index.htm
P.P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared. If you ever wish to unsubscribe, just let me know and I will vanish from your life like a shadow in the night.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Two Most Powerful Words In Advertising
No, they're not FREE and NEW.
One of the best and most respected direct marketing copywriters is Gary Bencivenga. To all his clients he's more than a copywriter. He's a trusted advisor. Now retired, he's talking about his craft. Here's his unique look at what many believe are the basic "foundation" words in any direct marketing effort.
Dear Marketing Top Gun:
In this BULLET ..... (I'll show you how to subscribe to Gary's "BULLET" Library at the end of this Blog) ..... you'll discover the two most powerful words in advertising and how to use them to explode your response fairly easily and consistently.
Which Headline Pulled Best?
First, to illustrate the secret, can you guess which of these two magalog headlines was the big winner for a financial newsletter?
HEADLINE A: (next to photo of financial guru, Charles J. Givens):
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle
in your life.
(caption under photo)
Charles J. Givens, the self-made $200-millionaire,
entrepreneur and best-selling financial author of all time.
HEADLINE B: (same photo and caption):
The Millionaire Maker
(subhead) Can he make YOU rich, too?
* * *
Which of these headlines absolutely smashed the other in a split-run test, out-pulling it by a huge margin and becoming a profitable control for years?
Rather than just tell you the winner, let me describe how you could know in advance, once you understand the two most powerful words in advertising today.
By the way, no BULLET you will ever read will give you more sheer power to boost your response consistently, beat existing control packages easily and create your own blockbuster products than the simple yet profound secret I will now share. Yet I doubt if you have ever read this anywhere, even if you have been a lifelong student of advertising.
Conventional Wisdom That's Wrong ...
First, you must understand why some of what you have been taught about direct marketing is wrong, or at least outdated and incomplete.
Most of the few great books on direct response were written more than a generation ago by legends such as John Caples, David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins and one or two others. Most of their response-boosting secrets remain valid, as we will see in future BULLETS.
Their main teaching: benefits, big benefits, are the key to high response.
Makes sense. But there's a problem. These giants wrote this advice long ago when, compared with today, prospects were under-marketed. So, yes, back then, flat-out big benefits and words like FREE and NEW got people excited.
But today, more often than not, these same words and super-sized claims instantly trigger rejection. The problem is, words like FREE and NEW and the big-claim style of advertising they reflect, have been so overused, they have become bright red flags that instantly scream to your prospects, throw me away!
As proof, if I were to send you an email with the words "new" and "free," I must misspell them, or your spam filter may bounce my message.
Best proof: just ask yourself, do you get overly excited when you encounter an email or direct mail package trumpeting free or new or some fantastic claim to make you rich, change your life overnight or grow body parts bigger than you ever dreamed?
Of course not.
You have heard such claims too many times. Your own exquisitely sensitive mental spam filter rejects all such messages instantly, as you think to yourself, YEAH, SURE.
And those, Top Gun, are the two most powerful and influential words in advertising today. Yeah, sure.
They are the near-universal response of a too-busy world awash in marketing.
These two words are merciless tyrants, mass murderers of response, because they are exactly the words your harried prospects think every time they must slog through the daily, ever-rising tide of advertising claims.
Get rich quick! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Lose weight fast! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Make $1,000 a week stuffing envelopes! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Elect me and I will make the world safe, cut your taxes and give everyone universal health care. Yeah, sure.
And so on, including almost all of the big-promise messages you were taught to trumpet by the direct response scriptures.
A Simple Secret for Exploding Your Response
As a result, the vast majority of B level copywriters spend most of their days dreaming up ways to pump up ever-bigger claims ... which is why their mailings are almost always beaten easily by the tiny handful of A level copywriters who know this simple secret of successful selling in an overmarketed world...
Never make your claim bigger than your proof. And always join your claim and your proof at the hip in your headlines, so that you never trumpet one without the other.
There is no more powerful nor consistent way to explode your response. Surround your claims with stronger, bolder proof and watch your response soar.
And I am not talking just about testimonials, which do help but have become so overused themselves, they have lost some of their magic. I am talking about every method you can possibly find to bolster your proof and credibility.
There are many ways to do this, as I will teach you in future BULLETS.
One of the easiest ways is simply to avoid like the measles phrases so overused, they instantly trigger the Yeah, Sure response, phrases such as get rich quick ... lose weight fast ... and, yes, become a millionaire.
Another way is to sandwich your big promise inside an IF ...THEN construction in your headline.
When you say IF (followed by a requirement your prospects have to meet), it seems to magically switch off and bypass their Yeah, Sure alarm and usher you right in their front door to sell.
Surprisingly, it even works when you make the requirement easy to meet.
