The Words You Say

Last week we started our discussion on “Message to Market Match” and I introduced you to Dan Kennedy’s famous marketing triangle. Last week we had a great discussion on the Market (who) side of the triangle. To review where we’ve been see my blog post here.

Today we’ll move on to Message (what), or the things you say or write to your market (who). Remember, we’re using Dan’s Marketing Triangle as a basis for our conversation.
Your marketing messages are the things you say or write about your business/product/service to entice people to do business with you. They can include your:

• Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
• Unique Value Proposition
• Elevator Speech
• Sales letters
• Web site copy and images
• The offers you make
• The social proof you use
• Testimonials, etc.

This is not an exhaustive list, but I think you get the idea. We talked about the ‘who’ last week. Your job is to make sure your messages match your target market.

This is vitally important. For example, if you’re a charity targeting republicans over the age of 55, you probably don’t want to quote JFK. However,a quote, image, and extensive use of Ronald Reagan would probably be very appropriate.

On the flip side, if you’re the same charity targeting young democrats, quoting Regan is probably worthless. But using an image of Obama on the first page of your letter with a quote from him would almost certainly boost response.

The words, images, phrases, etc. you use play a vital role in having just an OK response and having excellent response. Later this week we’ll talk a bit more about howto craft your messages to match your markets.

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Always ask for the Order

Today we’re going to briefly go over a part of most sales letters, postcards, really any kind of direct mail advertising, where marketers really wimp out, the close.

In any sort of marketing, but especially direct response mail, you’ve got to ask for the order each and every time. This is not place to skimp, or be a wimp. You simply got to ask for the order, and give very specific and explicit instructions on how to do so.

I know it can be hard, but remember, a confused buyer does nothing, and we certainly don’t want that!

It’s also easy to expect the reader to know how to order. We as marketers often get so close to our marketing that we often think it’s obvious what to do next, but take it from me, it’s not always the case.

If your letter has been written well, the close (asking for the order) should come naturally. It should be the natural and logical “next step” for your prospect or client to take.

A 'one-two' punch

Bullet points in your copy can be one of the most influential parts of your sales letters. Bullets are often used when you have a list of features or benefits, or a list of “what’s included.” They are for the most part, short, concise, and can be very valuable real estate in any sales letters, postcard website etc. Thanks to Bill Glazer for allowing me to use some of his ideas in this post.

(As a side, if you’re not receiving Dan Kennedy’s And Bill Glazer’s monthly No BS Marketing Newsletter, you’re cheating yourself. Get 2 issues free and a bunch of other goodies right here.)

So how to you create these powerful, bite-sized pieces of copy to really sell your product or service? The best way is to make a list of all your features, being sure you don’t leave anything out. Then you’ll want to turn those features into customer-centered benefits.

For example, let’s say you’re a chiropractor and you help relieve back pain for golfers. Don’t just tell then you’ll cure their back pain (the feature), tell them that they’ll enjoy round after round of pain free golf, and their swing will be so strong they’ll feel like their 21 again (customer-centered benefits).

You may think that just saying you’ll relieve back pain that the reader will know what you’re talking about. That simply is not the case. Never leave anything to be translated by the reader. There are no obvious benefits tied to the features.

So what’s the formula for bullets? Here’s Bill’s great idea. He calls it his ‘one-two’ punch. You want to give a benefit, then add another benefit right after, like a boxer giving a ‘one-two’ punch. Here are a couple great examples Bill gave me:

#1
Doctors are now using the hot new herbal compound to slow the memory loss of Alzheimer’s more effectively than expensive, dangerous prescription drugs.

#2
How to discover the hidden wealth (and rewards) buried in your retail business... allowing you to finally live the lifestyle you’ve always dreamt about.

Marketing Tip Readers Only Special

As I mentioned above, if you’re a real student of direct response marketing, copywriting, online marketing, etc. you really should check out Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer’s No BS Marketing Newsletter. They’ll give you 2 free monthly issues, plus a ton of other great goodies, too many to mention here, so you’ll want to check out this link.

