Archive for the ‘Direct Mail Marketing’ Category

Fill This Gaping Hole In Your Persuasion Strategy Immediately…

By: Dan Kennedy on: November 20th, 2012 2 Comments

The beginning of this month during GKIC’s INFO-Summit, I had the opportunity to present insights on copywriting alongside ‘master of dark arts copywriting extraordinaire’ and fellow grizzled veteran of many wars, John Carlton.

John worked with Sir Gary Halbert, Prince of Print, intimately, for many years, thus earning a Purple Heart and a grand collection of stories; most not suitable for public telling.

Carlton is a renaissance man, rich with life experience and right up at the very top of the list of Living Greats.

We both have our Halbert connections and remember our times with Gary fondly (even the ones that scared us) and value our lessons learned from Gary highly. We are both troubled by the lack of depth of knowledge we observe in many newcomers to direct marketing and copywriting.

Anyway, Carlton and I go way back to when mastery mattered, and people like he and I aspired to it, worked at it, fought for it, paid hefty dues for it.

It’s something as a marketer you should be thinking about too.

As I mentioned in this month’s No B.S. Marketing Letter (if you aren’t currently receiving the No B.S. Marketing Letter, you can get two free months of it here), ‘just because you think you can’t doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.’

Many people think they can’t write or think they write well enough. These trains of thought mean in their minds they think they need not make an effort to learn more or aspire to know more.

On the flip side, entrepreneurs who are the ones that tend to hang out at the top of the money pyramid and are on the most successful, most enviable businesses list, pay top dollar to acquire the best copywriters they can afford, and study what works and what doesn’t.

Whether you think you can write and do, think you can and don’t, or think you can’t and don’t, working to understand copy techniques that drive response is a path worth pursuing.

When you do, you can look to boost your response and achieve exceptional return on investment.

When you don’t, a belief that direct-response copy doesn’t work, an argument that long copy fails, and ‘your business is somehow different’ will most likely be your party line.  You’ll also be hanging at the bottom of the money pyramid, with your main marketing strategy being to discount your products and services.

If you think you can write, but have never studied from copywriting masters and don’t continue your pursuit of good copy, danger lurks. Swiping bad copy because your competitor or a big brand name is using it. Presenting a perhaps, well-written message that doesn’t appeal what-so-ever to your target audience.

Believing you can write and choosing to hire a copywriter can have similar consequences. There are many copywriters out there. A few exceptional. Some pretty good. Many mediocre to not so good to awful.  The fact that so many businesses don’t pay attention to their copywriting puts you at a huge advantage when you take the time to educate yourself on the science of good copy.

Note I say science, not art, as USA Today would have you believe per their “Win $1 million in free ad space” contest. Copy is a science. There are precise reasons for doing one thing over another. Using certain words, techniques or strategies in one situation and choosing to not use them in other circumstances.

So when you hire someone to write your copy, it is critical, to have an idea that what you are being handed is reliably good.

Yes, not every piece of copy is going to work as well as you’d like or expect—but this is not the way to decide if you should hire a copywriter or not.

Knowing that you are looking at reasonably good copy and understanding why it’s good will help you make better decisions, hire better copywriters and get better results. (Inside “The 7 Key Questions Every Copywriter You Hire MUST Be Able to Answer To Write Killer Direct Response Copy and Create Marketing Campaigns That Will Outsell The Pants Off Your Competition!” is what every business owner should ask before hiring a copywriter.)

Another reason to pay close attention to your copy has to do with being able to attract customers and clients for whom price is not a determining factor in their purchasing. When I wrote No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent in 2008, I made much of the concentration of both wealth and discretionary spending power in the hands of leading edge boomers and seniors. Now in 2012, this is proving true.

Control of money by leading edge boomers and seniors is in the 50% neighborhood. As I show in chapter 12 of my new book, No B.S. Marketing to Leading-Edge Boomers & Seniors, print media and direct mail is vitally important in effectively and successfully marketing to boomers and seniors. This is the media they value, they trust, they pay the most attention to and that they have the most respect for. It requires knowing how to write. Ignore this and you risk half of the population’s money—half of the population that is at the top of the spending pyramid.

Michael Wolff wrote in USA today that “Johnny who can’t write has gone into advertising.” In his article he suggested that all you need to do to get people to pay attention “save Facebook”, “make digital media a decent business” and “move more merchandise” is to bring back the copywriter.

I concur. If you want to stand out among the crowd and rise to the top of the money pyramid—seek out, aspire to and fight for better copy in your ads.  Delay equals lost revenue.  The time is now to fill this gaping hole in your persuasion strategy.

NOTE: Another one of the “living greats” is Mark Ford (aka Michael Masterson). The chief strategist behind taking AGORA Publishing, the largest internet-based publishing company in the world, from $8 million to $380 Million Mark is notoriously known for taking one business from $180,000 to $135 Million in 11 years.

He too found it disturbing that there was a lack of depth and knowledge in copy-writing—so he co-founded AWAI specifically for the purpose of teaching people how to understand and execute the science of copy-writing.

He spoke a couple of years ago at SuperConference. His wisdom in regards to business and intimate knowledge of copy-writing are worth paying attention to. Here’s a free essay by Mark written for GKIC readers: [link to pdf by Mark Ford]

“Fall Forward Faster” A Tip To Make Your Business the Most Successful It Can Be!

By: Dave Dee on: November 13th, 2012 3 Comments

I just got back from Opryland Hotel in Nashville where we held INFO-Summit 2012 …

There was so much great information flying around that it would be easy for attendees to go home and put their info in a drawer…and wait until they have some free time to put the new ideas they’ve learned into action …especially with the holidays just around the corner.

It’s a common occurrence. You mean to do something with the ideas you get, but after sitting the materials on your desk a while, you move them to a drawer to get them out of the way telling yourself that you’ll get to them ASAP.

