Posted by:
Bob Bly
May 31, 2007
Issue #139
When I was the advertising manager for a process equipment manufacturer, one of my responsibilities was to serve as liaison between the advertising agency we hired to write our ads and product brochures and our staff engineers.
The engineers, because of their technical expertise in the subject matter, were responsible for reviewing the agency’s work.
As is often the case in our industry, the engineers complained that those “ad types” at the agency didn’t understand the product or the audience – and that their copy was way off base.
The agency countered that engineers may know technology but don’t know writing, marketing, design, or selling – and that they wanted to cram the brochures with too much unnecessary detail that would dilute the sales message.
Who was right? The fact is both arguments have some merit.
On the agency side, ad agency folk often have a flair for creative, colorful communication, which can help a brochure gain attention and be noticed.
On the other hand, clients – especially the engineers who review the agency’s brochure copy – often complain, sometimes correctly, that the agency’s brochure copy is superficial.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
May 30, 2007
Issue #138
In this issue:
- How to engineer 'message to market match'…
- 17 crucial questions to ask yourself about your target market, and where to look for the answers…
- What to say to your ideal prospects to get them to whip out their plastic and buy now…
- Plus more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
I've said this before and I'll say it again. Online marketing is really pretty simple. You just need the right person, communicating the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, and in the right way. I call these the 5Rs.
Any significant sales objective requires careful attention to these 5 areas.
My proven formula for multiplying the sales effectiveness of my client's online campaigns is nothing more than a method of zeroing in on weaknesses in each one of them and eliminating those weaknesses, or reframing them as strengths.
Anybody can improve the conversion on their existing sales pages relatively easily, if they follow the same formula. It's no big secret…
Here's how, in five simple steps.
Step 1 – Select The Right Audience: All successful marketing begins with the audience and proceeds from there, so that's where you start. The very best audience to target is one with a proven propensity to buy similar products to those you happen to be selling. Very often, you can make sales to these folks in large numbers in a single step, which is nice.
But regardless of whether you're doing single-step marketing to proven buyers, or multi-step marketing to more marginal leads that you'll have to warm up before closing, one thing remains consistent: The more educated you can become about the prospects who comprise your audience, the more success you're going to have selling to them. And that's what this first step is all about.
Look at your traffic sources to determine, “Who am I really communicating with here?” You do this for two very important reasons:
- To verify these people are indeed the right audience for the product you're selling.
- To give yourself the raw material you'll need for the remaining steps in the process.
Most people are too lazy to do this, but if you take the time, it will make the rest of the job much easier. I promise.
You gain empathy for your audience by thinking deeply about what you already know about them… from taking the time to survey and talk to them… from analyzing the content they're interacting with on referring sites… from scouring through the comments they make on related blogs and forums… and from experiencing the same books, magazines, and movies they do.
Surveying your prospects at the point of interaction has actually never been easier. You can survey them when they arrive at your web site by putting an extra field on your opt in form that says something to the effect of “What's your biggest question, problem, or goal about x?”
You can survey them when they leave your website without buying by using an exit pop-up that says, “Why didn't you buy?”
And you can just pick up the phone and call a few of them the moment they buy, and ask them, “Why did you buy?”
There's really no excuse for not knowing your audience like the back of your hand. And in the process of doing so, a funny thing happens. They end up practically writing your copy for you…
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Posted by:
Troy White
May 29, 2007
Issue #137
In this issue:
- Are you selling a book… or building a business? The practical funnel system that will save your hide in business.
- Small Business Mastery readers speak out!
- How do you be THE one the prospect buys from?
- Giving them a Multiple O experience that keeps them coming back for more
- Practical examples of outrageous marketing
- And Much More!
Fellow business builder,
What wonderful questions you have! The last couple weeks have seen quite a few comments and questions being made around the lead generation and conversion techniques I have shared. If you haven’t read those articles yet – have a look at them here: "How To Write Lead Generation Display Ads" and "Turning Your Leads Into Buyers.
A couple more great questions came in that I wanted to answer…
Bob asked: "Hi Troy, What a great article! How could I adapt the method to sell books? I mean should I try to sell from the ad or offer a free report first? My book will be published in two months time and I will appreciate your comments. Regards, Bob"
Hi Bob, I have worked with quite a few authors so I can share some of my experiences with you. First, a book is typically quite inexpensive, so the offer of all this free information first may not be as needed as higher priced items. That said, it is just as challenging to sell a $25 item as it is a $250 or even $2,500 item. It may seem counter-intuitive to say that, but reality proves it fairly accurate. So, you need to let the potential reader learn more about you, your personality, your story, and what you can help them do. [Side note: I have not sold fiction books before so this information is more suited to non-fiction guides].