Keith (my father, who I run this business with) has been a Dan Kennedy Newsletter subscriber for nearly 20 years. Here’s a true story:

When I graduated college at Washington State University with a degree in marketing in 2004, his graduation gift to me was my own subscription to Dan and Bill’s Newsletter. Even though we work in the same building, I still get my own newsletter to this day. That’s how important he thought it was.

If you use one of these links to get your free 2 month trial, I’ll even send you a $20 gift certificate good towards anything at 3D Mail, including any of the 3D mail items, premium and promotional products we offer. Go check it out for yourself.

Got to have a deadline

Happy New! Can you believe it’s already 2010?! Weren’t we supposed to be in flying cars by now like George Jetson? Last week we wrapped up our discussion on guarantees. To see that last post, visit the blog. Today we’ll start in on two big topics. Two that makes direct response marketing what it is. (Direct response is the kind of marketing I teach in these tips)

Those, of course, are deadlines and offers. These are what truly separates direct response marketing from main-stream, “Madison Avenue,” brand building advertising.

Pure and simple, if you don’t have a deadline you don’t have an offer. Most businesses that aren’t tuned in to direct response hide their deadlines in tiny sized invisible ink hoping you won’t see it. This is just the opposite that you want to do. You want to create ungency, you want them to act now, which is just the opposite of what most big, dumb companies do.

Something to consider with your deadline is people are more motivated by fear of loss than personal gain. So often times a deadline where they ‘lose out’ on something after an elapsed time is better than gaining something if they respond early.

Some ways to use deadlines are:

• Response required within “X” number of days
• By a certain date
• By a date stamped in RED on your letter
• Limited to the first “X” number

Deadlines are a great way to create urgency which is what you want to do, so don’t hide them and make them very clear to your clients or prospects.

Blog Readers Only Special

In honor of the New Year and the new decade we’ll celebrate all month by giving you 10% off any order from now until Jan. 31, 2010.

Go online and make your purchase and enter 2010 in the promo code box at checkout, and I’ll automatically take 10% off. Or give me a call at
888-250-1834 to place your order and mention 2019 and I’ll do the same. Just be sure you do this before Jan 31, 2010!

Gotta have a Guarantee

Alright, so before we took a short break last week for the holiday weekend we left off with a discussion on guarantees. We talked about the 3 mail different types of guarantees you can use, satisfaction, results, and perception as well as using multiple guarantees to boost your response. To review click over to my blog here.

There are two more big ideas I have to share before we move away from guarantees. First is the length in time of the guarantee. In almost all instances the longer the guarantee, the less refunds you’ll have. I know that may go against conventional thinking, that the more time they have with a product/service the more likely they will realize they don’t like it or don’t need it.

It’s actually just the opposite. The more time they have to use your product or service, the less likely they are to ask for a refund. Here’s why. When you only give someone 14 days to use it, at day 12 if they haven’t used it, or are not seeing results, they’ll ask for a refund.

If you give the same product 90 days, the chances that they actually will remember and use the guarantee goes way down. Now, you need to be honest and have integrity with this. If they ask for a refund on your guarantee within the time allowed, your darn well better honor it.

Finally, we’re left with unconditional vs. conditional guarantees. Last week I left you with our Triple Your Money Back Guarantee that reads:

Triple Your Money Back Guarantee - If you use both of your 30 minute One-On-One Coaching sessions, and your 2 Critique Certificates within the first 3 months, and you can show that you actually used our advice

It’s obvious now that this is a conditional guarantee as well. These can be used to bolster your “regular” guarantee, and really give you an added punch that can spark additional sales.

Here are a few examples of great guarantees I’ve seen and some I’ve written for myself and clients.

This is an unconditional guarantee used by Victoria Principal selling facial cream. It’s a whole lot better than just saying, “money back guaranteed”:

“If your friends don’t accuse you of having a facelift return the empty jar and we’ll give you all your money back.”

