Marketing- How To Transform Your Words Into Money-Magnets That Pull In Customers and Attract Cash To You On Demand
I have received several requests for help with marketing & sales. So I thought I would start by sharing some killer copywriting advice. What’s copy? It’s simply the text you see in advertisements, sales letters, promotional pieces and so on.
Being able to write good copy is one of the most profitable skills you can have. It literally allows you to transform your words into money-magnets that go out and attract cash to you on demand–a process you can repeat as many times as you want, with as many products as you want, in as many markets as you want.
But the world of copy writing is vast and can seem very intimidating at first. I want to share with you some classic, tried-and-true basics that you can immediately apply to your marketing to get more leads and more
sales out of the effort and money you’re already putting into it.
If your phone isn’t ringing off the hook with your current marketing pieces or if you don’t know where to start, this will get you started on the right track. So let’s get started.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE IN MARKETING
You might not want to hear this, but I have to be honest with you. Your prospects don’t care about you.
They don’t care about your business. They don’t care about your product.
Yes, it may sound harsh, but it’s true. What do they care about?They care about…Themselves, their problems and their desires. That’s it. The only value you have in their eyes is how you can relate to them avoiding their frustrations and reaching their goals. All your customers listen to the same radio station WIFM = What’s in it for me?
This simple truth of writing your ad copy based on their problems/desires/them is NOT DONE so much in marketing it would make your head spin. See, you can put one of three things in the spotlight when you market: you, your product or your prospect. Most companies put themselves and their products in the spotlight and talk about how great they are, how great their product is, how everyone loves them and so on, and they wonder why their marketing pulls like a malnourished donkey with arthritis.
It’s because NOBODY CARES! People don’t care until you solidly plant THEM in the spotlight and speak to THEIR issues, THEIR dreams, THEIR frustrations. Only THEN will they listen to anything about you or your product, and even then they’ll only hear of it if it’s clear why it relates back to THEM.
So, I want you to do a little exercise right now.
1. Write down your prospect’s top frustrations. What irks him the
most? What keeps him up at night?
2. Write down your prospect’s top irrational fears. What is he
secretly afraid of that either doesn’t quite make sense or is very
unlikely, yet he is still emotionally afraid?
3. Write down your prospect’s top mental fantasies. How does he
dream things would be? This too is usually unrealistic, but what
are the absolute ideal set of circumstances that just make him
drool?
Good, now we have somewhere to begin.
HEADLINE
The headline is the opening paragraph of your ad or sales letter.
(By the way, if you don’t know what a sales letter is, it’s simply
a letter to a prospect that is intended to sell something, and it
usually looks an sounds a certain way.)
Dan Kennedy, probably the most well-known and respected copywriter
alive today, says that he spends as much as 50% of his time
crafting good headlines.
Why? Because you have a few seconds to GRAB your prospect by the
eyeballs and RIVET him to the page. People sort their mail over the
trash and email with the delete button, so if you don’t catch their
attention right away, you get canned.
So, how do you write a great headline? Here are some great tips:
1. Speak DIRECTLY to your prospect’s frustrations, fears and
fantasies. The headline should ALWAYS put your prospect in the
spotlight and should hit him right where he currently is in terms
of his problems and desires.
2. Use ready-made “fill in the blank” headlines that have been
pulled from some of the best sales letters ever written. Why
reinvent the wheel? Simply plug your information into any of the
following headlines (and feel free to get a little creative), and
you’ll be off to a good start.
THEY DIDN’T THINK I COULD _______, BUT I DID.
Examples:
They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano–But Not When I Started
to Play!
They Grinned When the Waiter Spoke to Me in French–But Their
Laughter Changed to Amazement at My Reply!
WHO ELSE WANTS ________?
Examples:
Who Else Wants an A-List Hollywood Body?
Who Else Needs an Extra Hour Every Day?
HOW ______ MADE ME ________.
Examples:
How a “Fool Stunt” Made Me a Star Salesman.
How a Simple Idea Made Me “Plant Manager of the Year.”
How Relocating to Tennessee Saved Our Company One Million Dollars
Last Year.
ARE YOU ________?
Examples:
Are You Ashamed of the Smells in Your House?
Are You Prepared For the Japanese Invasion of Your Industry?
HOW I ________.
Examples:
How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling.
How I retired at Age 40–With a Guaranteed Income For Life.
How I Turned a Troubled Company Into a Personal Fortune.
HOW TO ________.
Examples:
How to Collect From Social Security at Any Age.
How to Win Friends and Influence People.
How to Improve Telemarketers’ Productivity–For Just $19.95.
IF YOU ARE ________, YOU CAN _________.
Examples:
If You Are a Nondrinker, You Can Save 20% on Life Insurance.
If You Are a Football Expert, You Could Win $50,000.00 Next Weekend.
If Your Firm Uses “Temporaries,” You Might Qualify For $1,000.00 in
Free Services.
SECRETS OF ________.
Examples:
Secrets of a Madison Ave. Maverick–“Contrarian Advertising.”
Secrets of Four Champion Golfers.
GIVE ME _______ AND I’LL __________.
Examples:
Give Me 5 Days and I’ll Give You a Magnetic Personality.
Give Me Just 1 Hour a Day and I’ll Have You Speaking French Like
“Pierre” in One Month.
Give me a Chance to Ask Seven Questions and I’ll Prove You Are
Wasting a Small Fortune on Your Advertising.
________ WAYS TO ___________.
Examples:
101 Ways to Increase New Patient Flow.
17 Ways to Slash Your Equipment Maintenance Costs.
THE KENNEDY HEADLINE TEST
The great Dan Kennedy has a simple test for a headline’s quality.
It has two criteria:
1. If you were to place the headline in the paper as an ad with a
phone number under it, and nothing else, would people call?
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
Okay, that concludes part 1 of copywriting tips. Before we go any further, I want you to sit down and write NO LESS THAN 10 headlines for selling your product or service.
Really put thought into it and play around with the sample headlines above. This applies to any promotion you are currently doing. Whether it be newspaper ads, flyers, brochures, car door magnets, business cards, ANYTHING the communicates to your customers about you.
In the next email we’re going to move into probably the most powerful and persuasive sales and marketing tool around, and how to use it to melt your prospects’ resistance and turn those prospects into plentiful buyers.
Thanks for reading.
To Your Success,
Glenn Hough
Electric Saver 1200