Posted by:
Clayton Makepeace
March 17, 2008
Issue #375
Time to clamber into our trusty time machines and to jump eighteen months into the future – to September 17, 2009.
In his first eight months in office, President Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is presiding over the greatest economic, financial and social catastrophe in U.S. history.
But it’s not his fault. Not entirely, anyway …
As he and his spinmeisters incessantly point out, the credit meltdown that caused this mess was his predecessor’s doing.
Sure – the Obama/Rangel/Kennedy tax increases on “the rich” (everyone making more than $100,000 a year) and their talk of doubling of the capital gains tax crashed the stock market and triggered the greatest explosion in unemployment since the Great Depression.
And yes, the Keynesian economic advisors who assured him he could print all the money he wanted – use counterfeit paper dollars to pay the government’s bills and to bail out failing banks and other corporations – were idiots. The fact that it now takes a wheelbarrow full of paper dollars to buy a loaf of bread makes that little factoid as plain as the nose on your face.
But it was “those dirty Republicans” who created the real estate bubble and credit crisis with their historically low interest rates and their failure to regulate abusive lending practices.
And so, with his right hand on a stack of Bibles and his left hand to God, President Obama is about to go on TV to swear – once again – that his next volley of equally idiotic economic measures really will solve the crisis once and for all.
Of course, stupid people will believe him. But not you. Because you know better.
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Posted by:
Julie McManus
March 14, 2008
Issue #374
Dear Business Builder,
Oh customers! You can’t live with them and you certainly can’t live without them. But boy do they whine … and not to mention piss and moan about everything.
Here’s the scenario … a green, fresh out of school marketer starts her very first corporate job. She’s just gotten through executing her very first marketing promotion … and the e-mails have just started hitting the inboxes.
Less then 5 minutes later, the marketer’s own inbox is flooded with messages from the customer service reps … the indignant harbingers of the frontline …
The order button’s NOT working … Mr. Johnson tried and it didn’t WORK!
The newbie starts to panic. She goes to the page and checks the order button and it’s working fine.
Mr. Smith would like to place an order, but says something’s wrong with the order form. CAN YOU CHECK IT AGAIN PLEASE?
Once again, she goes back to the page and places a test order and everything is fine.
Mrs. Pitts is furious. She wants to know how we got her e-mail address. She’s turning the matter over to her attorney.
And now the poor marketer is in full panic mode. Her first attempt at executing an e-mail promotion, and she’s getting her company sued. Well, that will surely mean a one way ticket out on the street.
And so it goes … dozens and dozens of customer complaints. By the end of the day, the new marketer has her desk packed and is ready to be unceremoniously escorted from the building.
If there’s one constant in any direct response business, it’s complaining customers. It’s the one thing that takes new marketers very much by surprise.
And quite frankly, Customer Service Reps don’t help the matter … often blowing things completely out of perspective.
Only a small percentage of marketing prospects will actually take the time to voice a complaint. But to a CSR that takes phone calls all day – a dozen calls in a row all complaining about virtually the same thing is a huge deal … even if that dozen calls equals less than 1/10th of 1 percent of the total number of people that actually received the marketing message.
It’s the CSR’s job to sound the horn … it’s the marketers job to put it into perspective.
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Posted by:
Doug D'Anna
March 13, 2008
Issue #373
Today I’d like to declare the word FREE officially dead as a marketing hook.
That’s a bold statement, to be sure. But anyone who is in the business of building readership lists by offering FREE reports, FREE teleconferences, and other Freebies knows exactly what I’m talking about.
FREE is no longer the big incentive hook that it once was. And offering more FREEBIES is no guarantee of greater results. It’s not surprising–especially when it comes to online marketing. The Internet is suffering from FREE fatigue/breakdown.
It was bound to happen.
We have two forces to blame: 1. The explosion of free e-zines and blogs, and 2. Spam. Today everybody and their brother is a publisher. There must be millions of people on the Internet that have both an e-zine and a blog to share their thoughts. They offer a free report to sign you up.
After all, offering a FREE incentive is Direct Marketing 101. I have to chuckle when I say this, but to me, in some ways, the Internet has become one giant Times Square. But instead of barkers in front of a sleazy joint trying to entice you to step inside, there are GIANT FREE SIGNS that, of course, are going to make you rich, help you lose weight, or enjoy bliss for the rest of your life.
And of course, "You get it all in our FREE report!"
But that’s only the half of it. The real reason FREE is dead is SPAM.
Thanks to spam, people are more skeptical than ever to sign up for your FREE e-zine or blog, because they don’t want to be spammed.
As my many publishing clients will tell you, it’s much easier to cross-sell to an existing customer than to bring a new FREE e-zine reader into the fold. The barrier is much higher. New customers are not swayed by FREE, and they are skeptical, expecting that you’re going to hit them with hundreds of offers.
Just look at your declining open and conversion rates and you’ll know exactly that what I’m saying is true.
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Posted by:
Daniel Levis
March 12, 2008
Issue #372
In this issue:
- A simple 5-step plan for harnessing the common enemy theme in your promotions …
- How to stir up a delicious motivational cocktail your prospects can hardly resist …
- How to use a very specific kind of anger to light a sales bonfire under your business …
- A special opportunity to share your views …
- And much more!
Dear Web Business Builder,
Our enemies can fill us with meaning, purpose, and motivation.
As people who stand in our way … who represent what we love to hate … who are there for us to react against … they are a source of energy. Heck, look how lively things got around here last week …
Clayton Googles himself and finds some nut case who thinks selling valuable information is a sin. Maybe the big guy’s thong was on too tight, I don’t know, but he sees red and fires off a wild tirade in THE TOTAL PACKAGE.
Next thing you know, we’re all coming to his defense, pouring out sympathy … going on record saying he has every right in the world to charge for his stuff. And whatever the cost, we’re buyin’! Pretty smart marketing, if you ask me.
What’s more, it proves how important having enemies really is …
One of the big secrets to motivating people is to involve them in a cause against a hated enemy. In primordial times, our forefathers banded together against hostile forces or died.
Today, we are still hard-wired with these aggressive “us against them” impulses, but are trained to repress them. This just makes their pent up energy all the more potent.
When someone gives us an outlet for these bottled up drives and encourages us to express them, we find it refreshing and will usually take the bait. What’s more, we will endear ourselves to that person and to the group they represent.
Can you push this button in your copywriting? Hell yes, in five easy steps!
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Posted by:
Troy White
March 11, 2008
Issue #371
In this issue:
-
How to immediately double your sales to women entrepreneurs …
-
Increasing your odds of a sale by 700% …
-
The #1 thing women buyers look for in your business that most men completely ignore …
-
And Much More!
Fellow Business Builder,
In celebration of International Women’s Day this past weekend (March 8th), let’s talk about women.
More specifically … selling to women.
I love women! I am surrounded by them – between my wife and my twin daughters – I am seriously overrun. I love every minute of it, though.
Some of the best entrepreneurs I have ever worked with are women. And a significant percentage of my clients are women. Right from day one in my business, I knew that I was determined to become a better salesperson, and I specifically wanted to sell more to women than I had in my past career. (I sold million dollar computer systems – and they were mainly sold to men.)
Selling to women is an entirely different ballpark than men. Women think, act, and buy based on different criteria than men.
And they are also the biggest buyers out there. If you are not selling directly to women, the odds are high that a woman is influencing the final purchase decision the man is being asked to make.
You must sell to your customers in a way that they want to be sold to. Trying to force them to buy from you “your way” will not work, and you will very quickly develop a very bad reputation for your sales techniques.
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