Here's the next chapter in my continuing series on 18 key elements that should be in any marketing sales letter or website selling a product or service. If your media is a display ad, it is difficult to have enough room to cover all of these. However even in a display ad, you should try to determine the most critical ones and use them.
Remember: Now's the time to get your marketing copy right - so it will sell!
Top 18 Marketing Elements - 3 & 4
3. Choose The Right Media: Once you know the WHO and the MESSAGE you are going to deliver to the WHO, (see my last post) you can now choose the media.
Here’s another big mistake I see all the time. Most business owners first choose the media and then try to decide what MESSAGE they want to convey. When starting with media, they almost never consider the WHO that particular media is best targeted to reach.
A great example of this was the owner of a home flooring sales and installation company that attended one of my marketing seminars. The Val-Pak advertising salesperson had been to his office and convinced him this was a great advertising media for him to use. The salesperson helped him put some ads together to run in their monthly mailings.
You see by choosing the media first, he hadn’t considered WHO was opening, reading and responding to the ads. 87% of Val-Pak ad envelopes are opened by women. But, his ads were using words, phrases, terms and offers that were targeted to getting men to respond. 87% of all of his ads were falling on deaf ears.
You always want to choose the media based on the MESSAGE you have chosen and the WHO you want and expect to respond.
4. Identify What Your OFFER Will Be: You next need to determine what you want to use to grab your prospect’s attention that will cause them to want to take action. Your OFFER might be for some product that is brand new and solves some specific problem that exists in the industry. It might be to OFFER something special that they just can’t do without. It might be some special sale, or special quantity, or a special design, or special product combination for a specific improved price.
Your OFFER might be to request some type of free information to get the prospect to give you their name, email and address. For many companies this is a much better OFFER because it can often take several steps to convince a new client/customer/patient to do business with you. If you have their contact information, you can start dribbling information and OFFERs to get them to begin to Know, Like & Trust you . . . and then do business with you.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Top 18 Marketing Copy Elements - 1 & 2
Now's the time to Get Your Marketing Copy RIGHT!
I am frequently asked to review copy written by my clients; and I often find that many essential elements are missing. I have worked up a simple list of these elements you should include when you write copy that is designed to get your prospect to buy something or request something you offer as a reason to get them to give you a name, email address and/or address.
I will share my "Must Have" list with you over the next few weeks of posts.
1. Identify the WHO You Are Speaking To: Most all advertising that I see is extremely generic and doesn't call out any specific WHO that company wants to respond. I often find that people give little or no thought to the WHO of marketing. This is the group of businesses, consumers, etc that are most likely to respond and that we want our message to target.
When I bring this up to people the response I often get is: "I don't want to miss anyone that might respond." The truth is that the less targeted you copy the less response you will get. We have proved this over and over again. But, people are still afraid they might miss someone. The broader your message . . . you'll find you receive a smaller percentage of response.
So you must start by specifically deciding who you want this message to target. I am working with a pest control company that wants to sell environmentally friendly bug and varmint control services. We first decided we would target people who are specifically worried about the environment and doing business with green companies that have a certain high level of income.
Now we can acquire a list of those specific people and use this information for the next key element in your marketing copy.
2. Identify the MESSAGE For That Specific WHO: The next big mistake I often see is the MESSAGE is so generic that no one responds. Now that you've identified specifically WHO is most likely to respond, and WHO you want to respond (this is even more critical), you must speak to them in language that hits home with them.
Depending on age, social status, area of the country, psychological influences (psychograpic), stage of life, type of business, industry affiliations, social affiliations, level of education, religious belief status, heritage, etc., you'll need to use different words, illustrations and abbreviations to gain their interest in your product or service.
The words, illustrations, examples, photos, testimonials, proof statements that you use should be predicated on the WHO and what is most likely to cause them to respond.
That's the first two of the eighteen. I'll post the next two in a couple of days.
If you are interested in learning how to use these strategies in more detail, review our website and check out our Small Business Marketing PowerCircle meeting in Albuquerque.
http://www.MarketingStrategiesRx.com
I am frequently asked to review copy written by my clients; and I often find that many essential elements are missing. I have worked up a simple list of these elements you should include when you write copy that is designed to get your prospect to buy something or request something you offer as a reason to get them to give you a name, email address and/or address.
I will share my "Must Have" list with you over the next few weeks of posts.
1. Identify the WHO You Are Speaking To: Most all advertising that I see is extremely generic and doesn't call out any specific WHO that company wants to respond. I often find that people give little or no thought to the WHO of marketing. This is the group of businesses, consumers, etc that are most likely to respond and that we want our message to target.
When I bring this up to people the response I often get is: "I don't want to miss anyone that might respond." The truth is that the less targeted you copy the less response you will get. We have proved this over and over again. But, people are still afraid they might miss someone. The broader your message . . . you'll find you receive a smaller percentage of response.
So you must start by specifically deciding who you want this message to target. I am working with a pest control company that wants to sell environmentally friendly bug and varmint control services. We first decided we would target people who are specifically worried about the environment and doing business with green companies that have a certain high level of income.
Now we can acquire a list of those specific people and use this information for the next key element in your marketing copy.
2. Identify the MESSAGE For That Specific WHO: The next big mistake I often see is the MESSAGE is so generic that no one responds. Now that you've identified specifically WHO is most likely to respond, and WHO you want to respond (this is even more critical), you must speak to them in language that hits home with them.
Depending on age, social status, area of the country, psychological influences (psychograpic), stage of life, type of business, industry affiliations, social affiliations, level of education, religious belief status, heritage, etc., you'll need to use different words, illustrations and abbreviations to gain their interest in your product or service.
The words, illustrations, examples, photos, testimonials, proof statements that you use should be predicated on the WHO and what is most likely to cause them to respond.
That's the first two of the eighteen. I'll post the next two in a couple of days.
If you are interested in learning how to use these strategies in more detail, review our website and check out our Small Business Marketing PowerCircle meeting in Albuquerque.
http://www.MarketingStrategiesRx.com
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