I’ve seen members do this with their newsletters and other materials too—the information is great, but you feel overwhelmed—and unsure what to do first.

So you put it aside intending to get to it “some day.”

But here’s the thing…it truly only takes one idea…one strategy to change your business and your life.

Just one.

That means you don’t need to do ALL the ideas that come your way. You just need to pick one and get started.

During a Q & A with a panel of Dan Kennedy’s Platinum Mastermind members, Dr. Tom Orent gave a great piece of advice. In fact, it was his answer when Dan asked, “What is your best piece of advice?” Dr. Orent said, “Fall forward faster. Because the people who have failed the most are the most successful.”

Then he gave a great way to deal with overwhelm that I want to share with you today—so that you can make sure you get some stuff done before the end of the year!

Dr. Orent suggested that you take out a piece of paper and write down all the ideas you want to try.

Next he said to narrow your list down to the top ten ideas on your list and set the other ideas aside in a tickler file to review at a later date.

From your top ten list, pick just two ideas that you will implement in November and two ideas from the list you will implement in December.

Focus on only the two ideas you’ve chosen for the month.

Not sure what ideas you should do first? Here are some tips:

 

1)     Pick the ideas which are the best speed marketing strategies. In the Phenomenon Dan teaches you how to get more done in the next 12 months than you did in the previous 12 years.

One of his strategies is to focus on speed marketing strategies that will multiply and expand your business. For example, you could focus on a key area of your business where you haven’t yet converted to GKIC marketing. This might be something such as not having a lead magnet in place to attract new prospects to your business.

 

2)     Circle the desk before you sit down. During John Carlton’s conversation with Dan about copywriting at INFO-Summit, John talked about how he had observed how a dog turns in circles before it lays down. He said that in order to avoid wasting time, before he writes a single word of copy, he circles his desk and doesn’t sit down until he is ready to write.

Similarly, to get things done, you need to be “ready” to go when you implement a new process, strategy or idea. If an idea on your list leaves you feeling unsure of where to start or what to do, that might be a sign to leave that one for a later date.

Instead pick an idea that you feel more confident about starting on immediately.  (If you are looking for how you can find the time to implement new ideas, Dan shows you how to “find” that extra hour to work on the “thing” you’ve been meaning to get to in No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs.)

 

3)      Evaluate what is easiest to do based on what you already have.  One thing to consider is what can you do with the tools you already have in place.

While this isn’t always the best criteria, some action is better than no action. This means that sometimes to get started, this is excellent criteria and will make it easier to get going.

If you have an email system already in place, it might be easier to set up a follow-up email sequence for new prospects than it would be to send out a postcard when you have no list with physical addresses and have never dealt with a list broker before.

 

4)     Do what are you most excited about. Call it your gut instinct or intuition…but what do you feel the most excited about on your list? The things you are most excited about will be the easiest to get done versus the things you are apprehensive about. Trusting your enthusiasm about an idea or project can be a key to helping put your idea into motion.

 

I don’t want you to wait until next year to start seeing a shift in your success.

Do you?

So right now, take a few minutes to write down the top ideas and strategies you want to implement in your business. Use the four tips I’ve given you to pick your top two and get started today. If you do, you’ll be celebrating at the end of the year and will have started a new tradition of getting things done to move your business forward.

NOTE: If you’re still not sure what to do or how to do it, then check out our FAST Implementation Bootcamp—open to all GKIC members for FREE. We’ll take you through all the steps and show you the best strategies to start with to get your business in high gear now. In fact, our 2012 GKIC Marketer of the Year, Walter Bergeron completely transformed his business in just 90 days by going to Fast Implementation Bootcamp—and just one year later, he just signed a deal that will take his company to the 8-Figure level!  Find out when our next bootcamp is here.

How to transform your life (and your bank account) with what you already know

By: Darcy Juarez on: November 8th, 2012 4 Comments

Yesterday I arrived in Nashville for what promises to be the best INFO-Summit GKIC has ever held.

I know, I know. You’ve heard that before. But the reason why I say it with such confidence is I’ve never seen so many big hitters from the information marketing world in one place before.

Picture bumping elbows with Rich Schefren, Alex Mandossian, Ali Brown, Dave VanHoose, Yanik Silver, Dave Dee and Vince Palko. Imagine having a conversation with Dan Kennedy and John Carlton about the sales-generating, hard-core selling intricacies of info-marketing and copywriting that separates great marketers from so-so marketers.

Hundreds of GKIC members excited and eager to get that one golden nugget… or make that one connection that will catapult their businesses to the next level.

Information marketing is a phenomenal business. It allows you—no matter what your background, experience or education level — to achieve financial and personal freedom very quickly, from scratch and with limited resources.

What’s more, you can do it using what you already know.

However, despite all its benefits and advantages, people still ask me what type of opportunities info-marketing provides.

So today, I thought I’d share some stories from a few info-marketers:

  • In 1980, Gene Kelly hit rock bottom. A law enforcement officer turned salesman turned manufacturing company owner, he decided to try a new path after he ended up “dead broke.”  He bought some surplus junk and figured out how to make a kit. He used this as a template and created an information product with instructions on how to make your own “junk” into whatever you want. He went on to sell well over a million dollars with that one product. Kelly also created a video from all the questions he received, turning the video into a $10,000 product.
  • Marc Lerner created his info-marketing business because of his personal struggle with multiple sclerosis (MS.) After discovering that every struggle in life demands the same life skills, he created Life Skills Inc. to teach others his approach to managing intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical needs to achieve wellness. Marc’s first product was seminars that he taught and expanded to e-books.
  • Bob Sterling started as a software engineer. Because he could write, he started turning computer manuals into something people could understand. Writing manuals lead him to copywriting until one day when he realized he was giving away a lot of information for free.  It was then that he created his first information product and started getting paid for what he knew.

