Sales Copy and Marketing Advice That Sells

No matter what you do to spread your sales message to prospects and clients, they usually won’t need your product or service at that very moment.

Because of that (and other reasons), it’s important for you to maintain “top of mind” awareness of your prospects and clients.

Then…when they do need you, they’ll think of calling you first.

So what can you do to stay on their minds?

The best way is to just keep in regular contact with everyone on your mailing lists. I recommend at least one “touch” per month.

What to send…

• Relevant articles you wrote
• Newspaper articles
• Thank you notes
• Personal notes
• Newsletters
• Invite them to a seminar or special event
• Quick email about a special offer (but don’t do this one each time)

Try it – it’s easy and an affordable way to stay on your prospect’s and customer’s mind.

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Most New Hampshire small business owners and sales professional are constantly looking for low-cost and effective marketing techniques for their businesses.

Of course, there are lots of effective ways to promote yourself.

Marketing techniques such as websites, email, social media, direct mail, branding, and networking.

Some are relatively inexpensive and some…well, let’s just say they can be pretty pricey.

But there’s one technique being used that I’m recommending to certain clients that won’t drain your bank account – as a matter of fact, sometimes it won’t cost you a cent – and can work like a charm to generate new prospects that are highly qualified and interested in what you have to offer.

I’m talking about holding free seminars.

It works like this:

You rent a small conference room for 5-8 prospects and start inviting by placing small ads or by networking.

In Portsmouth, for example, I can rent a small room from IOS at Pease Tradeport for about $20/hr.

The key is to offer a topic your prospects are interested in and that will get them thinking about how you can solve their problems.

All you have to do is create an outline explaining the problem they face, then talk about it and how you can solve it for 60-90 minutes.

At the end, make an offer to the attendees they can’t refuse, such as a free consultation or more information, and use that to promote your expertise without being “salesy”.

As a matter of fact, depending on the topic, you might even charge them a small fee to attend.

The bottom line is to use these seminars to attract qualified prospects to you, and show them how you can help them solve their specific problems.

It sure beats the heck out of cold calling potential prospects, don’t you agree?

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

I’m sure you’ve heard all the usual ways to market your business:

Space ads, postcards, sales letters, websites, and on and on.

But have you tried networking groups that give you the opportunity to give and receive qualified referrals on a more consistent basis?

There a many referral groups around, but one that’s provided me a good source of prospects is BNI.

BNI is an international organization with chapters in about every area of the country.

They have weekly meetings and are structured in a way that’s been proven to be effective at maximizing the member’s time and number of referrals given.

The investment is affordable, and you do have to make a time commitment to be at each meeting and to meet and learn about the other members.

“Givers Gain” is the motto, and the group is built on relationships, trust, and giving.

Basically – the more you give – the more you get.

So if you’re looking for a way to network that seems to be head and shoulders above any local Chamber of Commerce meetings, consider visiting a local BNI group. You can find local chapters and more about it at www.bni.com.

Let me know your comments!

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Every business should have a USP to get more clients, but unfortunately, many don’t.

Exactly what is a USP anyway?

In the marketing world, it stands for Unique Selling Proposition.

And what it means to you is this:

It’s the one memorable benefit that will compel your customers to buy from you instead of someone else.

I guess it’s kind of like a tag line – but it goes much deeper than that.

Your USP is what differentiates you from your competition. It needs to be unique, and it must be the special reason why that says to prospective clients:  “I want to do business with you.”

 A USP could be:

• A specific service you offer that your competition doesn’t
• A service you do differently and better than your competition
• A product benefit and feature that’s new and nobody else has, or
• A certain manufacturing process that no one else uses

For example…here’s Dominos Pizza’s USP

“Fresh pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less – guaranteed!”

Ironically, many companies have a USP…but they either don’t know what it is, or they can’t put it into words.

So if you don’t have one, or don’t know what it is – spend some time figuring it out. I’m not saying it will be easy, but it will certainly be time well spent.

