Copy Writing Hints

About a decade ago, I took on the role of telemarketing manager for a large roofing manufacturer. Before starting the job, I worked as a telemarketer for a short time.

What I discovered was truly shocking.

I could make about 20 calls an hour.

The market was so specific (they had to have a particular type of roof) that on average I got to speak with somebody every 1-1 ½ hours.

And even worse, they had 20 other telemarketers trying to do the same thing.

Crazy stuff!

And that brings me to the purpose of this post: how to replace prospecting.

The bottom line is nobody enjoys cold calling.

The second bottom line is nobody enjoys receiving a cold call.

Don’t get me wrong – cold calling works and if you’re just getting started and have no other tools at your disposal, keep pounding the phone.

BUT do so with the awareness that you’re working at just a smidgeon of your true profit potential.

Let me explain what I mean by referencing the example above. Let’s call the example above the OLD SCHOOL and the alternative direct marketing example the NEW SCHOOL.

In the OLD SCHOOL a salesperson makes one contact per hour.

In the OLD SCHOOL the contact the person makes doesn’t really want to speak with him / her.

In the OLD SCHOOL the conversion is lower even once you have locked in an appointment.

Let’s compare this to the new school.

In the NEW SCHOOL a salesperson can make 5 times as many contacts per hour because their client does not screen their calls and actually wants to speak to them.

In the NEW SCHOOL the conversion is higher once you have locked in an appointment.

Therefore in the NEW SCHOOL one person can do the job of five people and get better results.

Truth is, cold calling is essentially archaic.
Your prospects don’t like it. You don’t like it.
Nobody really likes it. Sure… it gets you sales eventually, but a horse and cart will get you from Sydney to Darwin in several months as well.
An aeroplane will get you there in an afternoon.

So how do you set up your prospecting in the NEW SCHOOL?

Step #1: You need an ad or sales letter to generate a lead for free information or an offer of some kind.

Step #2: You need to deliver on your offer

Step #3: Follow up. Follow up. Follow up. Once you generate the lead, you need to set up automatic follow up systems to those who have put their hand up as being interested in your offer.

Think about it. With this system in place, I could have decreased the size of their call centre from 20 people to 4 people… invested the remainder of the money in advertising and marketing: and improved their results while slashing their costs.

Food for thought!

Imagine the life of a hunter…

You wake up in the morning, gather your weapons and head out to combat. Some days you come back with a boar, other days your family goes hungry.  The pressure is on you every single day to make the ‘catch’. It’s a battle.

Now imagine yourself as a farmer…

You plant your seeds and wait for them to harvest. In the meantime, you nurture them and treat them like your baby.

When they’re ready you simply start harvesting your crop.

In my experience, most businesses are hunters not farmers:

• they cold call to generate new customers
• they spend forever getting a new customer and then forget about  them
• they chase after the quick fix
• they advertise for the direct sale rather than the ’shy yes’ which will germinate in the future

This became blindingly obvious to me when I created some copy for real estate agents a few years ago.

- I would write an ad offering a free report.
- Without fail, they would receive calls from those ads.

However if the sale didn’t come off right away… they would

NOT put them on a database
NOT follow them up
NOT nurture them

… even though they had responded to an ad which identified them as their specific target market.

… even though each sale was worth several thousand dollars

… even though it would cost less than $12 a year to keep in touch with them

Why not? Well, I believe it’s because we live in a world of instant gratification. I remember reading a book, a long time ago now, by M.Scott Peck which said one of the keys to happiness was to be able to delay your gratification. In a marketing sense, that means…

Accept the fact people may not buy right away

Put them on a database

Mail them something every month to stay in touch and position yourself as an expert

And like a farmer, wait for that customer to harvest. (of course you can touch base with them by phone in the meantime and nurture the relationship personally)

Most people won’t do it. It’s too much work. Writing letters & keeping in touch. They would prefer to knock their head against a brick wall cold calling and doing things the hard way because at least they feel like they’re keeping busy.

But by doing this… you’re being ineffective. I know because that’s how I used to operate. Heck, two of my first jobs were as a door to door salesperson (selling cleaning chemicals to
businesses) and a telemarketer (selling hotel cards) and I can tell you that business gets a lot more enjoyable when you are…

- an invited guest (when others call you because you have educated them of the benefits of your services)

instead of…

- an uninvited pest (where you cold call and use other archaic marketing methods)

The most important thing you can take away from this message is to become a farmer. How do you do this? Simple:

1. Build a database
2. Nurture your database

… and prepare yourself for a rich harvest in the near future.