And now you know the winner, headline A:
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle
in your life.
I know, the promise still seems so big and hard to believe. But that is the power of the IF...THEN construction. For some reason, it seems to put the universal Yeah, Sure alarm to sleep, like punching in the alarm code when you enter your home.
The formula: a reasonably easy requirement, followed by a strong promise. Think up ways to use this for your own product.
Of course, be sure to pay off in your body copy why and how the benefit can be achieved by such an easy requirement. And if it is not extremely easy, but only moderately easy, that is even better, as it is more believable. Surprisingly, candor is gloriously effective in boosting response.
Anyway, test this IF...THEN idea sometime soon, measure the results, and you may be startled by how much it outpulls the typical big-promise headline most ads rely on.
In fact, the headline above was so successful for Givens, his publishers asked me if they could adapt it for another of their products, a weight loss newsletter by Richard Simmons. Against a strong control package that had beaten off all comers, they tested this headline, keeping all other elements in the package the same:
(Next to photo of Richard Simmons)
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee a thinner, healthier you.
It worked like a charm and handily beat the previous champ. (BTW, notice the absence of exclamation marks, the overuse of which increases the aroma of hype and a resulting Yeah, Sure response.)
The Best Example I've Ever Seen
The most effective use I have ever seen of this IF...THEN technique was a famous ad for a speedwriting course.
I saw it when I was a copy cub, commuting to Madison Avenue by subway. It was addressed to secretaries and ran for many years. As you were standing there, hanging on your strap and swaying with the motion of the train, you'd read this poster just above eye level. The headline was a sentence handwritten in script across a spiral, steno-type notepad. It read:
F u cn rd ths msg,
u 2 cn dbl yr incm
w spdwrtng.
When I figured it out...
...I flt lk a blumn gnys!
So did legions of secretaries who responded to this ad for many years.
Coming in Future BULLETS...
...Many more ways to switch off the Yeah, Sure alarm and easily get your foot in the door, which is half the challenge in direct marketing.
In your next BULLET: The most important advertising question you can ask. This, too, is a secret you have never read elsewhere, yet it will make a huge difference in your marketing fortunes. You will see.
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy this
Bullet, or my entire Bullet collection, just send them an email with this link: http://marketingbullets.com/index.htm
P.P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared.
If you ever wish to unsubscribe, just let me know and I will vanish from your life like a shadow in the night.
One of the best and most respected direct marketing copywriters is Gary Bencivenga. To all his clients he's more than a copywriter. He's a trusted advisor. Now retired, he's talking about his craft. Here's his unique look at what many believe are the basic "foundation" words in any direct marketing effort.
Dear Marketing Top Gun:
In this BULLET ..... (I'll show you how to subscribe to Gary's "BULLET" Library at the end of this Blog) ..... you'll discover the two most powerful words in advertising and how to use them to explode your response fairly easily and consistently.
Which Headline Pulled Best?
First, to illustrate the secret, can you guess which of these two magalog headlines was the big winner for a financial newsletter?
HEADLINE A: (next to photo of financial guru, Charles J. Givens):
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle
in your life.
(caption under photo)
Charles J. Givens, the self-made $200-millionaire,
entrepreneur and best-selling financial author of all time.
HEADLINE B: (same photo and caption):
The Millionaire Maker
(subhead) Can he make YOU rich, too?
* * *
Which of these headlines absolutely smashed the other in a split-run test, out-pulling it by a huge margin and becoming a profitable control for years?
Rather than just tell you the winner, let me describe how you could know in advance, once you understand the two most powerful words in advertising today.
By the way, no BULLET you will ever read will give you more sheer power to boost your response consistently, beat existing control packages easily and create your own blockbuster products than the simple yet profound secret I will now share. Yet I doubt if you have ever read this anywhere, even if you have been a lifelong student of advertising.
Conventional Wisdom That's Wrong ...
First, you must understand why some of what you have been taught about direct marketing is wrong, or at least outdated and incomplete.
Most of the few great books on direct response were written more than a generation ago by legends such as John Caples, David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins and one or two others. Most of their response-boosting secrets remain valid, as we will see in future BULLETS.
Their main teaching: benefits, big benefits, are the key to high response.
Makes sense. But there's a problem. These giants wrote this advice long ago when, compared with today, prospects were under-marketed. So, yes, back then, flat-out big benefits and words like FREE and NEW got people excited.
But today, more often than not, these same words and super-sized claims instantly trigger rejection. The problem is, words like FREE and NEW and the big-claim style of advertising they reflect, have been so overused, they have become bright red flags that instantly scream to your prospects, throw me away!
As proof, if I were to send you an email with the words "new" and "free," I must misspell them, or your spam filter may bounce my message.
