Notes on copywriting and direct marketing

Evaluate Your Advertising Results
Do you know the return on investment (ROI) for each of your advertisements? Most businesses don’t know or can’t calculate that information, but it can be done.

Maybe I’d better modify that statement. It can be done by those companies who are using direct response marketing techniques. That is one of the main advantages to direct response marketing.

Perhaps you can sympathize with John Wanamaker, a pioneering retailer in the 19th century who is alleged to have said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

You can get an answer to that dilemma. Sometimes all it takes is a simple tweak to your yellow pages ad, newspaper ads, or Val-Pak coupons to find out exactly how much business they really are generating. The results may surprise you. Sometimes it takes a major rethinking of your ads.

If you’re not happy with the ROI on your current advertising, don’t tell yourself advertising doesn’t work. Advertising does work for thousands of businesses. It will work for yours. You just have to do it right.

Consider this: Will your ad stand out from your competition when it is just like their ads? If it doesn’t stand out, can it effectively communicate your message?

Reluctance to be different or unique is a mistake made by many companies.

You might just need to…

Send Your Message to the Right Market
Who is your ideal customer? Don’t say, “Everybody.” You might be willing or even anxious to sell your product to anyone who’ll listen, but stop and think about it. Does it do you any good walking down skid row telling the homeless folks about your product? Most of them are too broke to buy it even if they did want it.

Every successful salesperson qualifies his prospects. Who wants to spend a lot of time persuading someone who can’t buy your product?

When I was selling insurance, for example, we had products that were designed for specific target audiences. The policy that best met the needs of a young, blue-collar father didn’t really work for the retired doctors and lawyers in town. It is the same for you no matter what product or service you are providing. It fits a certain target market.

An easy way to find out more about your target market is to look at your customer list. They liked your product or service and you well enough to buy from you at least once. What do they have in common? Other folks that share these traits are good prospects, too.

For instance, how old are most of your customers? Are they Gen-Xers, Baby Boomers, or someone else? Are more of them men or women? Other things to consider are income, lifestyle, buying habits, and maybe even politics.

You want to take the time to think this through. You may want to survey your customers for even more information.

If you can define the characteristics of your best customers, list brokers can provide you with lists of thousands of names of people exactly like your best customers for a very reasonable price. Yes, you should invest in a good list of prospects.

If your advertising message is sent to people who are interested in your product or service, more of them will buy, right? Why spend good money to share your message with folks that couldn’t care less and would never buy?

When you figure out who your best prospects are, you need to…

Send the Right Message
Does your advertising message show your prospective customer how much better her life will be as soon as she starts using your product? Probably not.

If your ads look like almost every other ad out there, it brags about how great you and your business are. Do you really think Jane Prospect really cares about your mission statement or the awards you’ve won? Her main concern, especially in a tight economy, is “What’s In It For Me?”

Take a minute to think about this.

When you’re in the market for a product and service, don’t you read ads and wonder which advertiser will give you the best deal? Do you care if she has the snazziest ad and the cleverest slogan… or the best price, terms, service, and guarantee? Does the offer of a “Special Good Deal” on whatever you are in the market for catch your eye?

Maybe you customer looks at your ads the same way you look at other business’ ads.

There have been a ton of good books written about how to write a great ad. I’m not going to re-hash them here.

However…

If you would like to send a copy of your ad to john@jgilger.com or fax it to me at (702) 459-3856, I’ll review it and suggest a few ways you may to improve it. FREE.

When your message is fine tuned…

Are You Using the Right Messenger?
Most businesses stick with similar advertising venues without considering much more than the cost per thousand “eyeballs”. This goes back to the idea some folks have that they are “selling to everybody”. Now that you have identified more clearly who it is that buys your products or service, doesn’t it make more sense to concentrate your advertising dollars on folks just like them?

That is why the lists provided by your list broker are so valuable. These are the folks that share the same characteristics as your current best customers.

What if you wrote them a letter and offered them a “Special Good Deal” just for answering your letter? You might wind up with more customers than you can handle.

Letters are a great way to communicate your message. If they are written well, they are a personal message from you to the reader. When you read a letter from a friend, you are interested and pay attention to what you are reading.

