"If It's for everybody, it's for nobody"

When most businesses set out to market or advertise they play the numbers game. They hit everyone and think "If everyone sees my material then at least someone will respond." True someone will, but nowhere near as many people as if your focused on one section of you market, personalised your marketing material to that particular industry or demographic and bought the list or placed the add in to paper or magazine to match. Target like a sniper and you could increase your response rates by 100's of %. 

"If it's for everybody, it's for nobody" Dan Kennedy.

Marketing Man

P.S. If you would like any advice on how to apply this to your industry please just leave a comment in the comment box. 

All Web Site Owners Should Be Doing This!

If you own a website and it has good content then you really should be using Google's Adsense program. I have recently published a short e-book on the program called "Adsense Profits Exposed" you can buy it at www.adsensemadeeasy.co.uk

Here is a little more about adsense below (Excerpt from the Book)

What is Google AdSense?

Google AdSense is an ad-serving program that places ads that "make sense" – specifically, that make sense based on relevant content, and assumptions about who might be interested in that content. AdSense is an application of the broader concept of Contextual Marketing. Contextual Marketing is just what it sounds like. On a website about custom cars, you might have an ad for fancy wheels or car care kits. On a website about off-roading, you might have an ad for durable truck tires or spotlight rigs. A hockey site might advertise hockey sticks…and a tennis site, tennis shoes. Contextual Marketing just means aligning the ad serving with the context/nature of the website and its audience, the same way like items are grouped in a store. And the "context" can be cut much finer than website level, it can be page level, article level, and so on, so the ads always match the material they are appearing near, and thus, appeal to the interest of the reader/buyer at any given moment.

So what’s in it for you – the website publisher/owner? That’s easy. Every time a visitor to your site clicks one of these ads, you make money. The better the ads are targeted, the more clicks you get, the more money you make. AdSense displays easy-to-read, text-based, relevant ads that don’t overshadow the content of your website or annoy visitors. Actually, you have seen hundreds of these ads yourself, as you’ll realize in a moment. Today there are probably only a few places in your website that can directly make you money, if any. The magic of Google AdSense is this: It allows you to earn money through every page of your website. On top of that, with algorithms used to align ad content with page content Google automatically selects and displays ads for your website that are likely to generate the highest revenue for you.

Marketing Man.

To order your copy of "Adsense Profits Exposed" visit www.adsensemadeeasy.co.uk

Don't be afraid of your madness!

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a long hard slog, bloodied noses and even being raised from the dead! I know first hand I'm still on that long hard road.
Lonely doesn't even begin to describe how you are going to feel every one thinks your mad no one really wants to help and they just want you to give up and get a proper job.
Don't listen! YOU are different. Do you think that Richard Branson and Alan Sugar acted and did things like a 9 to 5 worker? My advice those who do know they are different is read the autobiographies and model their success.
Marketing Man.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Who Said We Should Worry About Recession?

I you take a look at all those who have struggled through the recession you will notice a trend. It's those who are fighting price wars with each other trying to compete on the cheapest price alone, they aren't offering anything new or exclusive to their customers and it becomes boring.

The common belief that no one has got any money any more is a complete lie, what you need to be doing is aiming your product or service to those who still have money and are willing to invest in you or your product.

E.g Take Simon Brooke an entrepreneur who develops an interest in his family tree, only to discover that he is the great grandson of the Victorian perfumer John Goldsmith who's exclusive perfumes have been out of production for decades. So a an entrepreneur their is only one thing he can do, Relaunch the old brand. 
Price tag, a set of three perfumes will cost no less than $27000 or (£18000). What is that I here you say, "No one will buy that it's ridiculous especially coming out of a recession". Wrong, there is a three month waiting list for this product so you better snap yours up quick, you'll find it a Harrods in London. 

Think about how you can focus your product or service on the Affluent markets that's where the money is and will never go away. 

Marketing Man.

USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

You have probably been made aware of USP's before but they are often thought of and used as generic terms in sales letters and print ads that all businesses use when they think they are being unique.

e.g. 'We offer the best service', 'Our price is the cheapest'.

You catch my drift with this, these are not USP's any more they mean nothing you need to think of something remarkable look at your competition and do what they aren't doing that will give you a good USP and put you at the forefront of your customers minds.

Here are few good ones off the top of my head::

• 'We are the only car repair shop that will buy your car if you are not 100 percent satisfied with our work.'
• 'Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s on us!'
• 'So exclusive you can't afford not to buy'

Only you can make your USP stand out, give it some thought and remember that only the remarkable businesses survive.

Marketing Man.

The Wise Old Owl

The Wise Old Owl

'A wise old owl lived in an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard

Why aren't we all like that wise old Bird?'