One of the big misconceptions about info marketing is that people sometimes confuse info-marketing with Internet marketing.

It’s important to understand that a lot of info marketing is done through direct mail.

For example, Brett Fogle  with Options University took the e-books he was selling online and started using direct mail and other media to build his business into a full-scale information marketing business. (You can find more stories like this in the Official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing.)

To jumpstart your thinking about how you can convert what you already know into your own information marketing product, here are some different types of information products you can sell.

Paper and ink products:  There are dozens of paper and ink products you can sell, some of them like books, reports and manuals you may have already thought of.  However, you can also sell tip sheets, checklists, correspondence templates, back issues of your newsletters, forms you use for business, time management forms, and sets of cards such as recipe cards or flash cards, etc.

Audio and video products: If you’re not big on writing, record yourself instead. (You can even take a recording and have it transcribed to create a second paper and ink product.) Record speeches, webinars, teleseminars, consultations, interviews, mastermind groups, coaching sessions and more.

Internet products: This can range from e-books to downloads, to online lessons and membership to a content-rich website.

Miscellaneous products: Information can come in many forms. Ideas include packages of information, services, private labeled products, memberships, customized products or services, training kits, software and more.

One of the big advantages of info-marketing is you don’t even need to know how to create these products yourself. All you need is the idea for the product.

Mike Capuzzi created software to sell his idea of CopyDoodles. The beauty is, Mike says you don’t even need to know anything about software to develop it. All you need is an idea and you can pay someone to develop the software for you.

By leveraging what you already know and creating an information marketing product, you can add an additional stream of income. Even better, for many information marketers, they soon discover that they can make more and have greater freedom with their information marketing products than they can with their regular business.

So if you have an idea for a product or every newsletter you’ve ever printed or there is something your customers are always asking you about—consider that an invitation to try information marketing. You might be surprised at just how lucrative and fascinating this business can be…

…and wonder why it took you so long to try it!

NOTE: In case you weren’t aware, this coming Friday AND Saturday
we’re going to give you 100% FREE peek inside the Info-SUMMIT with
LIVECASTs of two very special sessions:

First off, on Friday November 9th at 10:45AM ET, Dave Dee will
present:

————————————————————

“How to Easily Make Six Figures (or More) Online Over and
Over Again Using Absolutely Free Technology!”

————————————————————

Here’s what you’ll discover:

* The Super-Simple, Insanely Compelling FREE Technology that
enables anyone to instantly achieve mass-media “GURU” status!

* 3 Simple Keys to Structuring Your Online Presentation
to Make Certain they Remain Riveted to their Seats from
Start to Finish

* How to Craft the “Perfect Blend” between teaching
and selling during your presentation

* The Critical Factors you MUST take into account when
doing an ONLINE presentation broadcast… if you miss
these, you’ll lose your audience right from the get go!

* And MUCH MUCH MORE!

 Click Here to Sign Me Up With Dave!

Next, on Saturday November 10th at 10:15AM ET, Colin Daymude
lets you in on:

————————————————————

“The World’s Greatest Business Opportunity!”… A Step By
Step Expose of EXACTLY What to Look For When Seeking Out
New Opportunities as an Informed Info-Entrepreneur

————————————————————

Colin will reveal:

* The insanely high value of “SIMPLE” in any opportunity
and why “baffling them with BS” complexity should make
you run for the hills in a heartbeat!

* Key factors you need to look for in any info-marketing
opportunity – such as ease of content creation, ongoing
support, proven marketing materials, building your herd,
and setting yourself up as the “go-to-expert” in your niche.

* Why “Slow and Steady Wins the Race” can prove FATAL to
your success… and how to apply the “leap frog” principle
to quickly establish you as “lead dog” in the market!

* With a lot more besides!..

Click Here to Sign Up With Colin!

Hope you’ll be able to join me for BOTH.

How to guarantee victory in your advertising campaign…

By: Dave Dee on: November 6th, 2012 7 Comments

Today people head to the polls in the U.S.A. to decide who will be our next president.

Over the past few days, candidates have displayed a mannerism that the most successful entrepreneurs use to chart their course to business victory.

It’s something you’ll need if you intend to unseat your competition. Fight off feelings of being overwhelmed and eliminate chaos. And lead yourself and your business to the transformation, quality of life, wealth and victory you deserve.

Can you guess what it is?

It deals with a problem many of our members say they struggle with…

A problem that is only going to get worse over the next couple of months as holiday distractions encroach on your already hectic schedule.

What do candidates do that you need to figure out how to do?

They know how to get things done.

In the final hours of the presidential race, they held a combined 14 events, spoke to undecided voters and ran ads and counter-ads.

And if you are thinking, well it’s different for them…they have money and people to help them get things done, I want you to suspend that thinking for a few minutes and consider instead what you can take away from their final bid for commander in chief…

Because there are some fairly significant lessons you can learn.

Take extreme measures: In the final stretch, both candidates took extreme measures…sleeping little, making stops in multiple states in one day. They basically did what they felt was necessary to get the job done.

Make a commitment to do what it takes to get your marketing out. If that means working longer hours a few days or outsourcing pieces of your campaigns you don’t have the expertise or time to do…do it.

It’s the people who are willing to do what’s necessary to get the job done that will achieve the biggest wins.

Leverage everything you have:  To the bitter end, both candidates are pulling out everything they have to win votes. And while you may be getting tired of strangers knocking on your door, a mailbox full of campaign literature, the barrage of ads and multiple phone calls each day—chances are your marketing is far from approaching saturation with your clients, customers, or patients.

When it comes to marketing, it’s important to leverage everything you have. That means with each message, don’t just rely on one media form. Send your message to your newsletter list, send it out as an email, a postcard, and post it on your blog. Then deliver it during a webinar and make posts about it on social media.

Simply using the same message in different formats is a great way to leverage the power of your message and reach the most people with it.