I’m glad you’re reading this because you’re about to learn one of the fastest way to build rapport with your prospective customer.

And it’s…

NOT finding a common interest

NOT talking in their unique language (i.e. talking differently to accountants than you would to hairdressers)

NOT making them feel special

NOT telling them how wonderful they are

Have you ever noticed how quickly people develop rapport when they are talking about someone they despise?

For instance…

- Members of a family being angry with another member of the family
- Environmentalists who hate industrialists
- Keen political followers hate the opposite side
- Two countries having a war (one country hates the other side)
- Business Owners hate the tax man
- And just about everybody seems to hate lawyers

You get the picture! The reality is that often the best way of creating rapport with your reader is to define a common enemy.

Here’s a simple paragraph so you can see how you can use this strategy in your ads and sales letters…

Think the tax man is operating in your best interest? Well, here are just a handful of examples of the ways
our government has found to spend the hard earned money you pay them for taxes:

(give examples of how much they spend on election advertising, silly research, etc)

Then follow this up with a sub-headline like…

You can (and should) stop supporting this ridiculous waste of money

Before you finish reading this copywriting secret, you might want to grab a pen and paper and answer
this question:

Who is your prospective customers enemy?

Have you ever been told you should work on your weaknesses because you already know your strengths? Well, today I’m going to offer you some contradictory advice.

I’m going to tell you to work on your weaknesses within your strengths.

What?

‘What’ is right.

Let me explain: A friend of mine markets his business using a number of different mediums…

Fax
Internet
Classified Ads
Direct Mail Postcards
And a handful of others

Now, recently he measured where his sales were coming from. And the majority were being generated online from the internet. His quarterly statistics looked something like this:

Internet Income: $31,000
Classified Ad Income: $0
Fax Income: $5,000

What do you think he should do? Well, let’s take a look at the additional income he could generate if he could improve any one of these areas by 20%:

Internet: $6,200
Classified Ads: $0
Fax: $1,000

Makes sense doesn’t it? Sure. The internet already generates strong results for my friend. But there are certainly areas for improvement.

Let’s break take a look at what would happen if he lifted his results in a few different areas:

1. Subscription / Squeeze Page: 20% lift
2. Sales Copy To Quote: 20% lift
3. Increase Visitors: 20% lift

For the sake of simplification (and to protect my friend’s figures) let’s make up a few numbers:

Current Visitors: 700
Current Conversion On Squeeze Page: 10%
Current Conversion To Quote: 10%

As a result of this, he’d be generating 70 subscribers a week and converting 7 of these subscribers into clients.

Let’s take a look at what would happen if he could generate a 20% lift in each of these areas:

Current Visitors: 840
Current Conversion On Squeeze Page: 12%
Current Conversion To Quote: 12%

Now he’d be generating 100 visitors per week (an increase of 30 visitors per week) and 12 quotes per week. He has increased the number of quotes he’s generating by 71% (and consequently his turnover) as a result of a 20% shift in each of these three areas.

Based on this, his quarterly turnover from the internet would jump from $31,000 to $52,700. A $21,700 increase which is four times the amount he was making as a result of his fax streams – simply from increasing the weaknesses in his strength by a mere 20%.

Your priority for this week should be to analyse where the majority of your business is coming from:

If it’s from the Yellow Pages – how can you increase the results of your yellow pages ad?

If it’s from walk by traffic – how can you increase the amount of walk by traffic you generate?

If it’s from word of mouth – how can you increase the number of referrals you generate?

Several years ago, just after I met my wife, she invited me to her boss’s holiday home in Kangaroo Valley. Kangaroo Valley, for those of you who haven’t heard of it, is a beautiful little town about 2 hours from Sydney.

And it gets a little cool around there. So we had the fire going all weekend.

And as I sat looking at the fire I got inspired by the lessons nature had to teach me that weekend.

You see, I was broke at the time. Every week was a struggle just to get by. Always worrying where the next sale was going to come from. How to pay the rent. Those are days I was happy to leave behind.

