Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
September 11, 2006
Issue #60
In this issue
- How treating great marketing strategies and sales copy as a mere commodity hamstrings businesses …
- How to position any product as unique and head-and-shoulders above the competition …
- How long sales copy should be …
- And much, much more!
Dear Business-Builder,
The other day, a subscriber e-mailed me to inquire if my direct marketing agency, Response Ink, would build a website for him.
Now, although Response Ink is definitely NOT looking to add new clients to our line-up at this time, the subscriber’s company has an intriguing, even ingenious business model – and so my curiosity got the better of me.
I agreed to take the call, and a few days later, the subscriber and his two bosses – the partners who own the company – joined Julie, Daniel and me on our conference bridge.
As we talked, it quickly became clear that, instead of searching for the best marketing strategies and sales copy money could buy, the principals were price-shopping us!
And so I politely quoted our admittedly outrageous price – which includes a commission on each sale we produce … let them off the hook by apologizing that we couldn’t get their site done in the time alotted … and politely wished them good luck.
At this moment – unless I miss my guess – they’re now discovering the joys of working with the lowest bidder: A company that agreed to their deadline and quoted them a dirt-cheap price.
My prediction? These guys are about to endure a painful and costly object lesson in the true value of great marketing.
Here’s what typically happens next:
-
The lowest bidder proves (surprise, surprise!) incompetent. The sales copy stinks, the web pages are ugly and virtually unreadable, functionality is limited and the third, fourth, fifth, etc. drafts blow the deadline to smithereens.
-
The lowest bidder is fired. The next-lowest bidder is hired and starts all over again from scratch. This step is often repeated two or three times until a website – of sorts – is finally finished.
-
Sales stink. Months after the initial deadline, the website finally goes live and promptly proceeds to disappoint everybody with pathetic sales.
Pity.
Whether from hubris or ignorance, these otherwise very bright men are making one of the most common blunders in the business world. Believing that they have built “a better mousetrap,” they expect the world to automatically beat a path to their door.
They evidently understand they need sales copy – although they’re probably not sure why. And they’re certainly ignorant of the fact that great marketing can often produce many times the sales, revenues and profits that mediocre, luke-warm promotions do, thus multiplying the size of their business in a fraction of the time.
To “penny-wise, pound-foolish” guys like these, marketing strategies and copywriting are merely a commodity – just another business expense – no more important to their company’s success than ink cartridges, yellow pads or toilet paper.
One can only hope that sooner or later, these “penny-wise, pound-foolish” guys will have an epiphany: That they will finally realize that great marketing strategies and sales copy combined with flawless execution is AT LEAST as essential to their success as the quality of their product is – and quite possibly, even more so …
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
September 6, 2006
Issue WMA #14
In this article:
- Is your landing page behaving like a raw rookie salesman in print?
- The Claude C. Hopkins landing page acid test…
- How to uncover your market’s buying criteria…
- The 4 secret rules of the master closer…
- And more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
In last week's article you and I talked about the holy trinity of web marketing.
- Having a powerful offer.
- Communicating it to a starving crowd who've ALREADY proven they want and can afford what you're selling. And
- Communicating with your starving crowd in a way that effectively moves them through the Attention, Interest, Desire, Action continuum.
Now, if you've got the first two down cold, here are the three deadly sins you want to avoid like the plague on the home stretch. That all important point of impact… where your dream prospect collides with your copy …
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
September 4, 2006
Issue #59
Two, real life case histories that prove
only savvy marketers are fit
to run growth-oriented companies
Dear Business-Builder,
It’s so predictable, you can set your watch by it …
Armed with only a skeleton staff, meager resources and big dreams, an eager young entrepreneur slaves 60, 80, and often 100 hours every week for years to grow his business.
He does everything right: He develops or acquires top-notch products. Watches overhead like a hawk. Reinvests every penny of profit. Becomes a student of great marketing and sales copy strategies – and a past master at implementing winning campaigns.
