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!

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?

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.

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?

One of the most powerful offers you can use in your advertising is the word Free.

But, you may well ask… how can I make a profit giving my products and services away without charging for them?

Which is the exact reason why you need to understand the ‘LVC Formula’ which stands for the Lifetime Value of a Client!

Here’s how it works. Let’s imagine for a moment you own a beauty salon. Now if you get a new customer, they may pay you $80 for their first treatment.

But how much is this $80 client really worth?

After all, most clients will continue to buy off you for many years to come.

For instance, let’s imagine your average client returns for a beauty treatment 8 times a year… and remains a client for 2 years.

$80 (price of consultation) x 8 (purchases a year) x 2 (number of years)

Now if you have a calculator handy, you’ll work out the value of this client as $1280.00.

And if your profit margin is 40% this calculates to a $512 profit per client.

Now, let’s imagine we sent a letter to all the nearby businesses offering women a free manicure valued at $30.00 (I’m not a beauty therapist, so please forgive me if all these figures are way out).

And imagine the manicure costs you $7 in products and 30 minutes of your time (which if you’re not busy… you’d just be sitting on your butt anyway!)

So effectively the $7 investment could have just made you $512 in profit.

And how easy is it to give away a free manicure?

Or for other industries…

• A free car service
• A free dancing lesson
• A free consultation
• A free ice cream
• A free report of some sort

The secret lies in giving away something which has a high perceived value, but actually costs you very little to produce.

Why does it work so well?

Using the word Free in your advertising STOPS inertia. You see, people are happy with their current hairdresser… or their mechanic.

But when they get an opportunity to trial a product or service for FREE – there’s something irresistible and risk free about it, isn’t there?

A word of warning though. Make sure you offer the best possible service… otherwise people will not come back, and you’ll get a bad name very quickly.

And of course, where possible, make sure you collect a database… and measure your results.

What could you offer for FREE? Write down a few ideas now… and start implementing this stuff.