Best proof: just ask yourself, do you get overly excited when you encounter an email or direct mail package trumpeting free or new or some fantastic claim to make you rich, change your life overnight or grow body parts bigger than you ever dreamed?
Of course not.
You have heard such claims too many times. Your own exquisitely sensitive mental spam filter rejects all such messages instantly, as you think to yourself, YEAH, SURE.
And those, Top Gun, are the two most powerful and influential words in advertising today. Yeah, sure.
They are the near-universal response of a too-busy world awash in marketing.
These two words are merciless tyrants, mass murderers of response, because they are exactly the words your harried prospects think every time they must slog through the daily, ever-rising tide of advertising claims.
Get rich quick! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Lose weight fast! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Make $1,000 a week stuffing envelopes! Yeah, sure (toss it).
Elect me and I will make the world safe, cut your taxes and give everyone universal health care. Yeah, sure.
And so on, including almost all of the big-promise messages you were taught to trumpet by the direct response scriptures.
A Simple Secret for Exploding Your Response
As a result, the vast majority of B level copywriters spend most of their days dreaming up ways to pump up ever-bigger claims ... which is why their mailings are almost always beaten easily by the tiny handful of A level copywriters who know this simple secret of successful selling in an overmarketed world...
Never make your claim bigger than your proof. And always join your claim and your proof at the hip in your headlines, so that you never trumpet one without the other.
There is no more powerful nor consistent way to explode your response. Surround your claims with stronger, bolder proof and watch your response soar.
And I am not talking just about testimonials, which do help but have become so overused themselves, they have lost some of their magic. I am talking about every method you can possibly find to bolster your proof and credibility.
There are many ways to do this, as I will teach you in future BULLETS.
One of the easiest ways is simply to avoid like the measles phrases so overused, they instantly trigger the Yeah, Sure response, phrases such as get rich quick ... lose weight fast ... and, yes, become a millionaire.
Another way is to sandwich your big promise inside an IF ...THEN construction in your headline.
When you say IF (followed by a requirement your prospects have to meet), it seems to magically switch off and bypass their Yeah, Sure alarm and usher you right in their front door to sell.
Surprisingly, it even works when you make the requirement easy to meet.
And now you know the winner, headline A:
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle
in your life.
I know, the promise still seems so big and hard to believe. But that is the power of the IF...THEN construction. For some reason, it seems to put the universal Yeah, Sure alarm to sleep, like punching in the alarm code when you enter your home.
The formula: a reasonably easy requirement, followed by a strong promise. Think up ways to use this for your own product.
Of course, be sure to pay off in your body copy why and how the benefit can be achieved by such an easy requirement. And if it is not extremely easy, but only moderately easy, that is even better, as it is more believable. Surprisingly, candor is gloriously effective in boosting response.
Anyway, test this IF...THEN idea sometime soon, measure the results, and you may be startled by how much it outpulls the typical big-promise headline most ads rely on.
In fact, the headline above was so successful for Givens, his publishers asked me if they could adapt it for another of their products, a weight loss newsletter by Richard Simmons. Against a strong control package that had beaten off all comers, they tested this headline, keeping all other elements in the package the same:
(Next to photo of Richard Simmons)
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee a thinner, healthier you.
It worked like a charm and handily beat the previous champ. (BTW, notice the absence of exclamation marks, the overuse of which increases the aroma of hype and a resulting Yeah, Sure response.)
The Best Example I've Ever Seen
The most effective use I have ever seen of this IF...THEN technique was a famous ad for a speedwriting course.
I saw it when I was a copy cub, commuting to Madison Avenue by subway. It was addressed to secretaries and ran for many years. As you were standing there, hanging on your strap and swaying with the motion of the train, you'd read this poster just above eye level. The headline was a sentence handwritten in script across a spiral, steno-type notepad. It read:
F u cn rd ths msg,
u 2 cn dbl yr incm
w spdwrtng.
When I figured it out...
...I flt lk a blumn gnys!
So did legions of secretaries who responded to this ad for many years.
Coming in Future BULLETS...
...Many more ways to switch off the Yeah, Sure alarm and easily get your foot in the door, which is half the challenge in direct marketing.
In your next BULLET: The most important advertising question you can ask. This, too, is a secret you have never read elsewhere, yet it will make a huge difference in your marketing fortunes. You will see.
Sincere wishes for a good life
and (always!) higher response,
P.S. If you know any copywriters or marketers who would enjoy this
Bullet, or my entire Bullet collection, just send them an email with this link: http://marketingbullets.com/index.htm
P.P.S. Your e-mail address will never be shared.
If you ever wish to unsubscribe, just let me know and I will vanish from your life like a shadow in the night.
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