Posted by Troy

Not the weather related tornadoes, but rather my twin daughters Katrina and Hailey. I kind of lost the flow I had last year in writing about my experiences with raising identical twin girls. So, you can expect to see more articles about them, their crazy antics, and how it relates to your business.

They are tornadoes – powerful ones. They can walk into a room and within 60 seconds destroy everything in their path. Well, not destroy as in wreck things, but more like take anything and everything out of boxes, off the shelves, off the couch etc. They have a blast doing it and play a little game doing it.

How quick can Katrina empty this cupboard?

How quickly can Hailey take every cushion off the couch and make a fort?

It is a fun game for them, entertaining while everyone is watching, and usually gives people something to laugh about and talk about.

Those girls have given us lots to talk about over the years!

Some good – some not so good.

The point is that they come flying into a room with one mission in mind – FUN! And in doing so, laugh their little hearts off, give others some entertainment and ultimately accomplish what they had in mind – a whirlwind of happiness and playfulness. In the end, we have a small mess to clean up and a lifetime of
memories to cherish.

How can you do this in your business?

What if you walked into a situation and totally created a whirlwind of excitement, happiness and fun for those around you?

Let’s say you run a consulting business- marketing consulting for this example. Could you not put some effort into creating a buzz around a new promotion? You ultimate goal is to collect 20 small business owners in a room and have them laughing, and running all the way to the bank. You are going to help them make more money – quickly.

Think of it like the new fad of six-minute dating. With those businesses, they arrange multiple people in a room and you get numerous six-minute dates within the hour. After the evening is over, you decide who you
would like to see again, and if it is mutual, the company arranges the dates.

What you would do to make this effective for your business is run a contest something like…”If You’ve Heard Of Six-Minute Dating…Then You Will Love Six Minute Six Figure Profit Gains!” something like that anyhow – that was just off the top of my head. You get the point. Now, your goal is to get 20 small business owners in the room – each and everyone of them has the desire to improve their bottom line profits. You can do this alone, or with the help of other consultants. You can do this in front of everyone, or one-on-one. The effect will be greater if you do it in front of everyone.

Each business owner (with prior notice so they have time to work on this) has 60 seconds to summarize what they do, what they sell, how they sell etc. They don’t get much time because they need to be more concise in what their business is all about (USP creation – and a business lesson for them also). Business Owners #1 gives the 60 second briefing – and then you as the consultant have 5 minutes to throw out as many profit making ideas as you can specifically tailored to their business.

This challenges you…and them…to give it your all in as short of time as possible. They benefit from, hopefully, some ideas they can immediately implement to make more money. You benefit from stretching your comfort zone, and pushing your marketing expertise to the limit. You also benefit from exposure to 20 businesses that could use your help to create more (paid this time) ideas, implementation (paid) strategies for your ideas.

Some may not go that well (kind of like the six-minute dates), some of them will be blockbuster ideas that make the business big dollars – quickly. The point is – you will benefit, the businesses all benefit and you leave a legacy behind that will leave everyone talking.

[This is important] Keep in mind – if you offered this as a free service – say once a week or every other week – in your community – the media would be ALL OVER YOU! You would get a ton of free publicity, exposure, articles and interviews – if – you go after getting the publicity. Write up some press releases for local distribution – “Local Consultant Gives Away Small Business Advice and Profits” or something along those lines.

Try it – your tornado path you leave behind may just raise your visibility (and business profits) to a while new level and you will leave lots of people talking about the crazy consultant giving away his ideas…and
making small companies big companies in six minutes flat!

Troy

www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com

Posted by Troy

Are you trying to do too much with your advertising?  Lots of people I talk to want to take over the world with their new sales letter.   To them, it is perfectly logical to have a letter that finds prospective buyers, get them to trust you, give them every reason they need for buying, and get them to pull out their credit card right now for this product, and for all future products they offer.

Yeah…sure. And I have a magic website that takes 4 minutes a month to run, and makes $14 billion a year in pure profits.  Not only that, it can be yours for just $997!

When you are putting together your marketing campaigns and sales letters…you need to do one thing at a time.

The first thing you need to do is FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE to sell to.  People that already have a problem that needs fixing…or some unspoken desire they want fulfilled.  You do not want to take some complete stranger and try to convince them your widget is perfect for them.

There must be something they will lose by not having your solution to their problem or desire.  They might lose status, money, time, an easier way of doing things, or the exclusivity of owning what you are selling.

Whatever it is that they will lose, you need to know it, and you need to address it in your copy.

Another thing you need to understand is who the 20% is in your target market.  You can write an advertisement that tries to sell to everyone…but why would you? Doesn’t it make more sense to go after the 20% of the market that will earn you 80% of your revenues and profits? Call out specifically to them in your headline and offer, and you will quickly find your sales growing and your list of HIGHLY qualified buyers growing.

