Attention:
you have less than three seconds to grab attention. Do it with a compelling
headline.

Interest:
what do your audience need to know (make sure you tell them about what they
want to hear, not what you want to tell them).

Desire:
what’s the impact of them buying/ not buying. People buy for fear or greed.
Which does your product satisfy?

Conviction:
how can you reassure them they’re not making a mistake? Testimonials and
endorsements are great here, as are trade body memberships, but the real gold
dust is the 100% no quibble money back guarantee.

Action: what do they need to do next?

(Just in case you’re wondering what on earth AIDCA is, in brief it’s a fantastic tool to help you make your marketing more effective – a process, a structure, which mirrors the way that people buy. For the full story read my detailed AIDCA breakdown.)

Although I always encourage my clients to write from the point of view of their customer, it often helps to just draft something from your perspective to start with, just in note form, to get your head around it. So the process I’m about to share with you won’t be the finished article. You’ll need to do a LOT more tweaking, refining and most importantly, writing from the perspective of your customer rather than your own business. But just to enable you to get your head around AIDCA, here’s my plain English version of what it actually means to you as a business:

Attention: We sell widgets that will help your business
Interest: Here are the benefits of this widget to your business
Desire: This is why I know you can’t live without this widget
Conviction: If you’re worried you’d be making a mistake, don’t be – here’s some reassurance (in the form of testimonials or a guarantee)
Action: Here’s what I want you to do

How about for your business? Can you see this working? Does this ‘plain English’ version make AIDCA any easier to understand or to apply?

If you’d like to understand how to put this, and other marketing techniques into practice then you will definitely find the Marvellous Monthly Marketing Workshops useful – you can find out more on our website at www.marvellousworkshops.co.uk

Be brave and just use one proposition
Heather had used a common copywriting technique to grab her reader’s attention by asking them lots of questions. “Would you like more energy? Would you like to feel fitter and healthier? Would you like to lose weight? Would you like to invest more time in YOU?” It’s a common technique, but the challenge with this approach is that you’re confusing the reader with too many propositions. What are you trying to sell? Weight loss? Vitality? Time for yourself? Successful copywriters are brave, they just stick to one proposition and then ‘unwrap’ that proposition by leading the reader on a journey, via subheadings and body text, which makes the product or service they’re selling irresistible.

Create interest and generate desire
Secondly Heather had made another common mistake – assuming that her readers would be as passionate about her services as she was. And so she’d skipped straight from her questions to the call to action. “If this sounds like you, call me on 07xxx xxx xxx.”.

The challenge with this approach is that she simply hadn’t built up enough desire in her reader’s minds. It was all to easy to do nothing, to take no action at all.

So to combat that you need to make sure that you save some space to build the story. Imagine if you were selling your products face to face with someone. You’d talk to them, understand their needs, overcome their objections and only then would you ask them if they’d like to make an appointment with you. And you need to follow exactly the same process on paper. Persuade, engage and entice your target audience and then ask them to buy.

Tell me would you like to:

• Stop your mailings going straight in the bin?
• Build trust with your target audience?
• Increase the number of people that buy from your leaflets or marketing literature?

Well now you can. Here's how…

Over the next few days I'll be sharing some incredibly simple secrets to making your marketing material more effective. Start implementing them and you'll quickly find that your response rates seriously start to increase. Good luck and do let me know how you get on!

Grab Attention

The first stage is simply to reduce the number of mailings that go straight into the bin. Or number of people that sail on past at an exhibition. Let's start by thinking about an exhibition. You've spent a lot of money on your stand and are keen to speak to as many people as possible. What's the best way to do that? Hitting them with 50 bullet points (believe me, it happens) or reams of text isn't relevant at this point (or any come to that). What's crucial is that you get people to stop in their tracks. Some people use actors dressed up as cartoon characters, some people give away sweets, or have a competition, or stop people with a big statement.

However you choose to stop people at an exhibition, there's no getting round the fact that  you have less than three seconds to get your reader to sit up and listen, or you’ve lost them. And this applies whether you're getting people to stop at an exhibition, stay on your website, read your sales letter or respond to a piece of direct mail.

Getting people to take notice of you is a simple process, but one that we often get wrong because we think from our perspective and not the perspective of our reader.

Start by being realistic and realising that you can't be all things to all people. Define your target audience and try to think about how they think. What is it about your business that is of interest to them? Brainstorm if you can and get down as many ideas as possible. Here are some tried and tested ways you can get people to stop and listen. Once you've read through them it's probably helpful to try out as many headlines as possible using these different focuses (the italicised text are some examples I've tried out for my business).