When it comes to sales copy, he never pulls a punch. He goes for the jugular – as far as the law and his ethics will allow – demonstrating the value his products bring to customers’ lives with edgy, can’t-put-‘em-down promotions:
- Sales copy that grabs prospects by the eyeballs …
- That ruthlessly differentiates his company, lifting it head and shoulders above the competition …
- That positions the owner and/or spokespeople as honest advocates for customers and against those who use and abuse them …
- And that super-glues customers to the company in ways that have them spending more and more with him, each passing month.
Armed with these edgy, un-ignorable, in-your-face promotions, the owner’s dreams of success soon become reality.
Suddenly, tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of new, paying customers are flocking to the company. Products fly off the shelves faster than pickaxes and rotgut in an Old West gold rush. Millions of dollars cascade into the company’s coffers every week.
And that’s when “it” happens …
The owner, eager to continue or even accelerate his company’s growth rate – and at the same time cut his own workweek down to a more reasonable size – begins recruiting what he mistakenly believes is a “better class” of top executives.
Maybe it’s a new President to lighten his workload … or perhaps a Chief Financial Officer to keep an eagle eye on expenses and manage the company’s rapidly growing cash reserves …
But typically, there’s a problem: Typically, these hired guns don’t know one goldarn thing about the company – let alone about its business: Direct Marketing. And typically, they won’t lift a finger to learn.
After all: They’re here to be teachers – not students!
They’re the experts. They’re the ones who read all the right business books. They’re the ones with fancy-schmancy degrees and six-figure salaries.
Their job isn’t to learn – it’s to teach the poor, dumb business owner and his poor, dumb staff how to do it right!
And so, these private sector bureaucrats go to work …
- People who have never risked their own money or chunks of their lives to build a successful business of their own are suddenly in control of an entrepreneurial enterprise still in its growth phase …
- Neophytes who have never created a successful direct response promotion in their lives are lording it over veteran marketers who previously thrashed the competition with industry-beating promotions …
- And worst of all, these talentless functionaries who are genetically bred and scholastically brainwashed to focus on reducing risk rather than nurturing and accelerating growth … and on cutting costs instead of investing in the future … begin running the show.
Now, I’ll give you three guesses at what happens next – and I seriously doubt you’ll need all three …
Bingo: Revenue growth slows, then stops. New customers become as rare as hen’s teeth and old customers stampede for the exits. As profits dwindle to zero – and then to less than zero – the company’s hard-won cash reserves quickly evaporate.
Finally, after the company’s best employees have either been laid off or have quit in disgust – the self-important gas bags who precipitated the crisis … and who still don’t have a clue as to why the company self-destructed (but waste no time pointing their fingers at everyone who helped grow the business just fine before the bureaucrats showed up) – are unceremoniously fired.
And suddenly, the business owner finds himself right back at Square One:
Armed with only a skeleton staff and meager resources, the older but hopefully wiser entrepreneur sadly licks his wounds and goes back to work – 60, 80, even 100 hours a week – in a desperate attempt to return his company to its former glory …
This cycle is repeated hundreds, perhaps thousands of times in America every day: The bell-shaped curve that rises from modest growth … to explosive growth … and then to the plateau and plunge into near-oblivion that inevitably follows “The Experts” arrival on the scene.
How do I know? Well, for one thing, I’ve seen it happen more than once among my own clients. And for another, I deal with companies who are making the very same mistake every day – both in my professional and personal life.
And since like me, you’re a business builder – whether building our own businesses, or as a marketing pro or copywriter building both your own and your clients’ businesses – I figured today would be a good day to be reminded of one of the dumbest things smart business owners like us do: Subjugate marketers to these drooling morons.
NOTE: These stories are true. However, in our first case history, the names have been changed to protect the innocent – namely, ME – from getting drawn into a public pissing contest with the guilty.
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