All Posts Tagged With: "sales"

(First in a series)

Imagine the power of the written word. Simply be arranging nouns and verbs, with a few adjectives and adverbs judiciously sprinkled in, you can get people you’ve never met to do things you want them to do.

Pretty awesome tool, huh?

The problem is that most people don’t – or don’t know how to — make full use of this amazing power. Their marketing communications are a mish-mash of convoluted ideas, poorly constructed sentences, vague promises, and ill-conceived offers thrown together in a sales letter, web page or email. The unfortunate result is an well-intentioned campaign that falls flat.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll examine some of the key concepts that can quickly and easily turn your boring, ineffective copy into a money-making machine.

Step 1: Gain Attention

If you can’t gain attention in your marketing communications, the battle is lost before it even starts. With so many forms of media competing for your prospects’ attention, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. If people don’t notice you, they won’t ready your copy. If they don’t ready your copy, you don’t get a chance to mold their perceptions. If you don’t get a chance to mold their perceptions, you’ll never make the sale.

Being as specific as possible is a great place to start. Copywriter extraordinare Bob Bly uses a sales pitch promoting collection services to dental practices as a example of how being specific can help:

How we collected over $20 million in unpaid bills over the past two years for thousands of dentists nationwide

Note the specific items: $20, two years, dentists. They help create a credible, memorable message.

Ypu can also gain attention by making an offer that is free, low in price or unusually attractive. I’m sure you’ve noticed how some life insurance companies frame their offer: “Now…$1 week buys Guaranteed Term Life Insurance for Pennsylvanians 50 and older.” The $1 a week offer seems reasonable and the rest of the pitch is specific (Pennsylvanians over age 50).

Asking a provocative question is another effective way of gaining attention. “Do you want to lose 20 pounds WITHOUT going on a diet?” is sure to grab someone’s attention, in part because it seems so outlandish.

Creating a sense of urgency and exclusivity works, too. Giving your offer a defined time period and limited availability can make people take notice. “This offer expires in 10 days. Act Now!” or “This offer is limited to the first 10 people who call.”

Be careful about trying to be funny or topical. People may not get the pun or the cultural reference may be quickly outdated.

Next: Make sure your copy focuses on the customer

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In his book “The Contrarian Effect: Why It Pays (Big) to Take Typical Sales Advice and Do the Opposite” author Michael Port provides some tips on how to boost your sales even in the worst economic periods.

“It’s the perfect time for contrarian tactics because everyone is so ramped up trying to do so much,” says Port, a marketing guru and founder of “Book Yourself Solid,” a consulting firm that provides tools for attracting and retaining customers for life.

Port offers four scenarios where taking a contrarian approach can be more advantageous than the safe, traditional approach:

Typical: Close Early and Close Often.
Contrarian: Always Be Opening. Port says it’s about always having something to invite people to. Apple welcomes customers to play with their computers. Home Depot offers demonstrations about how to take care of a house. Softracks, a software company, used to do cold calls; now they offer free webinars and bring in experts to provide information to their customers. “Instead of selling all the time, invite them to things that will be valuable and relevant,” Port says.

Typical: Play the numbers game. Sell to everyone who has a checkbook and heartbeat.
Contrarian: Red Velvet Rope Policy. Focus exclusively on customers who are most ideal for your business. Really target your efforts, not just from a circumstantial perspective but from a personal perspective — the people you sell best to. “We are all different and we connect more with some people than with others,” says Port. “If we get good at understanding what this filter is, what this red velvet rope is, we will get better at identifying who we sell best to.”

Port says this philosophy may be more important in tough economic times as your customers begin to pull back. If you keep pushing more in a kind of shotgun approach you seem more irrelevant to them; sales and marketing are all about relevancy, he says.

Typical: Speed Sell. Move as much inventory as you can as fast as you can.
Contrarian: Slow down the sales cycle to build trust over time. If you want to seem remarkable or special or stand out from the crowd, Port says, you need to create these experiences, these no-barriers for entry opportunities and then, over time, build into the higher relationships. “If you can weather this storm, you will build much stronger relationships so that as people become freer with their money you’ll have loyalty.”

Typical: Never tell the price before the features and benefits have been really demonstrated.
Contrarian: Be Radically Transparent. Be upfront about everything your product does well and doesn’t do well. ‘The more open you are about who you are and who you serve, what’s wrong and what’s right, the more people will begin to give you the opportunity,” says Port. “Tell the truth, not in a manipulative way but in a honest, straightforward manner.”

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When the going gets tough, the reaction of many small business owners is to pull back on their marketing and public relations efforts. It’s a quick, easy way to save money.

It can also be a deadly decision. What happens when the economy picks up and customers start spending money again? Will your business even be on their radar screens?

Rather than pulling back, small businesses should pick up their marketing pace when things are slow. But instead of spending gobs of money trying to court news customers, why not concentrate on the one’s you already have?

Aftrer all, you’ve probably already spent considerably time and money wooing them in the first place. You’ve already overcome the toughest hurdle: you’ve gotten them to give you a try. They’ve liked what they saw and they bought.

Now, you want to keep them coming back. Again and again and again.

How do you do it? The easiest way is with great customer service. Anticipate their needs. Solve their problems. Smile a lot and tell them how much your appreciate their business.

Try a customer rewards program. Send your loyal customers a special offer, a discount, a two-for-one deal. Make them feel important as your customer.

Another possibility is a referral program. Give your customer an incentive to introduce friends or family members to your product or service. You win two ways: you thank your loyal customers in a worthwhile, tangible way, and you open your market to new potential customers who are, in a way, pre-qualified by way of endorsement.

How about former customers? Ones who bought from you in the past but, for one reason or another, stopped. Try to bring them back with a special offer designed especially for former clients.

Slow times can be scary for small business owners. But imagine how you’ll feel when things pick up and you’re left behind.

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I’ve always believed that third-party endorsements are a great way to add credibility to copy. After all, I can say I’m great, but if somebody else says it, someone without a vested interest in my success, that carries much more weight.

The problem with many testimonials is that they come off sounding canned and solicited. Does anyone really talk in superlatives, with losts of exclamation points?

Over at Copyblogger, Dean Reick just wrapped up a terrific four-part series about testimonials, their importance and use. The final installment reveals subtle ways your can integrate testimonials into brochures, newsletters and sales copy.

Here are my favorites from his list: Continued

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