Self interest: what’s in it for me? Hit them with a benefit straight away. "You could save up to 77% on full colour print"
Something new/ in the news "NEW! Recycled business cards from £69"
Information:that’s interesting, I didn’t know that.  "Do you realise that the average business gets just a 2% response on direct mail. Our clients get an average of 7%. Here's how…" 
Curiosity: what on earth is that? Fun, creative mailings work really well here. A strange shape, interesting paper stock, funny image or texture – anything to get people to stop and explore
Problem/ need – "at last a solution" (be careful here to hit them with the benefits straight away). "Could your marketing could be making more money?"

Do you realise that in the majority of these headlines the focus is on 'you' the reader? In fact, "you" features very heavily. The more you can talk about the reader, the more attention you'll grab and the better relationship you'll build with your target market. So go for it, start rewriting your headlines and see your response rates increase.

Have a great week.

Fiona

www.guildfordprinting.com

ps. Would you like to increase the response rates of your direct mail? Why not take a look at our Marvellous Monthly Marketing Workshops which are designed specifically to help you improve your marketing.

It was also true that the design was beautiful. Light, bright and inviting images and a stylish logo made the business look not only professional but also engaging to the target audience.

However, after a bit of digging it was clear what the problem was. “What are you asking people to do?” I asked James, “I’d like them to book a consultation with me” he replied. Sometimes the obvious is staring you in the face. If he wanted people to book a free consultation with him then all he needed to do was ask! And yet there was no reference to this on the home page, and just a small one line of text on each subsequent page. It may not look beautiful, but if you want people to take action, ask them to do it and make it obvious. You’re much more likely to get a response.

What does your website ask people to do? How much success do you have with it? I’d love to hear from you!

There are many reasons a door drop campaign doesn’t work for many businesses. This doesn’t mean they don’t work full stop – but it does mean you need to plan, design and execute the campaign carefully to get the best possible response.

When your leaflet lands on the doormat of your potential customer you have less than two seconds to convince your potential client not to throw your leaflet in the bin. At this point they’re not making a decision based on your wonderful copy, or your fantastic offer. You just need to grab their attention. And like most things in life, presentation is key. If your leaflet is well designed, you can convince your prospects to read on. If what you say makes sense, then they’re more likely to call. And well, the rest is down to you!

Let’s take a closer look at a leaflet we’ve designed for Dean Harwood of Pure Lawn. Dean’s self-designed leaflet (at the bottom of this article) was fine in escence, but wasn’t working hard enough for him. Studio Manager Caroline employed some quick tricks to improve the look of Dean’s leaflet and increase his response rate.

The original flyer:

The striking images immediately grab attention – I want a garden like that!
Caroline’s ‘strap line’ “Let us take care of your lawn this year” generates interest from potential clients
Copy (the text) focuses on the benefits of using Pure Lawn and creates desire to call
Sample price – what a bargain! This is great because potential clients know exactly how much this service is likely to cost them, and at £10.50 who can refuse!
The potential client knows exactly what to do next – the ‘call to action’ is clear, straightforward and where you’d expect it to be

Investing something in design really can make more of a difference. We’ve created a brand that people want to buy from. And it needn’t cost the earth. Talk to us on 01483 401 818 if you’d like your marketing to work harder for you.

Make it clear. Use a large(ish) font. Keep plenty of space around it and don’t let it get lost in the body text.
Make it timebound. People need to respond now if you’re going to get the best response. Strike while the iron’s hot and all that! Ask them to call you now, make any offer timebound and incentivise them to call early.
Remind people of the benefits Tell them what you’d like them to do (for example call between 9am and 6pm Monday to Friday for a free sample pack and buying guide).
Make it easy to respond. Provide a freephone number, use ‘coupons’ (ok, so they look a bit naff, but studies show that using a coupon increases the number of telephone responses because people can see that it’s something they need to action).
Make it worth their while. Give discounts, buy one get one free offers or free gifts that reflect your brand.

And if you’d like to make your marketing work harder for you contact us now on 01483 401 818 or guildford@printing.com to book a Free Marketing Consultation.

Don’t over promise. For example, your widget isn’t going to answer all of your clients wildest dreams, so just tone it down a little! Only promise what you can deliver.
Give them a cast-iron guarantee. If they don’t like it, what happens? By showing them that there is very little risk you’ll build conviction in their minds, which leads me on to…
Are you a member of a relevant trade body? Will that help convince the reader that you’re a company worth dealing with? For example many painters and decorators use the Dulux accredited logos if they are a member as that gives people confidence.Ever seen Boden’s flyers? “Your strictly no risk offer”. That builds confidence; you don’t like it, you send it back, but the chances are you’ll take the risk on it.
Use testimonials to build conviction. And please don’t make them up! Surely you don’t need to, and they’ll be so much more believable if you don’t. Remember how real people speak. It’s great to have a different ‘tone of voice’ in your literature, and by telling it how it really was it becomes believable.