Here’s another I wrote for a client, a perception and unconditional guarantee in one, I call it the “You’ll be a Star” guarantee:

“If you don’t think my show wasn’t the most amazing you’ve ever seen, and people are not coming up to you after the show patting you on the back for having such a great event, then you don’t pay a dime.”

I can hear a lot of you out there saying you can’t guarantee your products or services. If you’re a doctor, you can’t guarantee patient health, if you’re in weight loss, you can’t guarantee that they’ll lose weight, if you’re a financial advisor you can’t guarantee monetary success.

But there are a ton of things you can guarantee. The doctor can guarantee that he’ll see you within 5 minutes of your scheduled appointment time. If you sell weight loss, you can guarantee that their coach will call them back within 45 minutes of receiving a call, a financial advisor can guarantee something similar to the doctor, or guarantee returned phone calls (wish my advisor did that!), or any number of things not directly related to the product or service, but to the quality of service they’ll receive.

What can you guarantee?

Last week we hit the tip of the iceberg with headlines. A conversation that, quite frankly, could last a whole year. To see that post click here to my blog. For the next few days we’ll discuss guarantees, another vital role in your copywriting and marketing.

First some guarantee ‘basics’ that we must address. There are three chief types of guarantees, with a very quick blurb on each. We’ll expand on them later.

• Satisfaction Guarantee
• Results Guarantee
• Perception

How you phrase the guarantee is nearly as important as having on at all. It’s best when it has a name. I recently wrote a guarantee for a promotion of our own and named it the, “The “You Cannot Fail With 3D Mail, $500.00 In Your Pocket” Guarantee. And here’s how I worded it:

When you place your first order of 3D Mail over $100 and use my FREE 30 minute consultation, if you’re not extremely happy with your mailing, I’ll refund 50% of the purchase of the 3D mail items up to $500.00.

As you can see, it’s a strong guarantee, but when you give it a name, it adds something extra to it. I’ve also used the “You’ll be a Star” guarantee and, “My Personal Make-You-Happy Guarantee” both with a great deal of success. My mentor Dan Kennedy, has used, “My personal, Big, Bold, Iron-Clad Guarantee” on many of his products for years, again with great success.

In addition, multiple guarantees almost always outperform single guarantees. Here’s an example of a multiple guarantee that we use when we go and speak at seminars and boot camps:

Money Back Guarantee - If you are not delighted with your results or not happy in any way what-so-ever return the system within the first year and I’ll give you your money back.

Triple Your Money Back Guarantee - If you use both of your 30 minute One-On-One Coaching sessions, and your 2 Critique Certificates within the first 3 months, and you can show that you actually used our advice when you created your campaigns, and you actually mailed at least two campaigns, and you’re not absolutely delighted with your results I’ll give you 3 times your money back.

You see, we gave a one-year, no questions asked guarantee (my favorite) but then added to it by adding the triple money back guarantee. Does it work? You bet. When we first offered this at a live event, we sold 83% of the room!

There’s also one more element to this guarantee, but you’ll have to wait until later in the week for me to reveal that one. See you then.

Where do you get good headlines?

So, where did we leave off after answering Steve’s Question on Tuesday… Ah yes, HEADLINES! The most read part of any ad, thus the most important.

Your headline needs to answer:

• Who cares?
• So what?
• What’s in it for me (WIIFM)?
• Why are you bothering me?

No small task by any means. Keeping those four bullets in mind, how long should your headline be? I’ve heard many answers, and some even put a number on it, like no more than 12 words.

Here’s my answer. If you can answer all four of those questions above in 12 words or less,then do it! If you can’t, and it needs to be longer, then do that, too ! So my headlines are as long as they need to be to get the job done. I’ve written headlines as short as 5 words, for example:

FREE Lunch on December 29th

And I’ve written headlines as long as 48 words when using our x-ray letter to sell computer systems to retailers:

“Why The Heck Is Travis Lee Sending You An X-Ray To Tell You How Happy Alice Balbi, the Manager of Mementos Gift Shop at the Clark Fork Hospital in Plains, MT is After Her Team Started Using The SmartRegister Point-of-Sale Computer System from American Retail Supply?