The first thing you must give some serious thought to… a book is NOT a business. Well before you start selling your book, you must seriously think through what else you will sell to them. This is a common issue with first-time authors – believing they can make a living with just a single book to sell. You can count yourself very fortunate and skilled if you can earn a real income from just a book. Why?
Think about it:
Average book price $25
Printing and fulfillment costs $9
Left over per book - $16
How many books a day do you need to sell to make a living at $16 per book?
Let’s say you set that number at 20 books = $320 per day.
You need a website, a merchant account, a shopping cart, email campaigns and newsletters. All costs you money.
Oh yeah, you also need leads!
You can find those in numerous different ways… but for now, let’s assume you find the perfect place to run some ads. It costs you $0.25 per lead (which would be a great deal!). For every 100 leads you get – you pay out $25 in advertising costs. Let's assume your leads for your inexpensive book convert at 5% which would be exceptional. For every 100 leads – you sell 5 books. It costs you $25 for the leads ($5 per buyer) and you earn $80 (total profit of $80 - $25 = $55). To sell 20 books a day you would need 400 leads a day minimum.
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Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
May 28, 2007
Issue #136
- A high-ticket product …
- A complicated topic …
- A long-copy web page …
- A 72-hour deadline …
- Nearly $3 million in sales at stake …
Here’s my proprietary secret for cranking out multi-million-dollar sales copy in less time than most writers take to plan their strategy …
Dear Business Builder,
Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
Since it’s a holiday weekend, I figure this would be a good time to give you a short issue.
But I am NOT going to “short” you.
In fact, I predict that if you put this idea to work, this will turn out to be one of the most helpful issues of The Total Package ever.
Why? Because if you write any kind sales copy, I’m going to show you how to get your first draft done in a fraction of the time it’s taking you now – so you can spend much, MUCH more time sharpening and polishing your prose before you show it to your client.
One of the questions we get asked a lot around here is, “Where do I start? I’ve got a copy of the control and the competition’s best promos. I’ve got reams of research – all these facts about the product and the problem it solves. And I’ve got tons more stuff I’m thinking about from copy courses I’ve taken, books I’ve read and actual experiences I’ve had writing copy.
“At this point, my brain’s a mess – teeming with hundreds of disconnected, even contradictory facts, figures, rules and ideas. I’ve got an unyielding deadline staring me in the face. And that blank screen is scaring me half to death!”
Well, the fact is, there are as many ways of getting started as there are copywriters. More, actually – because each copywriter may begin each project differently.
I offer one of my favorite ways to get a jackrabbit start in Beat the Blank Page Blues – with the process for organizing your research into a rough draft and even step-by-step outlines for everything from short print ads to long tabloid copy.
Since that strategy is fairly clinical, let’s call it “the left-brain approach.”
Recently, I used an entirely different approach. Since it requires a little imagination, we’ll call it (you guessed it!) “the right brain approach.”
Here’s the skinny on the prospect, product and offer …
Client: Weiss Research
Promotion: Web page – copy will be recycled in an e-mail campaign to customer file.
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Posted by:
John Newtson
May 26, 2007
Issue #135
- How not to get your head handed to you when competing against other copywriters …
- Smart ways to improve your copywriting skill and master the deep art of writing bullets …
- How Screaming Eagle editor Tony Flores is saving my marriage …
- And much, much more!
Dear Business Builder,
Tony Flores, editor of The Screaming Eagle newsletter, annoys me.
Even more than IT geek David Dittman does.
Sure, Dittman corrects me on every tech-related comment I make … makes fun of me when I use phrases like ‘Web 2.0’ (Yes, David I know it’s a buzz word from 1999 and marketers are just now catching onto it, give it a rest. You’re better than me, I get it) …
…and likes to wax profound about building operating systems in his spare time ‘Just for fun!’ (Forrest and Graham, our other web guys, are trying to get him to build them robot girlfriends in their garage too, but that’s their business).
But all-in-all David’s a good beer-drinking buddy despite being a little annoying. At least you can talk to him like a normal person.
Not Tony.
Start talking to him about anything other than copywriting and his eyes glaze over. Just the other day I turned to him to point out, “Hey Tony, I think that girl is checking you out.”
Tony’s response?
“Really? That reminds me of a promotion for Men’s Health that Parris Lampropoulos wrote, he wrote these great bullets about …"
Aye. Tony. Tony. Tony.
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