I highly recommend you use 2-step advertising, which means the first step in your sales campaigns is in the lead generation ads you run.  Offer them something for free (of course, it must be 100% in sync with what you ultimately want to sell them).  All they should have to do to claim your freebies is to visit a website or drop you a phone call and leave you their contact information. The follow up sales piece they see after getting your free offer is the sales letter to sell them on the actual product or service you want to sell them.  If you go straight for the sale…you will sell much less and have a much smaller database to follow up with.

There was an advertisement that I ran for 2 years untouched in a Canadian business paper.  Every time it ran (every 2 weeks), it generated me 50 high quality leads.  And those leads turned out to be my best customers as far as money spent, and quantity of products bought.

They filled out the form at the old URL I used, they received the package promise in the mail, and then I followed up with promotions over the following months and years.

And I HIGHLY recommend you use a formula just like this in your business.

Know exactly who you are selling to, design a lead generating ad just like this one that targets them, and follow up with the freebies and the promotional pieces selling your products and services.

It is a model that WILL work for you, as it does for me.

Note a few things about this lead generation advertisement:

- It uses a headline that calls out to business owners (I could have tested a more specific headline too that focused on an exact type of business as well – but my experience with business edge, the paper I used for this ad showed a great quality lead as this ad was.  I did test numerous headlines, numerous offers, and a few different website domains.  Ultimately I found the perfect combination that got me the most leads… and it ran untouched for 2 years.

- I mention right in the sub-head that it is FREE…so they understand what I am asking of them will not cost them.  Plus, FREE is still one of the most powerful words in advertising (even better in a recession).

- Specifics about what they get.  Include the names of what they will receive, and specifics of what it will teach them. Specifics sell!

- I gave them a couple options - website or phone call.  I found that 20% of the respondents would phone, the rest would fill out the form on the site used (the site in this ad no longer offers the form, I just used it as an example).

- Last (and MOST important)…I told them WHY I was doing this. Just because it is free, doesn’t mean they will take action. They needed to understand my motives behind this… so I told them.

Try this approach…it will work wonders for you lead generation and sales campaigns.

Let me know how it works for you!

Troy

www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com

PS: If you want a quick and dirty blueprint for creating the ultimate marketing plan for 2010 - run on over to http://www.cashflowcalendars.com - a new year is here and these plans will have you up and running in no time

I wanted to start a series of quick-hit tips to help you get better results in your marketing.

These are some of the top things you need to understand moving into the New Year and the new mindset of today’s buyers:

* Copy is not advertising. It’s salesmanship in print. You do not need to always be selling a product or service (not recommended), you should be selling your prospects and clients on you, your ideas, your values, etc.  Get them over to your side, and then, once they are warmed up, then you can sell your products and services.  Trust always comes first.

* You don’t need to be a 10/10 in marketing to get great results, you can be a 6! Everyone else is a zero. If you doubt this… LOOK around you.  Their ads suck. Their yellow page postings suck. Their websites suck.  They do not understand marketing…and it shines through.  Big reason why so many companies are failing right now…they think price cutting is a winning marketing strategy.  It’s not!

* The receptivity of the recipient is MORE IMPORTANT than the copy itself. (message to market match). You can have the best copy in the world…but if it is targeted at the wrong audience…it WILL fail.  Mediocre copy targeted at the right audience will almost ALWAYS win.  As a copywriter and marketing consultant, I hate to say copy isn’t ALWAYS king…but I know it…and I make sure my copywriting clients know it too.

* Your own customer list is (by far) the best recipient of your marketing. Keep in touch regularly with your existing clients and make sure they are getting special materials that are ONLY available to paying clients. Word spreads. Give them value. Give them fun. Give them your personality.

* Your second best list to market to is a joint venture list. Find other people who market to the same type of client you market to. Approach them and educate them on the power of reciprocal joint ventures.  Offer to write their promotions for them (they, of course, get full approval on anything getting mailed out to their clients).  Arrange a mutually beneficial profit split on the campaign. Then make sure you do mutual
mailings to your list and theirs.

* Your third best list to market to is the lead generation list you create. Use the principles I outline in the Small Display Ads Lead Generation Report. Use 2-step marketing.  Use consistent follow-up. Educate them. Share your personality with them.  Do and say things you competitors are scared to do. Be different in a very cluttered marketplace!

* Narrowly define your best market, and then spend as much as you can to sell them. Understanding that this is counter-intuitive…but it works. The tighter you can define your ideal clients, the more effective your marketing will be. For example: I like to beat up on realtors. They all look the same, act the same, and get the same dismal results.  FOR GOOD REASON. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and there are 5,000 or
so realtors here, in a city of one million.  One for every 200 people! That is a very competitive situation…and explains why 90% of the realtors here barely eke out a living.