Don’t second-guess yourself: The Romney and Obama campaigns didn’t second guess their decisions on where they should make their final stops. They simply made a decision and did it.

With marketing, you never are 100% sure that what you do will work.  Make your best guess and just go for it. If you are really unsure, start small and test first. The point is that you need to make a commitment and just do it.

Do things simultaneously: Could you imagine if the candidates only ran ads in one state at a time or to one organization at a time?

Yet it’s common for small business owners to try one campaign before moving on to the next—believing they need to wait until they have more time to put together another one or more money to do a second type of campaign.

However, as Dan Kennedy says in Extreme Productivity Blueprint, “Nobody ever has any money left over. Nobody ever has any time left over…and if you’ve got any lying around, time or money, that you have left over, that you’re not doing anything with, somebody will take it.”

Put a lot of campaigns in motion all at the same time. For example, have a follow up campaign in motion while you are starting a new campaign. Run an ad in a specialty publication for your niche audience at the same time you are sending out your newsletter to them and holding a special event. Instead of setting up one lead funnel, set up multiple lead funnels.

Multiple campaigns means multiple sources of leads and income.

Think of marketing your business like you are in a presidential race.  You are attempting to sway prospects in your favor. In order to reach the top of your game and edge out your competitors, use these four tips and you’ll to pull ahead in your marketplace. You’ll find taking massive action eliminates that feeling of being overwhelmed because you’ll no longer be wallowing in indecision. Plus the big wins you’ll experience will only motivate you to want to do it more.

NOTE: The easiest (and least expensive) way I know to guarantee marketing victory is to come to one of our FREE Fast Implementation Bootcamps.

Whether you are new to marketing and GKIC or you’ve been a student of marketing for quite some time… you’ll discover ways you can quickly implement proven marketing strategies so you can grow your business FAST.

The best part is that this is FREE for GKIC members to attend (less a $97.00 deposit which is fully refunded immediately after you attend bootcamp.)

Don’t miss one of the best ways to get more done.  [Find out when our next Fast Implementation Bootcamp is and learn more now]

Send Emails, Cash Checks

By: Darcy Juarez on: October 18th, 2012 4 Comments

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about building a lead generation machine. A key marketing ingredient if you want to stop worrying about where your next customer will come from…

But here’s the thing…

Once you have those leads, they will expect you to sell them something.

There are different vehicles you can use, such as direct mail, email, on the phone or in person, to sell your products and services to these newly acquired leads. I hope that you are using them all.

However, today I want to talk about one specifically…

Selling through email.

Because if you aren’t using it—or if you aren’t making money from your emails, then you are leaving boatloads of money on the table.

Case in point, members of our Expert Advisory Board. The emails they’ve sent have generated millions and millions and millions in sales.

Email marketing can have a huge impact on your business. In fact, Ogilvy Inc. reports that people who subscribe to your email lists and receive email-marketing messages from your company will purchase 167 percent more than people in your marketing database who are not receiving your emails.

Here are three ways you can use email to increase your revenue:

1)     Set up trigger campaigns to improve response.

On top of being cost-effective, email can help you reduce costs in other areas such as lost customer revenue. Set up a trigger campaign that automatically sends emails to welcome new subscribers, follow up on important dates, events, or campaigns or when a customer responds in a certain way or takes a certain action in your campaign.

For example, let’s say you send a postcard to your customers driving them to a landing page advertising an upcoming event. A portion of your customers won’t sign up on that first visit to your landing page. That means you need a way to drive them back to your page or you’ve short-changed your effort. (Especially since 80% of sales are made on or after the 5th contact.)

Setting up a trigger email campaign that has a sequence of messages that address different objections your prospect might have and then driving them back to your event landing page in the right frame of mind can significantly increase your response to that event. In fact, using this type of follow-up email sequence has been shown to double, triple and even quadruple your initial response.

2)     Use email to get valuable information.

These days everybody is crunching numbers to ensure they are being extremely effective and efficient with their marketing dollars.  And understandably so.

Some of the most valuable statistics are the response numbers that roll in after an email campaign is sent out.

Reviewing your numbers will help you spot effective offers, stand out content or subscribers who’d likely respond well to follow up.

Use this information to see what messages are working and incorporate them into your other marketing.

3)     Use email to build brand loyalty.

In today’s down economy, it’s more important than ever to keep your customers happy and engaged.  Consistent emails with interesting and relevant content give you an easy, friendly way to remind your subscribers why they love you.

Plus you can use your email to highlight your company’s best qualities, reward your most loyal customers, convert leads into customers and turn your one-time buyers into repeat customers.

Now that you know some ways you can use email to increase your profits, let me tell you how you can actually end up decreasing your profits with email.

To enjoy the same success as our Expert Advisory Board members, when you want to sell something to your email subscribers, you want to create emails that don’t diminish your reputation…

Because your subscribers are the people who volunteered their email address virtually saying…”Yes, I want to know more about your products and services.”

In other words, they are your best and most valuable prospects.

Unfortunately, many sales emails are so poorly written that they can actually make it more difficult to sell.

You see, marketers tend to view their subscriber list as “property” instead of the valuable asset it is. So they blast their list with emails not thinking about the massive competition for their customer’s attention.

Like you, they’ve signed up for all different kinds of e-newsletters. They may not be completely loyal or only slightly interested in what you offer. So if you aren’t taking care to write your sales emails in the right way, you can end up disappointing them and losing them forever.

A great example of this is from a friend of mine who told me she stopped shopping at one of her favorite clothing stores, Coldwater Creek.

When asked why she stopped shopping there, she told me it was because of the emails she received from them. Pressed further, she said that while she expected to receive emails selling her stuff, she didn’t expect that every email she received from them would be a discount sales flyer.

She told me she had always thought of them as more upscale than that and the emails changed her perception of them.