But I noticed a few things about the fire…

1. It starts very slowly. And it takes effort to get started. You have to chop the wood into little pieces… lay the paper down… and gently position everything so it will catch alight. And then, you have to blow on it again and again to get it fired up.

Even then, unless you are an accomplished master… you can get it wrong. And then end up having to start all over again.

2. But once it gets started, something quite amazing happens - It’s impossible to stop. In fact, as we see from the many bushfires in Australia every year, it can take over the whole countryside if left unchecked. And it takes absolutely no effort to keep going. In fact, it can take many hundreds of men to stop.

So what’s all this got to do with advertising, marketing and running a business?

Everything!

Think about it. When you first place an ad, you have no idea whether it’s going to work or not. You may, in fact, lose money, and decide to give up after your first effort. Or you may have to try 3… 6… even a dozen times in order to hit a winner.

And your returns are slow. Perhaps you’re starting and nobody has heard of you.

But once you get a successful ad or sales letter… one that makes you money every single time you run it… what effort is required then? Other than using this ad or sales letter (or google adwords campaign, or flyer, etc) over and over and over again.

Everything goes on autopilot, doesn’t it?

And you can keep reinvesting your profits over and over again.

That’s how to turn a small business into a big business… the safe way.

Yet, most people don’t even get the fire started. They give up before it starts burning - their first ad or two doesn’t work, and they throw in the towel saying ‘advertising doesn’t work’.

Or they don’t know what’s working… and then pull ads which are making them a fortune. Or find a winner… and then don’t continue to reinvest in that campaign.

Crazy, isn’t it? Just like with starting a fire, if you persist… it becomes so much easier… almost automatic… and requires much less effort to maintain.

I remember reading a quote from Anthony Robbins about 10 years ago, which has stayed with me. He said something like “When you begin a business, you need to put 10 ounces of effort in to get one ounce of profit back. But once the business is rolling, the tables turn and you only require one ounce of effort in order to get 10 ounces of effort back.

Food for thought, isn’t it?

Gary Halbert, one of the copywriting greats… was famous for saying…

I cannot think of a single problem a good sales letter cannot overcome

And I’m telling you that you are only one ad, sales letter or promotion away from starting your fire… and changing the way your business operates forever.

But how many people will persist to get their business fire burning? How many people will then reinvest by adding additional wood to their fire so it keeps burning and automatically grows bigger?

In my experience, most give up early. So the secret to successfully marketing your business… above any idea, tip or strategy is best summed up by Winston Churchill…

Never Give Up…
Never Give Up…
Never Give Up…

Over the last few weeks, every morning from 6am -7am, I’ve been rewriting some of the world’s best letters, in my own handwriting. Now, that’s nothing new. It’s a system I’ve been practicing for some time to ‘sharpen my saw’ as a professional copywriter.

What is new, however, is I have been focusing on the ‘closing’ aspect of the ads and sales letters.

Why have I done this? Because if you ask any face-to-face salesperson what the toughest part of the sale is, most of them will say they have trouble closing.

After all, you can do everything else right. But if you mess up this part, all your hard work gets undone.

That’s why I’ve written dozens of closes, trying to find the common bond between each of them.

It’s been an insightful exercise. And now you can use all the hours of my hard work to construct your own.

Here are the 10 ‘closing steps’ you should consider factoring into any sales letter or advertisement:

1. Reinforce the fact the customer is special. And this is a special offer especially for them.

2. Advise your prospect what they have to do: call and give you their credit cards, post a cheque, etc.

3. An apples to oranges comparison (this involves comparing your service to something different in order to reinforce what a great deal it is. For example, if you’re selling an ebook on fitness for $37, don’t compare it to other ebooks on the market. Compare the price to a personal trainer who charges $50 an hour (or $1000 a year). That makes the ebook sound like one heck of a deal.

4. Tell your prospect they are getting a bargain.

5. Guarantee your offer.

6. Explain why you are giving your prospect such a great deal (people are skeptical if it sounds too good to be true, so make sure you explain why!).

7. Allow the customer to picture themselves enjoying the benefits.

8. Reinforce the urgency: most people will put off making a decision if they can. So make sure you reinforce the offer is available for a limited time. And tell people exactly why it’s limited.