In the city of 5,000 realtors, there is only ONE realtor that advertises herself as “the pet lovers realtor.” She advertises with pictures of her and her dogs. She puts her ads in the kids magazines, in the pet magazines, in the pets’ section of the classified ads.  And she STANDS OUT in a very cluttered realtor environment.  The more tightly you define your market, the easier it become to reach them and match your message to their needs.

* If there is something you provide that your competitors don’t, build your whole sales pitch around this. Dig deep into why you started the business. Why you created this type of product or service. Why you are the one to deliver it over all the others out there.  Tell the complete story…good and bad.

* Make it look like a friend sent it. (best to use “blind” format with new prospects. When they know who you are teaser copy is best. Use front and back of envelope; testimonials, teasers,etc.)

* Lumpy mail gets dramatically better results.

Just a few quick and dirty tricks that are guaranteed to get you better results in your marketing.

More to come.

Let me know your results.

Troy

www.smallbusinesscopywriter.com

PS: If you want a quick and dirty blueprint for creating the ultimate marketing plan for 2010 - run on over to http://www.cashflowcalendars.com - a new year is here and these plans will have you up and running in no time

Are you trying to do too much with your advertising?  Lots of people I talk to want to take over the world with their new sales letter.   To them, it is perfectly logical to have a letter that finds prospective buyers, lets them to trust you, gives them every reason they need for buying, and gets them to pull out their credit card right now for this product, and for all future products they offer.

Yeah… sure. And I have a magic website that takes 4 minutes a month to run, and makes $14 billion a year in pure profits.  Not only that, it can be yours for just $997!

When you are putting together your marketing campaigns and sales letters… you need to do one thing at a time.

The first thing you need to do is FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE to sell to.  People that already have a problem that needs fixing… or some unspoken desire they want fulfilled.  You do not want to take some complete stranger and try to convince them your widget is perfect for them.

There must be something they will lose by not having your solution to their problem or desire.  They might lose status, money, time, an easier way of doing things, or the exclusivity of owning what you are selling.

Whatever it is that they will lose, you need to know it, and you need to address it in your copy.

Another thing you need to understand is who the 20% are in your target market.  You can write an advertisement that tries to sell to everyone… but why would you? Doesn’t it make more sense to go after the 20% of the market that will earn you 80% of your revenues and profits? Call out specifically to them in your
headline and offer, and you will quickly find your sales growing and your list of HIGHLY qualified buyers growing.

I highly recommend you use 2 step advertising, which means the first step in your sales campaigns is in the lead generation ads you run.  Offer them something for free (of course, it must be 100% in sync with what you ultimately want to sell them).  All they should have to do to claim your freebies is to visit a website or drop you a phone call and leave you their contact information. The follow up sales piece they see after getting your free offer is the sales letter to sell them on the actual product or service you want to sell them.  If you go straight for the sale… you will sell much less and have a much smaller database to follow up with.

Here is an advertisement I ran for 2 years untouched in a Canadian business paper.  Every time it ran (every 2 weeks), it generated me 50 high quality leads.  And those leads turned out to be my best customers as far as money spent, and quantity of products bought.

They filled out the form at the old URL I used, they received the package promise in the mail, and then I followed up with promotions over the following months and years.

And I HIGHLY recommend you use a formula just like this in your business.

Know exactly who you are selling to, design a lead generating ad just like this one that targets them, and follow up with the freebies and the promotional pieces selling your products and services.

It is a model that WILL work for you, as it does for me.

Note a few things about this lead generation advertisement: -  It uses a headline that calls out to business owners (I could have tested a more specific headline too that focused on an exact type of business as well – but my experience with business edge, the paperr I used for this ad showed a great quality lead as this ad was.  I did test numerous headlines, numerous offers, and a few different website domains.  Ultimately I found the perfect combination that got me the most leads… and it ran untouched for 2 years.

-  I mention right in the subhead that it is FREE… so they understand what I am asking of them will not cost them.  Plus, FREE is still one of the most powerful words in advertising (even better in a recession).

-   Specifics about what they get.  Include the names of what they will receive, and specifics of what it will teach them. Specifics sell!

-   I gave them a couple options – website or phone call.  I found that 20% of the respondants would phone, the rest would fill out the form on the site used (the site in this ad no longer offers the form, I just used it as an example).

-  Last (and MOST important)… I told them WHY I was doing this.

Just because it is free, doesn’t mean they will take action.

They needed to understand my motives behind this… so I told them.

Try this approach… it will work wonders for your lead generation and sales campaigns.  Let me know how it works for you!

Troy

PS: If you want a quick and dirty blueprint for creating the ultimate marketing plan for 2010 - run on over to http://www.cashflowcalendars.com - a new year is here and these plans will have you up and running in no time