You will learn that I like to adapt nursery rhymes and poetry in to useful business thinkers as I call them. They are easy to remember and make you think, and if you do as you are supposed to then you will use the poems in your business life and they will improve the way you think and do things. In turn bringing in more profit and a better frame of mind. 

The Wise Old Owl: 

The message here is that we should all be observing, taking in and listening to our peers, colleagues and most importantly our Customers.

Listen to what they want first before telling them what they want. The most important question a sales person can ask his customer is "When it comes to x what is most important to you?" then shut up. The less you speak the more you will hear, they will tell you how to sell your product to them by answering your question and you will hear more of the answer by listening. 

People feel respected when they are listened to, I don't mean keeping your mouth shut and thinking "whats for tea? I wish this guy would shut up and let me sell" Listening. I mean really listening, don't take notes you will miss things always have eye contact and focus your thoughts on your prospect.

A great book to read to learn how to focus your thoughts is Psycho-Cybernetics By Dr Maxwell Maltz.

The truth is when you really learn to listen to your customers you will see what they want and you won't have to sell anymore they will sell themselves. Really good listeners are hard to come by and becoming one will keep your customers loyal no matter what industry you are in.

Remember: The more you see the less you will speak, the less you speak the more you will hear.

Marketing Man.

   

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons

Here is the next step in my advertising program following on from 'Focus on the features, not the Benefits'

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons


This is where research really pays off. Because in order to push those buttons, you need to first know what they are.


Listen to this story first, and I’ll tell you what I mean: Once upon a time a young man walked into a Chevrolet dealer’s showroom to check out a Chevy Camaro. He had the money, and he was ready to make a buying decision. But he couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy the Camaro or the Ford Mustang up the road at the Ford dealer.

A salesman approached him and soon discovered the man’s dilemma.


“Tell me what you like best about the Camaro,” said the salesman.


“It’s a fast car. I like it for its speed.”


After some more discussion, the salesman learned the man had just started dating a cute college cheerleader. So what did the salesman do?


Simple. He changed his pitch accordingly, to push the hot buttons he knew would help advance the sale. He told the man about how impressed his new girlfriend would be when he came home with this car! He placed the mental image in the man’s mind of he and his girlfriend cruising to the beach in the Camaro. How all of his friends will be envious when they see him riding around with a beautiful girl in a beautiful car.


And suddenly the man saw it. He got it. And the salesman recognized this and piled it on even more. Before you know it, the man wrote a nice fat check to the Chevy dealership, because he was sold!


The salesman found those hot buttons and pushed them like never before until the man realized he wanted the Camaro more than he wanted his money.


I know what you’re thinking…the man said he liked the car because it was fast, didn’t he?


Yes, he did. But subconsciously, what he really desired was a car that would impress his girlfriend, his friends, and in his mind make them love him more! In his mind he equated speed with thrill. Not because he wanted an endless supply of speeding tickets, but because he thought that thrill would make him more attractive, more likeable.

Perhaps the man didn’t even realize this fact himself. But the salesman sure did. And he knew which emotional hot buttons to press to get the sale.


Now, where does the research pay off?


Well, a good salesman knows how to ask the kinds of questions that will tell him which buttons to press on the fly. When you’re writing copy, you don’t have that luxury. It’s therefore very important to know upfront the wants, needs, and desires of your prospects for that very reason. If you haven’t done your homework, your prospect is going to decide that he’d rather keep his money than buy your product. Remember, copywriting is salesmanship in print!

It’s been said many times: People don’t like to be sold.


But they do like to buy.


And they buy based on emotion first and foremost. Then they justify their decision with logic, even after they are already sold emotionally. So be sure to back up your emotional pitch with logic to nurture that justification at the end.


And while we’re on the subject, let’s talk a moment about perceived “hype” in a sales letter. A lot of more “conservative” advertisers have decided that they don’t like hype, because they consider hype to be old news, been-there-and-done-that, my customers won’t fall for hype, it’s not believable anymore.


What they should realize is that hype itself does not sell well. Some less experienced copywriters often try to compensate for their lack of research or not fully understanding their target market or the product itself by adding tons of adjectives and adverbs and exclamation points and big bold type.


Whew! If you do your job right, it’s just not needed.


That’s not to say some adverbs or adjectives don’t have their place…only if they’re used sparingly, and only if they advance the sale.


But I think you’d agree that backing up your copy with proof and believability will go a lot farther in convincing your prospects than “power words” alone. I say power words, because there are certain adverbs and adjectives that have been proven to make a difference when they’re included. This by itself is not hype. But repeated too often, they become less effective, and they take away (at least in your prospect’s mind) from the proof.

Marketing Man.