9. Social Proof: Show how other people are enjoying the benefits / respect what your product has to offer.

10. Take Away: Mention who the offer is not for (usually disqualifying the people who the offer is not for) Why do we do this? Quite simply, because nobody wants to do business with someone who is desperate, therefore disqualifying who the offer is not for is a powerful process.

Is that a powerful little closing system or what? I have never seen anyone else break it down quite like this, so what you’ve just read is information you’re not going to find anywhere else.

So print it out. Put it in your copywriting file under closing.
And the next time you need to ‘close a sale’ in print… use this as your secret weapon.

I received a question from one of my subscribers the other week who asked:

Do I keep advertising even when I am flat out and already have too much work on? I am a painter.

My answer: Absolutely.

Listen, in business you need to be on top of your game. And at the times when you’re coasting downhill, everything is going like oh-so-well… and you could never imagine a dry spot on the terrain…

Is when you should be filling your well.

That’s right – when it’s not empty.

After all, there’s worse problems to have than too much work, isn’t there?

Or too many people in your department store.
Or too many clients if you’re an accountant.
Or too many people buying your products if you’re a distributor.

You see, the problem with most businesses is they do this:

I received a call from a guy in the United States several months ago, and he was desperate for me to work with him because business was slow.

2 days later, all of a sudden, he got a new job. And decided he didn’t need to work on his marketing anymore.

I can tell you right now that this guy is in for one heck of a rollercoaster ride. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down… like a yo-yo.

The key to a stable business is to Always be marketing. Always be promoting your business. And being consistent about it.

There’s another reason for this as well.

If you’ve got too much work on, you can afford to lift your prices because it doesn’t matter if you get the job. (and you’ll probably find your relaxed attitude increases your conversion rate too) You can push yourself to manage the additional work through setting up additional systems in order to generate leads. And take your business to the next level.

So how do you do this?

Simple. If you’ve got an advertisement (or a sales letter, flyer or any other kind of promotion) which works for you, then keep running it week in and week out.

If you’re super busy, always remember that when the job finishes, you won’t be doing anything if you don’t have something else lined up.

And make sure you put aside some time everyday to promote your business. That’s the key to your longevity and success.

In Anthony Robbins program called the ‘Rapid Planning Method’ he talks about a space called ‘the zone.’

Basically, when you’re in the zone you are focusing on the things which are not urgent but important.

Most of us spend our time in the urgent and important. Or the not urgent, not important. Or the urgent and important.

However the key to business growth and stability is to spend a little time each day on the not urgent… but important activities.

And nothing falls into this category more so than marketing.

Last Sunday I was with my wife and her family at a café on North beach in Wollongong (where I now live, south of Sydney). And while we were sitting there, I noticed a sign which said:

“Uni Exams Are Over. Hooray!”

Now what does that sign actually achieve? Well, obviously it resonates with the target market in the area - many of whom are uni students.

It also talks in their language, and makes an attempt to actually understand them.

As I first read in the book “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, one of the keys to making friends is to really listen to others. To understand them. And to put yourself in their shoes.

So if you’re selling to someone with the printed word, do you think you’ll have more chance of making the sale if you became their friend?

Of course you would.

And yet, the magic question is: How do you do it?

Let’s run through a few scenarios.

1. Let’s say you’re writing about something your prospective client may be frustrated with. For example, a sales letter for somebody with back pain.

Start out with:

Are you frustrated by (problem)?

Then aggravate the problem, and ensure the reader becomes aware of the pain and frustration the problem causes them.

Follow this up with 5 magic words:

“I Understand How You Feel”

Think about it. If you tell somebody your problem, wouldn’t you appreciate it if they empathized with you?

Ok, onto the next method of making your prospective customer your friend…

2. How’s this for an opening? It’s from a ‘control’ (otherwise known as a best selling sales letter) from the Conde Nest Traveler Magazine:

We know you…

… You find a few extra dollars in your pocket – a crack in your impossibly busy schedule – and what do you do?

Take off, that’s what! For a Greek Island, a Carribbean beach, a Colorado Ski Slope… (and it goes onto list all of the other places)

The letter follows up with…

In many ways we are you…

Not satisfied only with (a list of things)

Endlessly curious about (a list of things)

Wanting to know (a list of things)

The reason I haven’t listed everything in the list is because I want you to understand the psychology. It starts with ‘We know you’. And then follows up with ‘In many ways, we are you.’