There are some important points you can take from this, the first of which is that she expected them to sell to her through email and the second is that the way they did it damaged their reputation.

So while a good marketing plan will continue to use a variety of marketing channels, using email is a cost-effective way to leverage your subscriber behavior and use the data to target consumers making your mailings more effective and, most importantly, more profitable.

Plus, it can be used as an influencer to drive more sales while reducing your operating costs.

But remember, the content has to be killer or you can damage your reputation and lose your customers, even loyal ones, forever.

NOTE: If you would like to know how to send e-mails to your list that generate sales instead of damaging your reputation, tune in tonight, October 18, 2012 at 8:00 PM ET to hear Dave Dee reveal “How to Write Subliminally Persuasive Emails that Generate Sales Like Magic in 9 Minutes or Less!” Sign up here.

Get Your Marketing Ready For Those Most Likely To Vote YES

By: Dave Dee on: October 16th, 2012 5 Comments

Last week I read a funny cartoon about the election …

“The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” cartoon shows Orville Edison running for the White House.

An assistant tells him he has a call from Mr. Jones from the industrial polluters association. Edison takes the call and says, “Bob, for a small campaign contribution we’ll see to it that the EPA leaves polluters alone when we take office.”

Edison hangs up the phone and his assistant says, “Oops…sorry. Mister Jones is on line two. That was the Sierra Club.”

Oops is right. That’s a costly mistake—and while the cartoon is funny, businesses often make a similar mistake when creating lead generation campaigns.

At GKIC, we teach the marketing triangle. This system is based on the three components of marketing—market, media, and message—for anything, anywhere, and at any time, at any price, under any conditions. (More about this in Dan Kennedy’s  The Ultimate Marketing Plan and in your Income Explosion Guide that comes with your Most Incredible Free Gift Ever package.)

Matching the right message with the right market is powerful and can elicit a much stronger response when you get the “who” right.  And while my Orville Edison cartoon example seems so obvious, somehow, sadly when it comes to lead generation, businesses often get the “who” wrong – and it can be extremely costly.

It’s what Dan Kennedy calls “Blind Archery.” It’s when you simply shoot your message out to a lot of people and hope it will reach enough of your ideal customers to make it worthwhile.

Here are five steps you can do to get your marketing ready so that more prospects say “yes” to what you have to offer while avoiding this costly mistake:

 

1)     Identify your WHO. In our cartoon example, Orville failed to accurately identify who he was talking to. Don’t make the same error. Before you write a word of copy or pick out your media, take time answer the following questions:

  • Who do you want to respond to your message?
  • Who is your ideal customer?
  • Who is your current customer? (If you can’t answer who your current customer is, then do some research to find out.)

The more accurate you are at identifying your ideal prospect, the more impact your marketing will have.

 

2)     Find out what’s important to your reader.  When Orville answered the phone, he was thinking about his priorities—to raise money for his campaign and get votes—not his constituents.

Too often businesses have this same failing. Ask yourself, if you were in your prospect’s shoes, what would make you buy, give money, sign up, respond to, etc. whatever it is you are offering.

If you do not fit your customer profile in your niche, you will need to do some work to understand your prospect and customer’s desires, fears, and motivations. You can do this by doing things such as reading industry publications and visiting forums. (For a full list of how to get inside the mind of your customer when you are an outsider, take a look at page 19-20 in The Ultimate Sales Letter.)

 

3)     Ask your list broker for the data card. If you are renting mailing lists from a list broker, you can ask to see the data card. This will provide you with information about your prospect’s age, gender and types of products they’ve purchased in the past.

For example, if you are selling financial services you might ask for a list of people who have previously bought financial programs, magazines, or newsletters or other financial services through the mail.

 

4)     Use your product or service as a consumer would.  Take your product or service and use it exactly as a consumer would. Open your packaging, read the instructions and labels. Use it as instructed. Test it. Take it apart and put it back together. If you provide services and it’s difficult to use your own service, consider hiring a secret shopper to give you feed back.

 

5)     Examine what has “sold” in the past. Do you have a promotion that was particularly successful or is there something you say in face-to-face sales that works well and has a good closing ratio? Studying what has worked well in actual selling situations will help you avoid making incorrect assumptions about your WHO.

Unlike Orville Edison who had the advantage of knowing exactly who he was talking to—had he asked—when you are sending direct mail out, you can’t speak with your prospect to get direct feedback from him or her. However, when you take the time to use these five steps to get to know WHO your customer is, you’ll not only create a more successful campaign that connects with your prospects giving you better results, but you’ll make prospects want to be your customer—and a loyal customer at that.

How To Make People Choose You When They Are Ready To Buy…

By: Dave Dee on: October 2nd, 2012 9 Comments

Last week a friend of mine’s husband had six hours of dental work.

Deathly afraid of the dentist, he put his visit off so long that he needed a lot of work done.

In fact, it took six years of poking and prodding the guy to finally get him to go.

Now that might be a little on the long side of the buying cycle, but today I want you to think about when, why and how you buy stuff.

To start, do me a favor and answer the following questions:

Have you been to the dentist recently? If not, will you need to go within the next six months?

Will you go out to eat one or more times this month? What about this week?

Could you see yourself buying a new electronic device—a computer, TV, stereo, or phone for example in the next 6 months to one year?

For some reading this, you might be looking to buy a new computer right now, others might be thinking in the next year they want to upgrade.

You most likely will eat out at least once this month. And go to the dentist in the next six months to get your teeth cleaned and checked (unless, of course, you are like my friend’s husband.)

The point is everyone is at different places in life’s continuous array of buying cycles.

And so are your customers.  Some are looking for your products or services right now. Some don’t need them right now, but down the line, in six months to a year for example, they will need what you offer.

It’s difficult to exactly pinpoint when necessity, your marketing or some other force is going to push them into buying mode.

