Category Archives: Marketing

Rack cards make effective, low cost leave-behind marketing materials for sales reps

By Merrill Clark:
Web and Direct Response Copywriter

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Are you a sales rep, or maybe a small franchise owner, selling insurance, power, payroll processing, credit card processing, or any other product or service?

Do you regularly pounding the pavement scrounging for your own leads, hoping to talk with the “right” person?

And more often than not, do you hear: “Sorry… the person you Continue reading

Surprising customer service tales: The good, bad, and ugly

By Merrill Clark:

As a business owner or manager, I’m sure you know just how important it is to WOW your clients with excellent customer service.

Learn from my shockingly good (and bad) customer service from companies I would never have expected it from…

Customer service is what separates the men from the boys.

It’s often the difference between keeping a valuable customer happy…or handing Continue reading

Persuading your target market is just like convincing your spouse

Gotta quick analogy for you today…

Your company’s marketing message should work the same way as trying to convince your husband to let you go on a “girls out” weekend.

(Guys… the same principle holds true for you, too)

Let’s say your 3 closest girlfriends in the whole wide world are planning a “girls only” weekend away for fun, pampering, and pedicures, and want you to go, too.

Will your husband Continue reading

My wife knows this effective marketing tactic – sadly, most business owners don’t

Recently, my wife and I are talking, and out of the blue she says to me:

“I bet Billy Bob Biz owner could make more money by sending me a postcard to remind me that it’s been more than a year since I got those expensive new hearing aids and they recommend getting a free hearing checkup every year.”

She goes on to say: “Wonder how many of their customers defect to the competition because Continue reading

Why you should be in love with SEO

Ignore website optimization
at your own risk

First…  SEO is inherently complicated, but I want you to understand why it’s important for you to grasp the basics. So here’s my simple definition without going into all the techie details.

SEO is crucial to web success

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of getting your website’s pages to attract various search engine’s attention.

You’ll notice I said “process” – because good SEO isn’t a one-time thing, it’s ongoing.

Properly optimized web pages help search engines determine what the page is all about, so it can give each page a “rank” in their search results pages (SERP).

 And the big benefit to you?

Simple… Continue reading

Where does the ongoing feud between direct mail and email stand?

Direct mail vs Email: Which one wins?

A client recently asked me:

If I send out the same sales message to the same number of people using email and direct mail, which method is more likely to get the best response rate?

Great question!

My answer: Assuming all other things being equal, in my client’s experience, direct mail usually wins the battle.

Why?

arm-wrestling--sca0011I think it’s because readers have an opportunity to hold a letter or postcard in their hands, which gives it a better chance to grab someone’s attention.

On the other hand… people are completely overwhelmed by the number of emails they get, so it’ll most likely be deleted before it ever has a chance.

But that’s my opinion.

Continue reading

Website Conversion Killers – Part 2

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Does your website FAIL to get the new customers you expected?

Okay… If you get serious, qualified, pre-sold prospects from your website, that’s great news! You’re light years ahead of most business owners.

But if you don’t, then Houston… you have a problem.

Look… All the traffic and visitors in the world will get you a total of ZERO customers if your website doesn’t convince them you can solve their problem and contact you.

Last time, I discussed 5 of the 10 website conversion “killers” that cause nobody to contact you after looking at your website.

So here are the other 5 big and common failures I see.
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Part 2:
10 Reasons your website doesn’t generate customers

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1. No eyeball-grabbing headline

If your website’s headline is “Welcome to my Website”, you can be virtually guaranteed nobody will read the rest of your content.

You need a main headline that quickly grabs your reader’s attention with a benefit or a question that raises curiosity.

There are many proven headline “formulas” Continue reading