Speaking of letters, when was the last time you sent a letter or a postcard to the folks on your customer list offering them a customer appreciation “Special Good Deal”?

This is still one of the great “secrets” of successful marketers. They stay in contact with customers and periodically make them a special offer and invite them to share it with their friends and families. It’s a great way to run a referral program.

As good as letters are, other messengers are effective for communicating your message. The Yellow Pages are popular and can work. Ads in newspapers and magazines can also be effective in communicating your message. The main problem with these is the message — or lack of a message.

There is a lot of talk in the news these days about recession. Some economists are gloomily predicting another depression. Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won’t. Either way, if you are willing to learn from the past your business can thrive… even in challenging economic circumstances.

Don’t Cut Your Advertising Budget

When the economy gets tight and your sales are getting harder to make, you might start thinking about reducing your ad budget “just ‘til things get better”. That’s not a good idea. In fact, that might be your first step toward bankruptcy.

To begin, the Great Depression was not all was gloom and doom. It was a time when those who knew what they were doing made great economic strides and the very nature of the depression itself was an economic boon for them. It was a time when companies benefited from aggressive marketing while their rivals cut back. A good example of that would be Kellogg overtaking C.W. Post during that time. Consumers didn’t totally stop spending during the depression any more than consumers today are going to totally stop spending. Most just looked for better deals and the companies providing those better deals came out stronger after the depression ended. When spending picked up, consumer loyalty to those companies remained. There is no reason to expect anything different as we move through the current economic difficulties.

In general, those companies who not only survived but did well and grew during the Great Depression are those who continued to act as though there were nothing wrong and that the public had money to spend. In other words, they advertised. They created demand even during the most difficult of times.

Many companies cut spending during that era, almost eliminating their advertising budgets. These companies actually dropped out of public sight because of short sighted decisions made about spending money to keep a high profile. Their advertising cutbacks caused many customers to feel abandoned and associated the effected brands with a lack of staying power. This not only drove customers to more aggressive competitors but caused a certain amount of mistrust when it came to financial investors considering making additional investments in these no longer visible companies.

Historical evidence supports the case that advertising was the main factor in the growth or downfall of companies during those years. Clearly, the companies which demonstrated the most growth and which rang up the most sales were those which advertised heavily. The Great Depression offers classic examples of the power of advertising even during times of economic crisis.

As an example, there were 108 companies manufacturing automobiles in the United States during 1924. By 1936, the “big three” (Ford, Chrysler and GM) held 90% of the US car market. They survived by expanding their advertising. Chevrolet was particularly aggressive. During the 1920s, Fords were outselling Chevrolets by 10 to 1. In spite of the Depression, Chevrolet continued to expand its advertising budget and by 1931, the “Chevy 6″ took the lead in its field and remained there for the next five years.
So, if we look back to the past and learn from those who succeeded and even prospered in some of the toughest economic times of recent history, here are a few things you can do: …To be continued…

Fall has been a busy time around here — as shown by the lack of postings

I actually survived my first visit to the AWAI Bootcamp this past October. The boot camp was good, but being crammed into those little-bitty airplane seats for seven hours at a stretch took some mental survival skills.

While celebrating Thanksgiving with my extended family, we shared what we were thankful for this year.

Right below being thankful for may family, was you, my friends, customers, and readers. You are a very important part of my life.

Next on the list are the great copywriters who have taught me so much during the past year. Tops among these is Clayton Makepeace. His newsletter, “The Total Package”. is my one “must-read” when it hits my mail box.

As a small token of my thanks and appreciation to Clayton for his outstanding newsletter and to you as my friends, customers, and readers, I am sharing this resource.

When you click here, you will not only receive the insights and secrets of America’s best copywriter through out the year, but you will also receive these free e-books as bonuses:

• Why Your Advertising Never Makes You Money
• How To Decide Where to Advertise
• How to Write Killer Ads and Compelling Sales Copy
• The Eight Components of Irresistible Direct Response Offers

I hope this resource provides you as much value as it has me.