Now let me ask you a question…

Let’s say your car breaks down today. Who would you be more likely to choose to repair your car?

Would you choose:

a)     The dealer you bought your car from that you haven’t heard from?

b)     An auto-repair shop you’ve driven past a few times?

c)     The auto-repair shop that sent you a free report on how to keep your auto repair costs down  and has been sending you tips to keep your car running better for the past several months?

d)     The auto-repair shop that you found by doing a search on the Internet?

 

Chances are you would pick “c”, the repair shop sending you tips because you’ve started to get to know them. Maybe you even used a tip or two that helped you, which makes you trust them a bit more.

In other words, you are starting to build a relationship with them.

Understanding that buyers are continually in different places in the buying cycle will help you understand the importance of having a lead generation system in place.  And understanding that if they have a relationship with you, then they are more likely to do business with you when they are ready to buy will help you capture more leads, sell more product and keep you booked solid.

Here are five things we do at GKIC that you can do in your business to continually introduce people to our business, establish a relationship with them and be ready when they are ready to buy.

1)     Always have something to invite people to.  This can be a webinar, an open house, a tele-seminar, a live event…and so on. Pick a topic or idea that relates to your product or service and get started. This helps you connect with many potential clients all at one time.

 

2)     Build a community. Communities are powerful because they give people a sense of belonging to something and that they are not alone. From a business standpoint, communities build credibility by establishing that other people like you and trust you.  Holding an event , creating a forum or getting them to “like” your Facebook page allows people to connect and engage with you.

 

3)     Keep your name in front of your prospects by providing valuable content. Once a lead is in your system, your objective is to create content that will keep your products, services and brand in front of them.  The key here is to give away something that your prospects perceive as having value–something that will benefit them or solve their problems.

 

4)     Have multiple points of entry. Create multiple ways to introduce people to your products and services. One point of entry might be through your website.  You can also use free reports, books, events, referral strategies, speaking engagements, articles written for publications in your niche or industry as points of entry.

 

5)     Use a variety of media formats. Once you have figured out different points of entry, send content in a variety of formats so that you are sure to hit your customers’ communication preference.

Let me explain. When I’m communicating with different friends and business associates, some are more likely to pick up the phone when I call, while others prefer a text message. Dan Kennedy, he prefers something by fax. Others will be more likely to answer my email. And some respond best when I mail them a personal note.

Your customers are like that too. They will be more likely to respond to different types of media than others. For example, one customer might be more likely to download a free report from an email while another will be more likely to respond to the free report if the offer is sent through the mail. That said, this doesn’t mean you pick one media that you think they are most likely to respond to—otherwise you will miss a whole segment of your audience.

 

Remember to get more clients and make more sales, you need to have a lead generation system in place that will continually supply you with potential buyers in different stages of the buying process. Create a system that starts the conversation and makes a connection, and when it’s time for them to buy, you will be the only logical choice.

NOTE:  Did you get your FREE report from Dan Kennedy? It reveals a “Top Secret” Financial Formula and Money-Making Plan suitable for ANY business, and any TRUE Entrepreneur.

It’s not too late to opt in, get the report and watch Dan’s FREE videos on the critical component of any wealth-building enterprise—lead generation. You really can’t afford to miss your chance to get this EXTREMELY valuable information.

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The Biggest Mistake Business Owners Make

By: Darcy Juarez on: September 27th, 2012 2 Comments

The other day I was reading an article about weight loss.

The theme of the article was that most weight loss efforts fail because the person isn’t able to maintain their new routine.

Being a marketer, I immediately was struck by how this weight loss mistake is the same mistake some business owners make with their marketing.

Stay with me here…

Some of the reasons cited for not losing weight were that people:

  • Got bored with doing the same workout or with eating the same food.
  • Crave certain foods that they feel they can no longer have.
  • Only do aerobics without doing weight-training, believing aerobics is better for burning fat.

One article nailed the solution to successfully sticking with your new healthy routine.  It said that the key is…

Drum roll…

VARIETY!

Variety in your workout keeps you from getting bored. Also, because our bodies adapt to doing exercises the same way, repeating the same exact exercise over and over is less effective.

When it comes to food, well variety in your food can help you eat healthier by expanding your taste buds to new foods and allowing you to eat foods like desserts so you don’t end up with bigger cravings.

Variety is also the key to a successful marketing plan.

In Dan Kennedy’s book, No B.S. Success In The New Economy, he says, “One is a very bad number, anywhere you find it…If one media produces a disproportionate percentage of your customers, you are subject to being summarily put out of business.”

FREE video from Dan Kennedy

This is counter-intuitive to what a lot of people believe, because reason seems to say, if an advertising method is working for you, why would you change that?

The problem is like our bodies, over time, one media can become less effective. Or new regulations or rules could be imposed that affect your use of that media. New costs could be added. Or any number of problems.

Let’s look at some of these problems and how adding variety would keep you from failing:

Rules and Regulation Changes: If you recall, earlier this year in January, more than 75,000 websites like Wikipedia and Google staged a blackout in protest of the U.S. congress censorship legislation which would regulate what you could and couldn’t do with your website. Imagine if this passed and your only means of advertising was on your website. Overnight your source of leads could literally dry up.

In the spring, Google released 50 algorithm changes they made to their search engines. Small businesses found themselves scrambling to recover. Like, Andrew Strauss, owner of Oh My Dog Supplies LLC who received 70% of his customers through Google searches. After the changes, he lost 96% of his Google traffic and his sales plummeted from $68,000 a month to $25,000 a month.

Just this week U.S. Senator Charles Schumer unveiled new legislation that will dramatically raise fines and impose harsher punishments on telemarketers. This could especially affect marketers who use automated dialing machines.

Believing your business is exempt from being affected by rules and regulations is one flaw you don’t want to make. Because as you can see, rules and regulations can have dramatic and immediate impact on not only your marketing but your business’ bottom line. In fact, if you rely on one source for leads and it’s hit by a new rule or regulation, it could put you out of business.