So where do you get these good headlines, as my mentor and friend Bill Glazer says, you ethically S & D (swipe and deploy) them of course! And one of the best ways to S & D headlines is to use proven fill-in-the-blank style headlines.

Here are a few:

How Often do You Hear Yourself saying: _________________________________

If you___________, then you’ll love our _______________________.

Who Else Wants _________________________ (I’ve probably seen this one S & D’ed more than any other)

______________ That other Retailers Don’t Want You to Know.

We could spend months on headlines alone and still not even scratch the surface, but I think you’re getting the idea. Next week we’ll hit on guarantees. Have a great week!

Message to Market Match

Last week we started our discussion on copywriting that’s going to take us through the next few weeks. To see where we started, visit that blog post below. On Tuesday I left you with some Copy Kryptonite. Today we’ll move on from our Copy Kryptonite (Thanks again to Bill Glazer for the copy kryptonite) and talk about your message to market match.

Message to market match means your matching what you’re selling, the media you’re selling it through, and the words you write to very precise and targeted prospects.

When I say media, I’m talking about the format, and is that appropriate for the task you’re trying to accomplish. For example, sending a ‘stand-alone’ postcards for a retailer holding an event in the Mall is probably OK (though just OK). If you’re sending a ‘stand-alone-postcard to doctors about advanced laser equipment they should have in practice…BAD!!

I’m not saying the postcard doesn’t have a place in your marketing funnel (for more on creating a marketing funnel, (see this past post) to the doc’s for laser equipment, it may very well have its time and place. But to expect a postcard to do the heavy lifting is not smart.

Second, you want to start with people you already understand, and for the vast majority of you that will be your niche. I know we have some freelance copywriters and consultants out there, and so your best bet is to write to those niches where you have the most experience and expertise.

For example, I write to other business owners and salespeople who obviously are interested in growing their business with direct mail and doing it creatively (or why else would you be getting this!). I know and can speak our language, can identify with you, and thus can make a stronger connection with my copy. The same should go for you, when writing to your own niche.

Finally, the best recipients of your marketing, in order, are:

1. Your list of past and current clients
2. Endorsed or JV list
3. A lead generated list
4. The ‘un-washed’ masses

There are things you need to consider when writing to each group that will take more time and room than I have here. Starting next week, we’ll dive right into headlines, probably the most important part of your advertising. See you then!

Blank Space Never Sold a Thing

Last week we started our discussion on copywriting that’s going to take us through the next few weeks. To see where we started, visit that blog post below. On Thursday, I also left you with some Copy Kryptonite. You can see that post below as well. Today, we’ll talk about two more copy kryptonite that will kill your copy.

Thanks again to my mentor Bill Glazer who has allowed me us his term Copy Kryptonite. We’ve talked about being boring, and writing from a ‘me’ perspective.

Now, another copy killer that I see all too often is BLANK SPACE. As you can probably tell from the subject line of this email, blank space never sold a thing. If you can show me where it has, it’ll be the first time.

It’s important in all your media, but especially important in places where space is at a premium, such as yellow page ads, and postcards. You just don’t have a ton of room with either one, so you’ve got to do the most with the real estate you got. The same goes for your sales letters as well.

Here’s a tip for you. If you find you have blank space in any of your advertising, at the very least, fill them up with good, results oriented testimonials. That’s the least you should be doing with blank space.

The last piece of Copy Kryptonite is placing your logo, business name, address etc above the headline. This again pertains to any media you use, postcards, sales letters, online, yellow pages etc. If your advertising does the job that it’s suppose to, you prospect will find the information as long as it’s somewhere to be found. If you can’t get by without having your name, logo, address on the letter, try putting it across the bottom of each page of a letter or postcard.