One thing’s for sure: Having a USP and putting it to words can give you a giant leg up on your competition, because you’ll have something special to offer your clients that your competitors can’t.

All you have to do is to use it in your advertising and marketing and watch the sales roll in.

What do you think?

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Do you use the holidays to keep in touch with your best clients.

If you own a business or are a sales professional, you already know that maintaining great customer relationships is one of the secrets to keeping your hard earned customers from jumping ship to your competitors.

And there are countless tips and techniques to help you do just that.

One of the easiest and most affordable ways is to simply keep in constant touch with your clients.

Many studies show sending something at least once a quarter, but preferably once a month is a great way to keep your company at the top of their minds.

Not to sound like a mother hen here…but Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner (I sure don’t know where the summer went), and you should be using them as a reason to give your customers another “touch”.

Cards are nice, but why don’t you take full advantage and instead of just sending the card…

Insert a “special time-sensitive” offer inside. Something like a 4 day Thanksgiving sale with some great offers.

You can use ‘em to build traffic and sales. I mean – you’re already paying for the card and postage, why not enclose a special coupon, too.

Anyway – mother hen signing out.

Start sending and start selling today.

Think about this – How many Thanksgiving cards do you get? Be bold – Be different!

Your thoughts?  I’d like to know.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Ever notice how most space ads look so much alike?

Yellow pages, newspapers, magazines all profit from running space ads.

The advantage of a space ad is that it’s small. The disadvantage of a space ad is that it’s well…small.

There’s only a certain amount of space you can use, and in a small ad, you have to make every square millimeter count.

One of the biggest mistakes people make with space ads is that they try to sell too much in it.

If you’re selling something that’s $20 or so, your space ad may work (assuming it’s a great headline and offer)…

But – if your product is more expensive, people need more compelling sales copy showing the benefits and reasons why they should buy – and with a small ad, you just don’t have the room to do it. (Unless of course, you’ve mortgaged the house for a full page ad)

So my tip of the day for powerful space ads is this:

Instead of selling directly from the ad, use the space to generate qualified leads that have an interest in your product or service.

No selling – but strictly lead generation – get them to contact you…

Write a powerful headline that gets prospects to call you or email you, or go to a special web page on your site.

Offer them something of value for free, such as a free report with information about your service or something along those lines.

For example:

A lawyer could use this headline – “10 crucial things you need to know before you hire a lawyer”.

“Call today for your free report”

Then create a 2 or 3 page report describing 10 things people should look out for before hiring a lawyer. Things you don’t do that other lawyers do or vice versa. And then at the end of the report, offer a free consultation to the reader.

Now you’ll get pre-qualified leads that you can continue to market to because you know they’re interested in getting a lawyer.

My rule of thumb is: The more expensive your products or services are, the more you should use space ads to generate leads – not go for the throat to make a sale.

Build the relationship first. Then make the sale.

And the great thing about this lead generation idea is you can use it for any space ads or even postcards – basically anyplace where your ad space is limited so much that you couldn’t possibly write great copy that would make the sale on the first go round.

Any thoughts? I’d like to know.

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

What are your business marketing goals?

Sadly, many business professionals waste tons of money to advertise and run marketing campaigns – without even knowing what they want to to accomplish.

It always irks me when I talk with clients who’ve already talked with other marketing advisers, and in those discussions, they were never once asked what their marketing and business goals were.

As basic a question as it is, any responsible marketing advisor or copywriter will ask you about your goals. If they don’t – it’s a sure signal for you to move on and find someone who does.

If you, the business pro, don’t have any goals and aren’t sure what you specifically want your ads and marketing to do, it will be almost impossible to design a realistic action plan that will be worth a damn.

So, even without a set goal, you create a bunch of ads and plans on-the-fly. Then what?

Generally, you’re still won’t be sure if they worked or not, or if they were profitable or not.

How could you? There was no plan.

Bottom line is this:

Before you waste any of your hard-earned moolah on advertising or marketing, you must have marketing and advertising goals.

Then you develop a specific strategy plan that includes different tactics, which you’ll use as stepping stones to your ultimate business objective.