No matter which holiday you choose to celebrate during this holiday season, I wish you and yours all the best for peace and prosperity in the coming year.

John

This article was originally published a couple years ago in a previous blog of mine. It was titled “Confessions of an Info-Junkie”.

Based on many e-zines I subscribe to, it still contains pertiinent advice.
—

I love the Internet! Information about any topic that piques my curiosity is just a few clicks away. E-zines on almost any topic are available to all.

Yes, I have to admit it — I Am An Info Junkie. It has become an addiction. I subscribe to dozens of e-zines and my browser’s bookmark list is huge.

Today, I fired thirteen e-zine publishers.

It was hard. I didn’t want to let go of those threads to information sources, but they all made the same mistake.

Maybe you were one of the thirteen.

Maybe it wasn’t just a mistake. It is more like a cardinal sin or just plain ignorance.

Your e-zine/newsletter didn’t contain any news.

There was not a sentence of content in it. You and the other twelve publishers have not provided a lick of content for weeks or even months. I have been hoping that “maybe the next issue will be the one…”

That next issue that contained the content I was hungry for never came. Yes, your e-zine was always there right on time. Yes, I even received your bonus editions.

You flooded my RSS reader and my email box with ads.

I realize that we are all in the business of trying to make a buck or two and I can accept a couple of ads if I get my info fix. Ads support your ability to provide content and we info junkies of the world can tolerate that.

Your cardinal sin was to send ads to me without any accompanying content.

That, my friend, is spam. That is why I clicked on the “unsubscribe me” link and fired you.

Anyone who has been in the Internet Marketing business for more than five minutes has memorized this mantra:

THE MONEY IS IN THE LIST

(I could go off on a tangent about e-book authors who hired copywriters to provide wonderful sales copy for horrible e-books that I have bought, but that is a rant for a different day.)

Back to this rant.

If you want the privilege of feeding ads to my RSS reader or dropping them in my email box, please have the decency to feed my addiction – I get real cranky if you make me go into withdrawal.

Wrap your ad in some decent content!

Consider this – if you have no list, you’ll have no money.

Do you wonder why your e-zine has such a low response?

Is it even being read?

Here’s another info junkie confession –

A lot of us are lazy! (I know … that is an earth- shattering fact you never thought of … LOL)

It is much easier to click on “delete” than it is to search the fine print for the unsubscribe instructions. Lots of us have those cool email clients like Thunderbird that let us click a “Junk” icon and never be bothered by your spammy ads again.

It is sad.

A world full of info junkies that like to buy good stuff from the ‘net and a world full of Internet marketers that want to sell stuff – it looks like a match made in heaven.

You blew it. You and twelve of your colleagues.

You lost your focus. You forgot that the info junkies of the world provide your Internet income. We are your customers. Without us, where would you be?

Just give us our fix. Put some content in your e-zines and we’ll stay on your list buying more than we can rationally afford forever.

In my work I visit a lot of business web sites. Some are great, others are not so great. What follows are a few observations and thoughts on the subject of “good” web sites.

The Internet is profoundly market driven.

The client/visitor “rules.” So be totally and absolutely responsive, absolutely courteous, respectful, enthusiastic and sensitive. Concentrate your efforts, wherever possible and practical, on finding and establishing frequent visitors. Then build a strong trusted relationship you can turn into meaningful future profit or strategic ethical advantage for your business.

Common sense, perhaps, but it seems that common sense is in short supply these days.

The Internet is all about communication.

Establish effective communication with your clients and prospects through your web site and e-mail presence — and your business will grow. After all, isn’t that the reason you have a web site?

A sale is NOT the most important goal.

Whatever it is you sell or do on the Internet, you must recognize — ultimately, it’s not about getting the sale — it’s about winning clients and loyalty for life. Does this distinction make sense to you? It should.

An effective web site is an on-going process improvement effort.

You’ll probably never have everything exactly the way you want it, because by then, the market, competition, and state of technology will all have changed and you’ll need to rework your entire thinking all over again. So, see the Internet and your web site as a perpetual work-in-progress.