So we’ve covered Copy Kryptonite, later this week we’ll get into the nuts and bolts of copywriting. See you then!

Marketing Tip Readers Only Special

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Superman has his Kryptonite

Earlier this week we started a series on copywriting, and on Monday I told you the #1 marketing sin in copy, what my mentor Bill Glazer calls Copy Kryptonite. To review the tip, visit the blog. Below we’ll discuss more copy kryptonite.

Again, thanks to Bill Glazer for allowing me to borrow his term, Copy Kryptonite. There really is no better way to describe these copywriting sins. We’ll go over one that virtually guarantee your copy will suffer.

First, one that I see often and that’s writing from a ‘me’ perspective. You’ve seen this and you’ve probably even done it yourself:

“We’ve been in business for 37 years…”
“We’ve got the most state of the art…”
“We’re the #1 supplier to…”

Blah, blah blah. Boring and WHO CARES. You need to write your copy from a ‘you’ perspective, they ‘you’ being your customer. Here’s a tip, take all the ‘we’ statements and turn them into you statements. BIG tip, turn those you statements from features, to the BENEFITS your customer
will get from the ‘we’ statements.

Here’s how we do it for our retail supply business when we sell point-of-sale computer systems (POS). We’ve been selling and supporting POS systems since 1991, and have installed over 1,000 systems for retailers. Big whoop, right? We turn around and make that a benefit for the client using ‘you’ statements.

For example:

You’ll want the service and support of years of experience and 1,000’s of set up and installations so you’ll never be alone and never have to worry about your technical support abandoning you on a moment’s notice, leaving you standing around wondering what to do.”

See how we took what could’ve been a bunch of ‘we’ statements, and turned them into ‘you’ statements.

Here’s a challenge for you. Go through some of your sales material and see how many times you say ‘we’ vs. ‘you.’ Then go and turn all those ‘we’ statements to ‘you’ statements with a benefit to your client. It’s easier than it sounds and will make a huge difference.

In the Land of the Blind...

The One Eyed Man is King.”
Erasmus (of Rotterdam)

We know that Erasmus wasn’t talking about copywriting when he spoke those words some 500 years ago, but he may as well been. In critiquing many 3D Mail sales letters the past 2 years, it’s become obvious that many who do their own copywriting can be blind. So for the next few weeks we’ll discuss a bundle of copywriting topics. First an introduction and the #1 thing you can do to kill any response.

The first thing you must realize when you create copy is that it is NOT advertising, but salesmanship in print. That means you want to write like you talk, don’t write to sell. The truth is the best copy would probably get you a failing grade in high school composition class. If you’ve written copy and a high school English teacher can’t find anything wrong with it, throw it out and start again!

Second, the same principles apply in business-to-consumers markets and business-to-business markets. I hear this all the time. The B2B people tell me it can’t work in B2B, and the B2C people tell me it can only work in B2B! They are fundamentally the same. Sure, there are some slight differences, but as a whole, the concepts and ideas we talk about over the next couple weeks can be easily applied to both group.

Lastly, as promised, here’s the #1 thing you can do to guarantee to kill your response. It’s what one of my mentors, Bill Glazer, calls copy kryptonite. It’s BEING BORING! Your copy can never be too long, but it can be too boring, and we’ll discuss that a lot as well over the next couple weeks.

Don’t do too much

For the last three weeks I’ve been discussing the 13 big mistakes I often see when critiquing sales letters. Below are the final two BIG mistakes I see every day. To review the previous 11, see my blog posts here.

12. Trying to Do Too Much
You are not going to sell a house with a post card. But you may get someone to raise their hand and say I want to find out more about that house with a post card.

You should also try to do one thing and only one thing. If you want them to call you, everything should lead to them calling you. If you want them to send back a post card to get the free DVD, everything should be about getting the DVD.