Increase in Costs: Increases in printing, paper, cost per click and more can affect how much advertising makes sense in any one area.

For instance, newspaper advertising in recent years has seen the costs of ads continue to rise, while readership has dropped. Ad sales are down due to reader shifts.

It used to be that small businesses could sell to consumers even if they didn’t have a large ad budget simply because they would be grouped with the big box store ads.  For example, a theater district restaurant could fill its seats simply by running a small coupon ad in the entertainment section. Classified ads were a good way to bring attention to your small home improvement business.

In other words, it used to be a sure thing to advertise in the Sunday paper. But now, it’s not. Advertising in the paper can still generate business, but it requires shifting strategy to things like free and no up-front cost offers.  In this example, this means advertising in the newspaper which may have once been cost effective and a “sure thing” for you now depends on what you are selling and how you define your market.

So while an increase in cost doesn’t necessarily mean you should drop a particular marketing method, it can affect how you use it and how often or how much you use it.

Lead source dries up. A recent article in the Business Journal said Dallas- based CompuCom Systems, Inc. plans to cut 61 jobs at their Houston facility after losing a contract.  In big business, cutting jobs might be the way to deal with a lead source drying up, but in small business, it could be the death of your business.

Whether it’s contracting with another business to get business or using word of mouth referrals as a lead source, I’ve often heard small businesses make the dangerous statement of, “I don’t do any advertising, all my business comes from referrals or from contract XYZ.” The question you need to ask yourself is what happens if that referral moves, closes up shop, dies, or changes to another vendor?  Now your business is significantly impacted.

Now this isn’t to say you should stop advertising on your website, in the newspaper, or using telemarketing. Quite the contrary…

The solution is to not put all your eggs in one basket and instead spread your marketing dollars among a variety of sources.

Not only will this ensure you never have to worry about your only lead source disappearing, but similar to the effect of combining aerobic exercise with weight-lifting, combining media can produce superior more noticeable results.

In one of many examples, a study by the customer relationship marketing agency, Merkle, Inc., shows that integrating direct mail with email marketing generates more revenue by creating more effective, customer-centric programs, and reduces email attrition by eliminating unwanted contacts.

Be sure you aren’t setting up your business to fail by relying on only one source to generate leads for your business. Using a variety of methods to generate leads relieves the stress and anxiety that occurs when one source stops producing.  And it ensures you always have a steady stream of new revenue flowing into your business.

NOTE: Have you signed up to watch Dan Kennedy’s FREE new training videos yet? Dan is giving you tips on a variety of innovative, powerful and even secretive ways to generate more leads. Dan will tell you, not only how to generate more leads, but how to set up a system to generate more profitable ones.

It’s not often that we get Dan in front of a camera to produce a video, and even rarer to get him to give away valuable business secrets for free… so you definitely don’t want to miss this. Find out some ways to add variety and transform your business today

Click here for the FREE video.

The Truth About Converting Customers And Four Tips To Make It Easier

By: Dave Dee on: September 25th, 2012 2 Comments

Last week at the Fast Implementation Boot Camp, GKIC members left excited because of the proven “ready-to-go” marketing processes they now have for their businesses.

It’s one of my favorite events because the change we see in businesses after they attend is so dramatic…

Like Walter Bergeron, our 2012 co-Marketer of the Year winner, who attended the Fast Implementation Boot Camp one year ago in September of 2011.

Walter went home and mailed out a newsletter using some of the things he learned. As a result, just a few weeks later, he received his first order from the newsletter for $30,000 from a “lost customer.”

I love stories like this.

The thing is, this might sound like an overnight success story. But the truth is, it’s not.

You see, Walter was a member with GKIC for a year before he came to that boot camp. And even though he was a member for a year, he didn’t use GKIC strategies during that first year.

He says, “When I started as a GKIC member I agreed with everything Dan (Kennedy) and all the members and guest speakers taught. I found it all very fascinating and intriguing and I thought that maybe someday I could do some of those things. But there was always something preventing me from taking the next step.”

The continued messaging to Walter through direct mail, emails, newsletters, webinars and boot camp is what finally convinced Walter to do something and try GKIC strategies.

In reality, Walter’s path is similar to the majority of your customers. Because there really are no “ready-made” customers, no matter what your business is. In other words, there is a period of gestation between when your prospect finds out about you and when he or she buys.

In Marketing to the Affluent, Dan Kennedy talks about how a $14,000 exercise machine is sold. He says, “The guy on the other end of the phone who took the order only– says that it was pretty easy (to get the order.) The salesman asked three questions and closed the sale… he didn’t see all the other stuff that lead up to it, nor did he see what else those prospects may have done.”

Not only do we not know how long a customer has been considering their purchase, often times we don’t see the other products and services our customers consider or even buy before they buy our “thing.”

Realize that no matter what you sell… insurance, financial services, furniture, food at a restaurant, pet products… whatever… everything has an incubation period. That means in order to win the business and truly convert a prospect to a buyer and a buyer to a loyal fan, it’s your job to get in front of and stay in front of your prospect.

This also means that you can’t expect a prospect to immediately convert to a customer.

This is why you need to constantly generate leads and help lead them through the gestation period to bring them to a fully mature, raving fan.

Four tips to developing raving fans are:

1. Create systems. Putting systems in place ensures you are regularly attracting and leading prospects to your product or service and engaging with them to help guide them and sell to them during that gestation period.