What’s more, it makes an effort to show the reader what they both have in common.

Talk to anybody who’s ever done a good sales course and ask them what one of the best things is to do in order to build rapport?

And sooner or later, they’ll mention you need to find a common ground.

Now doesn’t the letter above do this perfectly? It basically says, ‘heck, I am just like you.’

So think about how you can go about winning friends within your sales letter. Because, one of the things I
learnt from the legendary sales trainer, Brian Tracy, when I was selling seminars many years ago, is that trust (not closing) is the number one most important aspect of making a sale.

Did you know the first coffee break on the moon, occurred at 7:27pm, July 20, 1969?

I know this because I am inside a Gloria Jeans Coffee Shop right now and read it on the back of their loyalty card.

Here’s how the offer works:

Buy and 10 drinks and receive a free regular size drink.
Now I got a large cappuccino which cost $3.80. For me to get a free drink, I would need to spend around $38.00.

The free coffee I would receive would be valued at $3.80, but the reality is the hard costs would only be about 50c.

That’s about a 76 times return on investment.

Is it a good strategy?

Qantas seems to think so.

Woolworths seems to think so.

So does Dymocks and Coles Myer.

So loyalty programs must work, right?

Okay, let’s take a look at how we could apply a loyalty program to a few different industries:

- A chiropractor could offer every 11th visit for free

- A printer could offer a couple of movie tickets  after someone spent $1000 with them. A dinner for two after they spent $5,000 with them. And a weekend away for two after they spent $12,000 with them.

- A toy wholesaler could design a points system offering one point for every $10 spent and have a range of different gifts they enjoy as they get more points.

Most businesses become obsessed with generating new customers. However the reality is it’s about five times easier to get an existing customer to come back than it is to attract a new client because you already have an established relationship and a certain element of trust.

There are sophisticated computer systems you can get to manage a program like this. Or you can simply get started right away by:

- Getting a simple card like “buy 10 coffees, get one free”

- Asking customers to keep their dockets and then rewarding them with a gift voucher when they have a certain amount of points (you could print this out on a simple A4 brochure with some photos of what they get based on your points system and how the program works).

- Or if you have a small number of large clients, you could have someone in your office keep an eye on it. And send a note with each invoice saying something along the lines of “You now have 75 points. You require only another  25 points to receive our free gift of a dinner for two at the Palazzo French Restaurant.

Crunch the numbers and work out what’s profitable for you.

The big companies do this because it works. Will you follow in their footsteps?

Earlier this week, I had a consultation with a guy who was quite successful in generating leads, but had a hard time converting them into sales.

What was his problem?

It’s really very simple. He’d take the initial inquiry and then send them a brochure. And perhaps follow up with a telephone call if he could get through to them.

Ok, I can hear you saying “Well isn’t that what most people do? What’s wrong with that?”

Well, there’s actually a lot wrong with that.

Think about this for a moment: He was spending on average, around $50 to generate a single lead. But then, once he’d generated the lead, he was spending a couple of bucks to send out a brochure and a bit of information.

Isn’t that one heck of a waste?

Here’s what I’d suggest anyone in this situation does:

Set up a (minimum) 3-step series of sales letters where you send one letter today, another letter in 10 days, and the final letter 10 days later.

What have you achieved by doing this?

Firstly, by investing an extra $4 per customer on average (2 additional mailings) you’ve managed to put your sales message across to your potential customer three times instead of 1.

So in this scenario…

1 contact costs you $52.
3 contacts costs you $56.

So by spending an additional 7% in each client, you have communicated with him 300% more times.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Sure, writing a 3-step sequence of sales letters costs you time and money. And obviously you need to get organised, and cannot be ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ – but if you can
contact someone 300% more times for 7% in additional costs, it’s worth the effort, isn’t it?

After all, your client may be contacting a number of your competitors… trying to decide whether to go with you or someone else. Or may just be busy, have seen your ad, received your first letter… filed it away… and then forgotten about it.

Have you ever done this yourself? Of course you have. Haven’t we all?

The key to success in any endeavour is:

“Persistence”

As Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

And marketing is no different. Providing you’re attracting the right type of clientele (who are part of your target market) you should persist in making multiple contacts with your potential clients.

Few people will do it, so when you do you’ll stand heads and shoulders above your competition. And more importantly, you’ll make a Lot more money.