Tip: Determine what you want to accomplish and be sure everything in the letter supports that one thing.

13. No Double Readership Path and Poor Cosmetics
There are two types of ‘readers’ who will read your sales letters, post cards, print ads, etc. - skimmers and readers. If your headline does its job (see rule #1), then the readers will read every word that write. Skimmers, will NOT. You want skimmers to be able to make a buying decision by just reading:

• The Headline
• Subheads
• Captions
• Order instructions
• P.S.

While they may not make the buying decision based on the 5 bullet points above, if you’ve told your story well enough with your headline, subheads, captions, order instructions and P.S. they will often go back and read the entire letter.

With that said, we can enhance the sections above, and our copy with cosmetics. Cosmetics can be bolds, underlines, italics, CAPITALIZATION, a different font, SIZE, Colors, etc.

Cosmetics enhancements are used to increase readership among skimmers and help readers follow along. Cosmetics are used to cover key points and they make long copy seem shorter to the reader, and thus increase readership.

Tip: After you’ve written your sales letter, go through and use cosmetics to enhance your key points. The key points being your offer, reason why, guarantee(s), testimonial(s), deadline, and call to action. Then, have someone read just your headline, subheads, captions and cosmetic enhancements. If they can repeat your entire story just reading those areas, you’ve got yourself a double readership path with great cosmetics!

Don’t forget the P.S.

Testimonials – Don’t forget the P.S.

For the last two weeks I’ve been discussing the 13 big mistakes I often see when critiquing sales letters. To review where we left off, see the blog posts below from earlier this week. Below are the next two mistakes copywriters often make.

10. No P.S.
The P.S. is the second most read part of any sales letter. Many people read the headline and then turn to the end of the letter to see who it's from when they read the P.S.

My strong recommendation is to never send out a letter of any kind without including a P.S. This includes personal letters. Make it a habit from which you never vary. So when
you are writing to your mother, father or friend, end the letter with a P.S.

Tip: When preparing a P.S. for a sales letter, a good formula to follow is to simply restate the biggest benefit of the product, the guarantee and the offer. How about a second P.S.? So that’s P.P.S. – Or even a third – P.P.P.S.

11. Write Like You Were Taught To Write in High School Composition.
High School Composition has Absolutely-Nothing-TO-DO with effective sales letter writing. Oh no! I can’t capitalize Absolutely Nothing in the middle of a sentence – and there’s no rule about bolding whats-ever – and TO-DO certainly is not all caps! And my GOD what are all these dashes! Hey, only the G is capitalized in God. And what am I doing starting sentences and ending sentences with prepositions – Ohhhhhhhh – I got an F.

Get it? Most people’s writing is boring and stuffy at best! Most people are not boring and stuffy. Write like you speak! Punctuate for effect not to follow rules!

Tip: Want to write a great sales letter! Sit down with a good friend and a tape recorder and tell him why you and your product are so great. Transcribe the tape – add the #1 benefit at the top in a headline - and restate the biggest benefit, guarantee, and
offer in the P.S. – You’re done.

www.3dmailresults.com

Testimonials – You Can Never Have Too Many

For the last week I’ve been discussing the 13 big mistakes I often see when critiquing sales letters. To review where we left off, blog post below from last week. Below are the next two mistakes copywriters often make.

8. No testimonials.
Customers who rave about your product or service are extremely effective and should be included in every sales letter. The words from the mind and heart of customers build your credibility.

However, most marketers waste the potential impact of testimonials. Common mistakes include using initials rather than the full name, as well as omitting city and state or country.

Tip: When getting written permission to use a testimonial in advertising, also request a photo. Most will happily agree. Photos help to add power.

9. No money-back guarantee.
Your response to any sales letter will be significantly higher if you include a money-back guarantee.

Tip: The longer the guarantee, the more sales and less returns or refunds requested. For example, 30 days works better than 10 days, 60 days works better than 30 days, etc. A full year "no quibble" guarantee works very well.