2. Create systems for every stage your prospect, client, customer or patient will go through. For example, create a system to attract new clients, to follow-up on potential clients, to manage current clients, to educate prospects and clients and to help customers use your product or service. Without systems in place, prospects and customers, clients and patients will never find out about you or they will fall through the cracks causing lost revenue or worse.In No B.S. Business Success In The New Economy, Dan relays this story from Dr. Michael Roizen M.D. as seen on PBS and Oprah. Dr. Roizen says, “…Even if the pills are free, in the V.A., and patients who have hypertension and know that it is a serious disease, only one-third of those patients take the pills prescribed—and that’s when the pills are free! Only two-thirds even fill the prescription to start with.” Dr. Roizen goes on to say that the “failure in medicine is failing to understand that we have to sell health.” In another story in Marketing to the Affluent Dan talks about how he was personally ready to write a check to a guy for $77,000 for a service he needed. Dan says he had the money. It was easy to get the money. He needed the service. And he trusted the guy. But… there were three or four things that Dan had questions about that weren’t answered or followed up on. The result? No sale. Lost revenue of $77,000 and probably a whole lot more because now there are no referrals from Dan nor a new customer who would continue to buy. In your business, you need to continue to sell whatever message your prospect or customer needs to understand and respond to.

3. Having systems in place means you won’t have to chase after clients, customers or patients—nor are you losing sales because you didn’t have time or forgot to follow up with them. Don’t worry about having a perfect system. You don’t need the perfect system to get started. Put something in place, then tweak as you go. At GKIC, we are constantly tweaking existing systems to make them better and sometimes we put something up, knowing it could be better. Don’t let perfect get in the way of done—because even an imperfect system will capture and convert more sales than one that isn’t done in the first place.

4. Swipe & Deploy. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel. Use what is already in place and proven to work. (The key here is to use something you know is successful.) For example, grab ideas from your Million Dollar Swipe File in your No B.S. Marketing Newsletter or the three-step sequence in Magnetic Marketing.  Not only does this make it easier and faster, but because these are proven to work, you will be more successful and more profitable. Bookmark systems. When you come across a system you like, bookmark it so you can easily find it later when you are ready to use it. For example, our most incredible free gift offer sequence (located here ) is a great example that every business can use to attract new customers and boost sales. If you aren’t ready to set this up in your business, bookmark it in a “to-do” file online. You can also save direct mail sequences to see what other businesses are doing. If you are holding an event, look at what GKIC is doing and save all the pieces we mail. Look at what companies who send out catalogs do. Save mail from non-profit organizations (big non-profits like American Cancer Society, World Wildlife Fund, and other non-profits tend to have excellent examples.) Then when you are ready to create your system, you have a ready-to-go swipe source waiting for you.

Put systems in place and you will find a lot more of your “Walter Bergeron” customers. You’ll be more efficient, more productive, and convert more prospects to paying customers. Plus, by ensuring consistent contact with your prospects, customers, patients and clients, you’ll always have a steady flow of new business.

Three Tips On How To Prevent Your Prospect From “Walking Out” On Your Sales Offer…

By: Darcy Juarez on: September 20th, 2012 5 Comments

The end of the first teachers strike in 25 years in Chicago yesterday made me think about mistakes businesses make when doing lead generation promotions…

Similar to the Chicago strike where teachers felt their problems were not being solved by their current contract… prospects don’t respond to your lead generation letters when they feel you aren’t solving their problems or challenges.

Dan Kennedy just released his course Opportunity Concepts Marketing in which he reveals why most businesses are DEAD WRONG about what their prospects are really thinking…and how to close this Grand Canyon sized gap.

Here are a few simple remedies that Dan shares that can put an end to their feelings of rejection and garner you a much better response:

1) Remember, it’s not about you. Spend most of your time talking about what your prospect cares about.  When you create a sales letter to promote yourself, your product or your service, it’s important to remember that your prospect isn’t interested in you, your product or service. What they really want to know is what’s in it for them.

The rule of thumb is to spend a very small amount of time (only about 10% of your sales piece) talking about yourself.  You do this to establish your credibility and trustworthiness. Spend the rest of the time talking about what your prospects care about—which is their problems and challenges. Once you’ve discussed these, tell them how your product or service is the solution they are looking for.

2) Make a valuable offer. Lead generation is an important component to growing your business. In these pieces it’s common for these types of promotions to say something like, “For a free information package” or “for more information.”

However, using the words “more information” tends to be a tip off and can come across as  being about what you are concerned about—making the sale—instead of what your prospect cares about.

Instead try offering a free report, free e-book or complimentary introductory kit.  This will still contain many of the same items as your “more information” would such as samples and information about your product, but is more appealing for a prospect to respond to.

Tip: To discover what to put into your introductory kit or report, try getting on forums, social media sites and other places where you can survey people about what questions they want answered.

3) Use a headline, not your logo, at the top of the page.  A common mistake is to put your logo and branding at the top of a sales letter or to use letterhead when contacting prospects. Again, this says the focus is on you instead of on your prospect.

The most valuable real estate is at the top of your letter. Use it to put a headline that will have a powerful impact and dictate whether or not your prospect continues reading.

Here’s something else – and it’s extremely important. Don’t use “wish washy language” at the end of your letter.  Don’s say things like, “If you are interested in finding out about ten ways you can ensure you will be prepared for retirement, call us at 1-800-234-5678.

Instead, use authoritative language when it’s time to make your call to action. Tell your reader what to do.  For example, say, “Complete the enclosed reply card and mail it today to receive your free report on The Financial Planner’s Ten Secrets to Retiring Early.”

Follow these three tips in your lead generation promotions and more people will take you up on your offer the first time.

Not only that, but you’ll find subsequent offers will be more successful because they’ll look upon you as someone concerned about their problems and challenges and not just another marketer trying to sell something.

NOTE: Interested in even more tips for bigger profits from your lead generation sales letters?

Find out the BIG obstacles most marketers don’t know exist and how to overcome them with Dan Kennedy’s newly released Opportunity Concepts Marketing.

I Want To Find Out Why Most Businesses Are Dead Wrong About What Their Customers Are Thinking...click here.

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