Only then – will you have enough information to determine if an ad or campaign was successful, or if you need to make additional changes to work towards your goal.

Plan and test!

Any thoughts? I’d like to know.

To get more information about writing effective sales copy, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Today, you’re gonna learn a super-quick business advertising lesson.

Yep…it’s true!

There really is a solid guarantee in your advertising strategy, and I’ll clue you in shortly, but first a short story.

A client recently asked me this question:

“If I spend money on advertising – is there any guarantee I’ll get my investment back, and better yet, make a profit?”

After thinking about it for a second, (I wanted to respond with a semi-intelligent answer), my response was simply “Nope!”

You see, there’s simply no way anybody can guarantee the effectiveness or profitability of any ad or lead generation piece.

There are far too many variables that must be considered such as the target market, your message, the media, the effectiveness of the copy, and so on. That’s why you need to test each and every ad or marketing piece.

From that perspective, about the only guarantee a legitimate copywriter (such as myself) would give is that you’ll like the ad or sales copy, and that a copywriter’s sales copy has a way better chance of success than the typical business owner’s or ad agency’s copy.

Why? – Because the direct response copywriter uses methods that have been proven to work again and again (but not guaranteed to work every time).

Now… I know I said there was a guarantee, so here it is in a nutshell…

There is no way to guarantee you’ll get more business with your marketing and advertising, but…

It’s practically guaranteed if you don’t anything at all to market yourself and advertise your business – you won’t get new customers.

And that’s guaranteed!

Any thoughts?

I’d like to know.

To get more information about writing effective sales copy, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

I want to share a quick, but important copywriting tip today.

When you write sales copy – no matter what media it will be used in – use as simple and small words as you can.  I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “keep it simple stupid” (KISS)…

Well…this applies to copywriting, too. Write your copy so that even an 8^th grader can understand it. Your prospects will have different levels of understanding, even if you think they don’t.

So don’t use long complicated words when you can use a short, simple one instead.

For example, you can use person instead of individual – or use buy instead of purchase.

Many writers use complicated words in their copy, and the only thing that does is make them sound very literate and educated, which in itself isn’t bad, but the primary purpose of your copy is to persuade your prospect to take a certain action, not impress them with your knowledge of the English language.

The other thing to keep in mind is this – use some industry words or jargon your specific target market understands. (Just make sure your readers definitely know what that jargon means) They also need to believe you know what you’re talking about before they will trust you enough to be persuaded.

If your readers don’t understand your copy or don’t believe or trust you, your copy’s chance of success will be slim to none.

Any thoughts?

I’d like to know.

To get more information about writing effective sales copy, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

And visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter

Do you want to get better results from your direct mail campaigns?

Try using personalization.

Now – keep in mind – personalization can take on many forms and meanings.

My meaning is simple: It’s the words and offer you use to generate leads and sales. Words that show the reader you’re talking specifically with them.

It can be as simple as using their real names in the salutation of the sales letter, or as complicated as writing about a previous purchase they made and how your new gizmo will make their previous purchase work a million times better.

Even better yet, using their name, telling how your gizmo will help their life, and making an irresistible offer…just for them. One they just can’t refuse!

A personal letter shows them you know what they like, and you care about them getting the most out of their investment in other products.

Basically – personalization shows your reader that you know them. I mean – that’s about as personal as you can get.

When creating your offers and writing the sales copy, be as personal as you can, ( I guess you could take that to the extreme, but don’t) and you could boost results by 20-30% – maybe even more depending on the quality of your list and the relevance of your product or service to them.

Remember…consumers (and that includes business people, too) deal with people, not robots or companies.

So first and foremost, write for people and give it the personal touch. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Oh…and by the way…personalization also works just as well, if not better, with a combination of email and website marketing!

What do you think about this technique?

I’d like to know.

To get more information about writing effective sales copy, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

Also visit www.webcontentNH.com for help with Website design, writing SEO copy, e-mail marketing, or other online marketing strategies.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter