Marketing For Power Packed Business Growth

Happy Blogday to The Power Packed Business Growth Blog!

Yes I've been posting to this blog for just a shade over 12 months.

As I always enjoy writing I've tried to post every work day.

So I've looked back at the blog over the last 12 months and reviewed the posts I particularly liked.

So this is my top 5 copywriting posts... let me know what you think.

Gary Halbert Spills Some Of Those Copywriting Secrets

10 Tips To Make All Our Email Lives Better

Copywriting Compels or Repels - Which One Does Yours Do?

Why We Have Three Monkey Brains And How It Helps In Direct Mail

How To Get Copy and Headlines Written

Enjoy!

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Whenever I go into a network meeting and the conversation turns to marketing I'm always asked what's the best way to get new clients.

I always answer referrals.

But there are ways and ways of using referrals. In other words you need a systematic process.

Your process needs to consider the following:

1. Don't wait for a client to give you a referral -- ask for them
2. When you get a referral do your research first so you've an idea how you may be able to help them
3. That said don't pre-judge how you can help them
4. Follow-up until you get a definite not yet
5. Finally make sure that you thank the person who gave you the referral

A further tip is to think about rewarding people who give you referrals. It certainly fulfils the "What's In IT For Me" view of people.

But...

Don't just use referrals to get new business.

Use other methods, including direct mail, email, web sites, telemarketing and advertising.

And whatever you do don't assume because one method doesn't work for a sister company, client or competitor that it won't work for you.

As always test and make sure that you continue to use whatever method of getting clients that makes you money.

Referrals don't help you keep current clients.

You need to maintain your relationship with your clients. You can do it even with the old ones you've not contacted for several months, even years.

I'm currently writing an ebook called "The 20 Ways To Keep Your Clients Longer And More Profitably" let me know if you'd like a copy.

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Bart Cleveland in his Ad Agency Blog has created a nice little list of 10 client traits that allow an ad agency to stretch creatively on the client's behalf.

The ones that caused me to think further were as follows:

• Trait #3: They realize marketing works over time. They don't advertise because their competition does. And they don't judge effectiveness by an instant ROI.
• Trait #7: They understand that good thinking takes time and that you don't "crank out" great ads.
• Trait #8: They know that there is a reason for everything you do in the creation of an ad and thus are careful not to get too many fingerprints on the work.
• Trait #9: They understand that sometimes a better idea comes along during the process that requires you to make a change.
• Trait #10: They know sometimes what everyone thought was going to be great, isn't great. We've all done work that didn't live up to our expectation. Great clients know this is a part of the process and don't want to do the run-of-the-mill idea to avoid this pitfall.

On Trait #3 I agree in general. But I do think ROI is important in any creative work. Without ROI how do you know whether what you're doing is working?

Yes, I know that everyone says every exposure builds brand. The only question I have on that is:

What proof do we have that exposure builds brand and makes people buy? Please don't trot out focus group data as proof because I don't believe anyone in those things unless they put their money where their mouth is.

Trait #7 Again absolutely vital. But an agency could use it as an excuse to extend the length of a project. For example an ad that does the job of getting some sales/building brand may take x days, whereas a great ad may take x+20 days. If both ads pull the same sales the client has just lost out the tune of 20 days costs.

Trait #8 I agree with 100%. If you're employing an expert don't try to second guess them. By all means have intelligent questions and be aware of the Emperor's clothes type of ad where a design team gets carried away in the moment. But in the end the agency is employed to create your ad for you.

Trait #9 worries me slightly because it allows the agency to start work on designing an ad and then halfway to change horses for what they think may be a better design approach. That's fine if you're paying on a per project basis but if you're paying by days consumed it's a bit more costly isn't it?

Trait #10 is a good trait in a client. But I would expect a client to demand that I test whether it worked in a sample of media/locations first. Then if it worked to roll it out.

Rolling out a majot media campaign is a huge risk if you haven't tested at all. OK some clients may be impatient. But it's our job to point out the importance of checking whether their advert, our creation, works. Otherwise they could lose lots of cash for no good reason.

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Copywriters, good copywriters are all around you.

But how do you find the good copywriter who makes your site sell, your brochure alluring or your direct mail damned good?

There are several ways, let me list a few:

• The Yellow Pages, on and off-line
• People you meet at business network meetings
• Referrals from people you trust
• Looking at copy you'd buy from and asking for the name of the copywriter
• Using the Internet

The first 4 ways to find a copywriter are easy.

If you use the Internet you'll find it more difficult. As one example The Text Wizard's site lists copywriting keywords and common mispellings.

Nothing wrong with that particularly but because he's stuffed a page with all the mispellings and actually some correct spellings too his site rises nicely up the pages onto the top Google page for quite a few of those keywords.

And to make sure he repeats each keyword in a second block. So as an example here is the first block of his chosen keywords:

"copywriting, copywriters, copywriter, copywritng, copywritiing, copwyriting, copy writing, copy writng, copy writers, copy writer, copy-writing, copy-writng, copy-writers, copy-writer, copyriting, copyriters, copyriter, copy riting, copy riters, copy riter, copy-riting, copy-riters, copy-riter, copyrighting, copyrighters, copyrighter, copy righting, copy righters, copy righter, copy-righting, copy-righters, copy-righter, coppywriting, coppywriters, coppywriter, coppy writing, coppy writers, coppy writer, coppy-writing, coppy-writers, coppy-writer

copyediting, copyeditors, copyeditor, copy-editing, copy-editors, copy-editor, copy editing, copy editors, copy editor, coppyediting, coppyeditors, coppyeditor, coppy-editing, coppy-editors, coppy-editor, coppy editing, coppy editors, coppy editor

proofreading, proofreaders, proofreader, proof-reading, proof-readers, proof-reader, proof reading, proof readers, proof reader, prooofreading, prooofreaders, prooofreader, prooof-reading, prooof-readers, prooof-reader, prooof reading, prooof readers, prooof reader, profreading, profreaders, profreader, prof-reading, prof-readers, prof-reader, prof reading, prof reader, prof readers, prooffreading, prooffreaders, prooffreader, prooff-reading, prooff-readers, prooff-reader, prooff reading, prooff readers, prooff reader"

He misses out an obvious phrase such as "UK copywriting" which only has 1,280 hits on Google.

The Text Wizard happens to be an excellent copywriter and I find his site fun to read. But if he wasn't. If his copywriting skills were basic, or borderline garbage. You might still try him out as he'd appeared well up in the Google ratings.

If you'd prefer to write your own copy check out my favourite people:

• Gary Halbert Spills Some Of Those Copywriting Secrets

• Gary Bencivenga

• Craig Garber

Obviously there are lots of others including Jay Abraham, Ted Nicholas, Dan Kennedy, Michael Fortin and loads of great UK copywriters too.

But if you really want to write your own copy look at all their stuff and copy it out. It trains your brain!

If you don't really want to do your own copywriting look at copy other people write. Make your decision based on whether you like and feel almost compelled to buy what they're selling in their copy.

Go to it...

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Blogging is fun.

And blogging about business is quite fun too.

But one of the things I've noticed as I've been on the Internet is that blogs get started and then get left completely alone without any comment as to why things have stopped.

It even happens with experienced bloggers.

I've fallen into the trap myself with other blogs.

You set-up and run a blog, get another and another until you're running several blogs. One or two get all your focus and the content postings for the remainder gently tail off. Until suddenly you've not posted for months.

Do people still visit?

Well unlike web sites they don't have to because RSS tells you when the next post is made, provided you signed up for it!

Interestingly people still visited this blog every day over my 2 week extended Christmas holiday even though I practically stopped blogging for that time.

There were a lot of unique hits which shows that once you've been indexed it can take some time before you fall off the bottom of the index or blog directory.

Does that mean a regular blogger can just stop and expect people to still come?

Yes and No.

Yes, you'll still get people who've searched for your keywords. And No because they're unlikely to return without fresh content.

That means if you're using Ads on your blog you want returning traffic if you want them to click through to the advertising site. It follows then that to maximize your Ad revenue you need to be a regular poster.

I post almost every working day. Is that too often?

I just don't know. Because I get repeat visitors every day. Some have been visiting almost since the blog began. But would they still come if I blogged twice a week? Even once a week?

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When is a Coach a Life Coach, a Business Coach, a Career Coach, an Executive Coach or a Relationship Coach?

It's really a tricky question.

About 5 years ago Bruce was headhunted for a job that sounded fantastic and nearly doubled his salary. He wasn't sure whether he should take the job. I was his Executive Coach. I suggested drawing up a list of pros and cons for staying at one job and the pros and cons of moving to the offered job. The result? He moved to the new job and has made a success of it.

Want to know his key issue?

Whether he would have security in the new, leading-edge and much smaller company.

When he asked my opinion on this I pointed out that big companies downsized all the time. In fact the one he worked for had downsized three times whilst he'd worked there.

What did that have to do with being an executive coach as it was a "Life Coach" issue?

My point exactly.

Sometimes coaches cross over into areas that aren't their main focus. Some people have several coaches one for each area of their lives.

Integrity counts here. If you're asked a question that's outside of your remit as a business coach you must inform your coachee.

Beware of giving an unasked opinion as a mentor's words can carry the same weight they do when talking on business issues. Particularly if you've helped them in their career and/or business.

This underlines the importance of choosing the right coach in the right way. Do you know how to do that, easily?

To get you thinking I'll give you one of the criteria I list in my report "How To Choose The Best Coach For Where You Are Now":

After the call decide whether you believe that the coach demonstrated how they would deliver value to you. If they did employ them. If not don't.

Equally if a coach says that they're not right for you? Thank them for their honesty.

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Video Advertising or Vidvertising as I like to call it has been bubbling under for a while.

I suspect we're going to find more and more sites beginning to provide vidvertising for people who hit their sites.

You're probably aware of a number of marketeers who use streaming video on their site to emphasis their point and to make them seem friendly/wacky/guru-like or whatever.

One that immediately springs to mind is Glenn Dietzel who's main web site is Awaken The Author Within. Glenn has been using video for quite a while now as do several other marketing people.

I suspect that those using lots of audio on their web sites, for testimonials and spoken copy, such as Alex Mandossian will switch to vidvertising in due course.

Think about it...

We're all clamouring for more broadband.

I even met a friend last night who last year said that he didn't need broadband. He's now got it!

The broadband providers are switching us from 512Mb to 1Gb to 2Gb as almost entry level. Providers can now do 8Gb at amazingly cheap prices. Bulldog in the UK costs £9.75 per month for 8Gb.

So we're going to easily be able to watch vidvertising and the advertisers get their audience back that they lost from TV.

But they're getting it better now. Because their audience will be split between millions of web sites. Those web sites can be grouped as niches. That's means the advertiser doesn't need to advertise to the billions of people in the world.

Unless they're big brands like Coke, Pepsi, British Airways, Ford and others.

They can target the people they want to reach very, very finely. At last they'll be able to check whether their advertising is paying for itself.

It also means that as we browse web sites we should only see advertising that interests us.

This brave New World is not going to happen tomorrow. It'll happen gradually to begin with because we need to work out the following;

• How will web owners get paid for displaying vidverts?
• As people go to the site will the vidverts display immediately or do they need to click a button?
• Does nichetargetingg really work for vidverts?
• How will the vidverts be served? Through centralised servers, by the web site or by each ISP?
• How will vidvert success be measured?
• The optimum length of the vidvert - given the gnat's attention span we all have on the internet.

Once we're happy that this type of advertising works big bucks are going to flow into web sites.

And into blogs. Blogs already carry adverts. The mainstream ones people can rely on will also start showing vidverts. Blog traffic is likely to increase as a blog is almost always aimed at a niche. Company blog sites will carry their own vidverts and allow potential customers to comment before their release.

Hold on...

Can't Flash do all this? And look what happened to that. People actively avoid Flash sites. Let that be a warning to us. We still want content, we'll still want easy access. The agencies need to discover a method to advertise to their niches without causing extreme frustration for their prospects and customers.

Good luck to them.

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Do you want to do business with the "Business Lions?" Those blue chip companies who sweep all competition before them. They roar with success and eat up any opposition.

To do so you must be confident that your firm can meet the Lions needs.

Maybe you're a Jackal and have come in as an expert to advise and deliver their project. You'll think they're allowing you to take their money. But it's their money and they can stop you from getting it any time they want. You're expendable. Simply by roaring at you and getting you out of their way and out of their offices.

Are you a "Vulture?" Taking what's left after the Lions finish setting up their own projects. You'll get a little money for clearing up but not much beyond that.

Or are you a "Wildebeast?" Too slow to see the Lions coming and taken down and spat out? You'll never know because you'll be used to get free consultancy and you'll never get a sale from them.

Perhaps you're an "Elephant". Able to meet a Lion on their own patch. You're not a Lion yourself but you know how to deal with them. You can take them on and win. And if they try and roar and take more than their fair share you can nudge them with one of your giant feet and they'll soon change their tune.

So which one are you?

It all depends on what's going on in your head.

If you think you're not worthy to even talk to them or you know you're the best and can help both of you make money.

Guess what?

You're right...

If you know you're a Wildebeast, a Vulture or a Jackalyou need immediate help.

Get a coach before the Lions get to you.

Good hunting!

(PS Email me at web at acornservice.com for the "Top 10 Tips To Becoming A Business Elephant".)

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Email's a pain in the proverbial. Yet it's also a great tool.

I've been using email for more years than I can remember. Certainly well over 20.

I've been burnt by most bad aspects at one time or another. And again it's got me out of a few holes where I've had to prove to managers with "bad" memories what I said and backed up with an email.

This article (which I believe is quite old as it quotes a prediction for 1999) makes a number of interesting points about email.

It said

"But like any valuable communications tool people often don't understand how to use it properly or quickly find ways to abuse it's use. E-mail is so much a part of our business life that the Electronic Messaging Association estimates that more than 94 million users will send over 5.5 trillion e-mail messages in 1999."

Interestingly a later prediction from a different web site notes that in 2000 8.2 billion emails were sent every day and that the prediction was that this would rise to 26.1 billion per day by 2005. And this excludes bulk email.

And Vnunet.com notes that more than one million new spam emails were sent on just one day on the 25th March 2004.

So we haven't quite reached the doom laden prediction in the nineties. But we still manage to fall foul of a lack of email etiquette

Email No Nos

1. Don't instantly type in a response because your're annoyed. If you send it the chances are it will upset someone and possibly damage your career!
2. Don't use emoticons or things like '(grin)' you just don't know how that sort of thing is received in a business communication. I can vouch for seriously upsetting some people for putting '(grin)' in some emails to them. The intention was to be friendly but the opposite happened and they felt they were being talked down to.
3. If you're not willing for your email to be read out to everyone in a large concert hall filled with all your friends and relatives and others don't send it. Because people have the ability to forward your mail to their friends, who have their own friends... You see where this is going don't you?
4. Also remember your features can soften much of what you say when you're talking to someone. Even when you're on the phone. You don't have that luxury by email and an email can be read as being nasty, bullying, aggressive and unfriendly simply because other people perceive what you've written differently to your intention and you're not thwere to explain
5. If your intention is to be aggressive and bad tempered. Don't do it. Remember email rage, like road rage can be over the most trivial things yet can alter two people's lives and relationship for ever.
6. Don't try to justify sending large amounts of email to prospect lists you've bought with no clue as to whether they are your target market. That's just spam. Spam is insulting, annoying and just adds up to the hassle factor for people you're sending it to.
7. Check that before you send it you've added any attachements you wrote about.
8. Note that if you do send attatchments beware that people may simply delete the email and nothing will get read.
9. Do not, I repeat do not, simply reply to an email and copy someone else on that reply. The reason is that you may have been having an email conversation that the new person shouldn't know about. I've received several over the years and have found the conversations interesting, and sometimes useful too!
10. Do not use an enormously long signature,or sig. People are used to between 2 to 5 lines. Anymore and they're just going to ignore it anyway.

Finally two free bonus tips

11. Never send an email without a subject line. Firstly because it stands a great danger of being deleted. Secondly the person who receives it has no incentive to open it even though they have to find out what it's about. Why should they bother? Look at your subject line as the headline for your email. It should attract and intrigue so that the receipient wants to open it.

12. Because of Anti-spam filters you can't assume that your important business communication has got through. Certainly if people aren't expecting your email and haven't whitelisted your address there is a strong risk of it going to a bulk folder. Where hardly anyone checks.

So use email the right way because you stand more chance of being read. And use marketing the right way because you stand more chance of selling!

Get yourself an ISSN now!

It's similar to the ISBN that they use for books. But is meant for periodicals. Which Blogs are.

Will it help you get more widely known?

Probably not. But you could certainly put out a press release about it.

The only problem is that you need to use the normal mail to request an ISSN, after printing off the application and in some countries completing it by hand. So for those of us who now live by email we'll just have to get our hands to grip a pen once again.

I've printed my application off and will be sending it once I've completed it.

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Get yourself an ISSN now!

It's similar to the ISBN that they use for books. But is meant for periodicals. Which Blogs are.

Will it help you get more widely known?

Probably not. But you could certainly put out a press release about it.

The only problem is that you need to use the normal mail to request an ISSN, after printing off the application and in some countries completing it by hand. So for those of us who now live by email we'll just have to get our hands to grip a pen once again.

I've printed my application off and will be sending it once I've completed it.

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Do you think your web site home page is an opportunity to wax lyrical about how good you are at delivering your service or how your product is a world beater?

Maybe you'd draw my attention to your "About" or "Contact Us" page where you describe your team in exquisite detail.

Or perhaps its the page depth that you want to impress me with?

So what is the most important part of your web site?

It's the intention behind it. What is the one main thing you want it to achieve?

If you achieve that one main thing then your web site is exactly right and you can be justly proud of it.

But if it doesn't achieve your main aim and even though it may win design award piled on design award it's failed its job.

So how do you make sure that your web site does the job?

By writing down your main aim and have it on a piece of paper you can see when you look up from your steaming computer to take that welcome cup of coffee or wedge of pizza.

Yes, you can have other aims. But your main aim needs to be the focus for the site otherwise you can get sidetracked.

Maybe you're thinking what do aims look like?

"Easily read". Is my first thought. "Obvious", is my second.

So an aim is such as:

"The main aim of this web site is to sell the book titled "How To Undertake Tasks successfully" to every visitor, whether they are new or returning and provided they haven't already bought the book".

Another could be:

"The main aim of this web site is to provide enough information for every visitor to be able to program in HTML using the 'Simply' Text Editor."

Consider it the web site strategy.

How you fulfill that main aim or strategy is then down to which marketing tactics you employ.

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A web site is Never finished because change affects us all the time. Changes definitely affect your web site content. Think about Internet Marketing itself as an example. Some of the aspects that have changed over time include:

So, as you can see if we kept a web site in its original state it would get more and more old fashioned. Until eventually people stopped even going onto the pages.

One great marketing tip: Don't put up a page like this one: Ultimate Tips Web Page.

Check it out. There is no content, whatsoever.

And yet I know the person who runs it has posted quite a few times to one of the marketing forums that abound on the Internet.

Why shouldn't you put up a page like this? Or maybe a holding page? Or a "this page under construction" page?

Because it puts people off ever visiting again. The Internet promises content. If you don't deliver some reasonable content, not just a promise of content tomorrow, some day, or never, people will not return.

Out of curiousity I checked how many occurrences of "under construction pages" there are on Google. You can find "This page under construction" has 93,700 hits and there are 32,300 further hits for "This site is under construction".

They key question is "How many of these actually get completed?"

As we saw at the start the reality is that a good web site is never finished. Content is changed, deleted and added all the time. So saying pages or sites are under construction is irrelevant. If they have nothing on those pages they shouldn't even be on your site.

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Business networking or social networking is an important part of getting yourself known in business circles. Networking covers networking events and business networking through internet sites such as LinkedIn.com, Ecademy.com. and Ryze.com.

When it comes to career management that's all about networking too as The Guardian's tongue in cheek article tells us.

When it comes to the normal business networking the sooner you get involved the sooner you become accepted as a "proper" businessman.

But what do you need to do and what should you expect from it?

Networking happens when a group of business people meet up to talk and to see whether they can help each other at all.

In the time I've been networking I've found the following three step process reasonably reliable:

On Your Marks: Prepare To Network

1) First get some good looking business cards that spell out your business.

2) Think about your aim for being at a networking meeting:

• Is it to simply get your face known?
• Is it to make contact with someone from a specific firm?
• Is it to help someone else at the meeting?
• Is it to speak at a meeting?

3) Make sure you take a pen and enough business cards with you

Go the event.

Go the event.

• Get yourself a drink to hold in your hand if you tend to fidget.
• Get there early if you're a bit nervous - that way you can talk to one or two people as they arrive and before everyone else turns up.
• Don't be intimidated by a group of people in earnest discussion. Check whether they're open to other people joining them. You'll see their body language is partially open and if you stop near by they may well pause and give you the opportunity to enter the conversation.
  

Remember everyone is there for the same purpose. To pickup more business.

Yes we may go to chat but we all still have an eye on possible business.

Also remember who you speak. That's so that if someone else you speak to has a problem that someone you've spoken to can sort out you can give your new contact their details.

How do you do that? By taking and giving out business cards.

If you promise to help someone write exactly what you promised on their business card so that you can follow up.

At the end of the meeting you should have a pile of business cards.

The Finishing Line: Prepare to Follow-up

When you get back to base enter your new contacts details into a follow-up system. The most basic is probably an Excel spreadsheet.

I'd recommend using a card scanner if you intend going to lots of meetings. It helps in the sheer work of entering card details.

As you enter the cards make sure you also note down on your to-do list every promise or action you made and any made by the contacts you made.

Should you follow-up with every single person you met during the meeting?

No.

The reason is that the people you spoke to may have no interest, or use, for your product or service.

BUT the people that they know who are outside the networking meetings you've attended may. If so and if they're consistent networkers they're likely to remember your details and let people know about you.

Also networking is all about allowing people to see what sort of business person you are. How do you handle yourself, are you consistent in your message, do you deliver on your promises.

There are times in networking when you CAN sell your product or services and you'll recognise that time. But don't do what many rookie business networkers do: desperately push business cards and/or leaflets into the hands of everyone at the event as though simply pushing information onto people will help their business.

Believe me any act of apparent desperation is going to ruin your chances of being seen as a helpful networker and you're going to face an uphill battle getting recommended by anyone.

conversely go out enjoy and get known. Help and communicate and get relationships going and in due course you'll get the work your company is expert in.

Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.produced a PDF ranking of "The Most Unbelievable Workplace Events of 2005".

The one I loved was the very first one:

The Whine-Free Policy. A German company initiated a strict no-whining policy. Negative Nellies and other boat rockers are under a two-moans-and-out rule. According to the company, several workers have quit and two others have been fired for violating the whine-free policy.

Affiliate marketing is interesting.

As you know affiliates sell other peoples products.

They also get assistance from the owner of the products in the marketing of the product, or service. Sort of like online franchising, almost.

I'm all for it. It's a simple business. The affiliate provides the lead to the product owner and if they convert to a sale the affiliate gets some cash. Easy!

I've just read a shrewd sales letter about Brandon Dupsky who reputedly makes $22,000 a day on eBay.

Now eBay is huge but so is someone making so much money on it. Inevitably a system has been put together to sell so that others can emulate his success.

Will they? Who knows. But I'm sure that a lot of the systems will get sold.

And a lot will come through affiliates.

Do a Google search on "Brandon Dupsky" and you get over 18,000 hits.

From that you'll see all the affiliates involved.

I think affiliates are great. However, there is one thing wrong with the way it seems to work.

The affiliate seems to use the email, web page suggestion of the product owner almost verbatim.

In Brandon's system I've noted at least two different sales pages. One is written as though the web page owner is reviewing the content and the other more like an article.

Again that's fine. But if you look at the Brandon search results you immediately note two sites displaying the review sales page and another 2 displaying the article page. With identical content.

It's lazy selling. Have they bought and used the product?

Personally I prefer to only endorse what I've used. Then I write my own web pages - but only if I like the product. In fact the only thing I'm an affiliate for is Peter Thompsons Achiever's Edge (which I've mentioned before!).

As an aside. I particularly enjoy Peters interviews with people who really understand other people, business, marketing and sales. Peter extracts how they do what they do and makes it clear to Joe Public - that's me - so that I can apply it to my business too.

But coing to the point, and this is a huge but. It's the customers who know whether using the same web sale pages affects their buying decisions, or not.

So without testing you won't know whether they care if the sales page is exactly like another or not.

From this you can see that a predjudice I have against "lazy" selling may be just that and not actually important at all for this products target market. For another market it may be vital.

And again it all comes down to testing, testing and more testing.

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I've got a confession to make...

I used to be an Information Technology consultant.

That means I have a keen interest in marketing and business growth for IT companies.

In fact my first attempt at writing proper copy was for a small IT consultancy I worked for.

Did it work?

Well people did see me after they received one of my letters.

But then I found that I'd a lot more to learn. For a start I thought my target market was the finance directors.

It wasn't...

But also I'd learnt (from books and sales people who got lots of sales) sage advice like:

• Make sure you use headed notepaper so your logo is big and bold
• Only use one page to write your letter
• Explain what your product is in as much detail as you can on one side of A4
• Keep the postage costs down with the franking machine
• Print your labels with nice clear type

Well...

Personally I'm surprised that anyone was intrigued enough to find out more when they received my letter.

Because as I'm quite sure you know my letters were the worst you could imagine.

• Prospects weren't interested in my company at all - could we do anything for them was more important. Logos? Who cares
• Keeping your sales pitch down to one side of A4 is like having your salesman take a stopwatch into a meeting and walking out when 5 minutes has past. Whether he's made the sale or not.
• Putting too much detail, without explaining the benefits is going to bore your prospect silly
• A franking mark screams out "BUSINESS POST" or "JUNK MAIL" - either of which is treated in a very cavalier manner and often the bin is used to get rid of the offending item
• Again using labels shows this is not a personal letter. So it's Business or Junk. Throw away now.

That just shows how little successful salespeople may know about writing copy. But it also shows that if you don't know how to do direct mail it aint going to work. Hence the reason why so many people cry "Direct Mail Doesn't Work".

Well it does...