Ask yourself these reflective questions:

1. What are the three most important reasons people are coming to your web site? What’s their payoff? Is it well enough explained, defined, known?
2. Are you afraid of making mistakes? Don’t be! It’s called testing. You try something to see if it will work. An unsuccessful test is not failure. It’s only part of the learning curve.
3. Are you honestly prepared to put your clients first? If you want to successfully do business on the Internet, you need to be prepared, as seriously as possible, to meet your clients’ needs head-on.
4. Is your communication style clear and concise? Your communication style must be short sentences. Bold paragraphs. Subject lines (when using e-mail) and headlines should send a clear appealing message about why you care about the client.
5. Is your site user friendly? Use plain English. Write at an 8th grade level. Don’t exaggerate. Be real, be yourself. Honesty real does work best. Take all the puff and hype out of your communications, graphics and writings. Talk face-to-face. First person. One-to-one. You-to-me. Me-to-you.

Is your Internet web site business-to-business?

Make certain your buying and transaction process is easy, fast, clear, appealing and effective — for the buyer or visitor’s use — not for you. Focus on building a better business-to-business process than whatever current choices are out there.

Work on building credibility for your product, company and web site presence.
If the user doesn’t trust your site, there are hundreds of other sites out there that can offer the same products or services. Remember that the user is in charge on the Internet – so add credibility to your web site as much as possible and wherever possible.

Little things build credibility.

• Put your firm’s physical address on all your web pages.
• Put your signature on your welcoming letter on your web site home page.
• If appropriate, put a recording of yourself on your web site.

Work carefully and continuously to build as many levels and layers of credibility in your web site presentation and content. Remember, on the Internet, more importantly than anything else, you must build your credibility. Because, in the end, it all comes down to which site the users trust!

In the final analysis, it all boils down to this:

Always remember that you build your web site for your clients, not for you. It’s for them.

Everybody loves a good story.

Have you ever noticed how people perk up and pay attention when you utter those magic words, “Let me tell you a story”? Whether is a child on Grandpa’s knee or a crowd listening to your presentation, they are “all ears” at the prospect of a story.

How do you use a story to generate leads?

Give them a case study.

“Case study” is an odd-ball name for a success story about your customer using your product or service to solve a nagging problem. They aren’t hard to write. They are as easy as writing an article for your company newsletter and they are not long. Most run two to four pages.

How to write an effective case study

The first thing you need is a happy customer. Take some time and talk to her about she solved her problem using your product or service. A small tape recorder is great for “taking notes”, by the way.

During your discussion, you want to cover these topics:

• What was the problem she was trying to solve?
• What did she try to do before she found your product?
• How did she find out about your product or service?
• Why was your product the ideal solution?
• What experiences did she have implementing your product (good and bad)?
• What results has she experienced (be specific and use hard numbers)?

Write up your notes, quoting her often. Introduce her at the beginning and let her tell the story. Make sure it is her story as the heroine using your product or service to slay her dragon of a problem. Get her approval to ensure you quoted her correctly.

One last thing, make absolutely sure that you tell the reader how to contact you for more information.

What to do with your new case study

Enclose it with your sales letter. It is a great testimonial.

Pass it out with (or instead of) your brochure. When your voice is talking about your product, the reader is skeptical, but when someone else’s voice is talking about your product it must be true.

Call it an article and get it published in your industry’s trade pub. Or publish it in your company newsletter.

Put it in the body of a press release and send it to your local media.

Use your imagination. If you come up with an interesting twist, let me know.

Read this to learn 5 secrets to good writing. Apply these secrets to every word you choose, every sentence you write, every paragraph you create … and you can be sure that your e-mail will communicate your ideas with efficiency and clarity.

Secret #1: Avoid lazy verbs.

Some verbs are over worked, tired, and lazy. The verb “to be” is one of these. Choose verbs that add interest to create become stronger, more descriptive sentences. Eliminate “to be,” and your writing becomes more vibrant, more interesting, and more persuasive. Notice how much better sentence (b) is than sentence (a):
(a) The stranger was in the doorway.
(b) The stranger STOOD in the doorway.
Another lazy verb, “to have” doesn’t do much for your writing. Your sentences are more economical and active without it. Again, notice how much better sentence (b) is than sentence (a):
(a) This change to our marketing plan could have a significant impact on our sales this year.
(b) This change to our marketing plan could SIGNIFICANTLY impact our sales this year.

