Posts Tagged ‘direct’

I had a one to one marketing consultation with a Personal Trainer yesterday who was frustrated that her leaflets weren’t bringing her in any business. She recognised that the paper quality and design were having an impact on this, and realised that she needed to invest in some professional design and print. But what surprised her was that her copy wasn’t pulling enough of a response.

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.

Tagged as , AIDCA, Copywriting, direct, leaflets, mail, marketing, text in AIDCA, Workshops

When do you start planning how you’re going to follow up on an exhibition? For many businesses it’s not till you have the shoebox of leads in front of you that you think “What on earth am I going to say to these people?”. However, I’m going to suggest that you actually start planning your follow ups BEFORE the exhibition.

At my Exhibitor Secrets workshop this morning we discussed the downsides of waiting till after the exhibition to write your email or sales letter. You become overwhelmed with the amount of work you have to do, you waste valuable time writing a letter you could have written before the event, instead of chasing hot leads! And you miss opportunities.

Make your life easier, and your marketing more effective by planning your follow ups at least two weeks before your exhibition. Try to think about:
How many leads do you expect to obtain? How much time do you need to block out to follow them up by telephone? Cancel all non-urgent meetings and block out that time so that you focus on maximising the potential from the leads you have.
How quickly can you get these leads onto your database? Do you need support to help you do that – is your time better spent on the phone or on data entry?
Is there an email that you can send out immediately or within a couple of days to touch base?
Will you send a follow up pack with a letter? Can you put in a timebound offer?

All of this can be done before the event. It sounds so obvious, and yet many of us wait until we have a pile of leads before tackling this.

Tagged as , direct, exhibitor, follow, letters, marketing, sales, secrets, up in Exhibitions

If you’re planning a leaflet drop or a direct mailing (where you buy a list and send a letter and brochure to a specific contact) one of the most important things you can do to affect the success of the mailing is to repeat sending it out.

Often, when I talk to clients about what they’re planning to do with their marketing they’ll tell me that they want 5,000 leaflets to send out to 5,000 people. They’re often surprised when I suggest that they send out that very same amount, to less people. My magic formula seems to be three times over three months, but it really does depend on what you’re selling and who your target audience is. The key is that you repeat the mailing.

If you think about it, how many times do you receive something through your door and think, “That looks interesting” and put it to one side and forget about it? If you can repeat the mailing a couple of times you’re increasing the chances of getting through to people at the right time. Try it – you might be surprised by the results!

Tagged as , direct, mail in Business Strategy, Workshops