It just takes some real knowledge from people who've been burnt finding out about it, using it and chasing to the source the people who already know how to do it. And paying through the nose to find out.

Whatever you do avoid computer programs that generate copy for sales letters, brochures, ads or yellow pages.

Why?

Because a computer program doesn't know your particular circumstances. It doesn't know the emotions that your prospects should feel as they read your copy.

Similarly don't' use a Headline program to generate your headlines. Use a swipe file of really great headlines and create your own.

Like I said I used to be in IT and they created a program called "The Last One" which was meant to replace all the programmers in the world. Because henceforth programming would be so simple anyone could do it. Have you heard of "The Last One?"

Probably not.

And the reason?

It took too simplistic a view. Just as automated copy writing and headline generating programs do.

So my advice is to steer well clear of anything that comes out of a program. At least for the moment! Write your own copy. Or let someone else with blood pumping through their veins do it.

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Every business needs a tagline.

It should reflect the benefit that the customer gets from using your product or service.

This article on the prleads website gives you a way to generate some strong taglines for your business.

But remember you develop your tagline after you've thought through and created your own Unique Selling Proposition.

Then Most Important of All - use it! That means develop a plan to include your tagline in everything you do.

Make your tagline unique.

Everything you do includes:

• web site
• business cards
• blog
• seminars
• brochures
• direct mail
• emails
• advertising
• yellow pages

Like your USP make it part of your culture.

And remember? "Put it out in everything you do...".

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Marketing to double your profits is a marketing goal.

And you can easily achieve it too.

The thing that separates achievers from those that crash and burn is...

GOALS!

• Personal goals
• Business goals
• Life goals.

Yes those achievers have goals. And they set and achieve goals. All the time...

I've written an article on the method I created for myself to achieve goals. I call the method SARAH - for a copy of the article email me (web at acornservice.com) with your email address and name. (don't' worry I don't share people's email addresses).

Onwards...

Now how to achieve goals is all very well. Would you like to know how to create great goals in the first place?

If not stop reading now...

As you're so astute, here goes ...

1. Find a place to be separate from your day to day life
2. Sit down with a notepad and get relaxed
3. Then visualise your own funeral and the idealistic talks that three people make about you:
1. The first person is one of your close family:
1. What would they say about you? Where you always there for them?
2. Would they say you were thoughtful of your relations?
3. What one thing will they remember about you?
4. The second one is someone from your business life:
1. Did you have integrity? Was your word your bond?
2. Were you a success in business?goal setting
3. How did you give back?
5. The final one is from one of your friends
1. 1. Could you be relied on?
   2. Did you treat people with respect?
   3. Were you with them through lives success and failures?
6. The questions I've suggested are examples that get me thinking, use your own examples to get your own thoughts going
7. Note down the main points each person made
8. Then look at where you are now and decide what goals you need to get the achievements the three people said about you

Example Business Life Eulogy

So using an example of business success...

Lets say you used a competitor to make your eulogy on your business life.

The notes you take might be as follows:

- He always knew what the next big thing was in marketing
- His company grew to have offices in all the English speaking countries in the world
- His company trebled its profits over its first 2 years in business
- His staff were all loyal to him and his vision for the business

You've got the notes and now you need to decide how far off you are from that perfect vision of your ultimate goals and the final achievement of those goals.

Let's say you're not even in business yet.

Your goals should be handwritten and based on the example could be ...

1) I started my own business by 11/2006
2) My business makes $3,500 profit from the first month of trading and then makes at least that for each subsequent month
3) My first office is in my study, my second in London by 11/2006 and my next one's in New York by 5/2007

Notice that you've got specific goals, either in terms of time or money. The goal is also written as though it's already achieved.

The reason is the brain can't tell the difference between real memory of achievement and a manufactured "memory" in the way we've written the goal. But the brain then tries to make reality match the manufactured memory.

So you're moving towards the goals you've set all the time.

Have a go ... you may be surprised how well it works.

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