Secret #2. Don’t be a show off.

You write to express your ideas, not to impress the reader with your vocabulary. Don’t confuse him with your language. Choose words that make your message easy to read. Write the way you talk… unless you are a pompous wind bag when you are talking, too.
As Winston Churchill said, “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.”
SHORT words say it best.
Use “use” rather than “utilize”
Use “about” rather than “concerning”
Use “so” rather than “accordingly”
SPECIFIC words add sparkle.
Use “329-pound” rather than “large”
Use “57 Chevy” rather than “car”
Use “I” rather than “one”
COMMON words are better.
Use “help” rather than “facilitate”
Use “best” rather than “optimal”
Use “start” rather than “inception”

Secret #3. Keep it short.

Short sentences keep your copy moving forward. When your sentences are too long, your reader gets bogged down in the language and confused by what you’re trying to say. You may have a lot to say. Fine. Say it in more than one sentence.
Your job is to make it easy for a reader. You do that by trimming words.
Anatole France quipped, “The best sentence? The shortest.”

Secret #4. Express one idea in one sentence.

Run on sentences confuse your reader. Your reader will understand your ideas more clearly when you express them one at a time.
This is one time to be careful about writing the way you talk. Some folks let their ideas tumble out and swirl together without any organization. Don’t be one of them.

Secret #5. Say what you mean.

Mark twain advised, “Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”
Think about the message you want to communicate. If it is complicated or long, make an outline. This will help you get your thought together so you can express them in the most effective order.

Bonus secret:

Before you hit that “send” button re-read your e-mail. Look for ways to clarify your thoughts and ideas. The real secret of good writing is re-writing. Never be afraid to revise your words.
Robert Heinlein gets the final word: “The most important lesson in the writing trade is that any manuscript is improved if you cut away the fat.”

Most businesses think they must advertise much like the big brand-name companies, so spend (some say “waste”) a pile of money on image and brand advertising. You don’t need to do that.

When you take time to ask youself what business you are really in doesn’t boil down to attracting more customers (or donors) and continually pleasing them?

What is the best way to do that?

Direct marketing, of course.

When you run a “normal” image or brand-building ad, do you know what your return on that investment is? Do you know how exactly many dollars that ad produced for you?

With a good direct rersponse ad or sales letter, you know exactly how much business that ad or letter brought into the business. If the ROI is acceptable, you can runt that same ad again or send out that same sales letter again and expect the same level of results.

If you want a steady stream of business, you simply need to mail (or email) a good sales letter regularly or run a good ad on a regular basis.

What, you don’t have a good ad or sales letter?

That’s an easy fix! Go to my contact page and let me know what you need or simply send me an email.

I recently listened in an a teleseminar where the “guru” was telling us listeners that we should “always” write our headline first. That statement has some logic. The headline is one of the most critical elements of a sales letter or ad. After all, If the headline doesn’t pull you into the ad or letter, you will never consider the offer and will never buy.

Being somewhat contrary and opinionated, I believe the offer should be the first concern of a good copywriter.

Why is that, you may ask.

Good question.

Until you are clear on EXACTLY what you are offering to the reader and EXACTLY what you want in return, how do you know what the headline should be? If you know where you’re going, the trip is a lot easier.

Once you have your offer down pat — including the premiums and the guarantee — you can ask yourself, “Why would anyone want to buy that?” Now you can move into your reader’s mind and start to figure out why they want it and what motivates them.

Remember, never sell needs. No body wants to feel needy, but everybody wants more of everything. A need is logical and your reader may tell her significant other that she bought your widget because it fills a deep need in their life. The truth is she WANTED it. She had a deep emotional craving for it. Tap into that want and you will find your gold.

Once you understand the emotional wants of your reader, you are ready to write your headline and the rest of the letter. Once you have a clear understanding of both sides of the transaction — what you are offering and why the reader wants it — the rest of the letter just flows into place.