Author Archives: Merrill

Does your sales copy include a strong call-to-action?

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A critical component of any advertising or marketing message is a powerful “call to action” or offer.

This is where you clearly tell your prospect exactly what you want them to do next and how to do it.

Sadly, many sales letters and ads I see either have one that’s really wimpy, one that’s difficult to see or confusing, or don’t have one at all.

Here’s an example of a good call to action you could see at the end of a sales letter, web page, or postcard:

Call 111-123-4567 before April 28 to get a free copy of our report revealing the 7 biggest mistakes most advertisers make!

Now…here’s a wimpy one:

If you have a chance, please call us.

See the difference…

Usually you include them at the end of your sales message, but not always. And there should be one in ANY sales materials you use such as:

  • Sales letters
  • Postcards
  • Web pages
  • Space ads
  • Business cards
  • Any other written materials you use

By including a strong call to action that’s simple in your marketing and advertising, you could increase response rates by 20-30%, maybe more.

Prospects need to know what to do next, but if it’s not obvious, or too complicated – they’re not gonna do anything and you just wasted an opportunity.

To get more information about writing a strong call to action, about this post, marketing advice, or about my direct response copywriting services, e-mail me or call me at 603-686-5140.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
www.crestviewmarketing.com

Visit www.webcontentNH.com for Website design & copy or online marketing strategies.

Is your sales message targeting the right prospects?

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Do you know for sure if your target audience is interested in your product or service?

If you definitely know who they are AND if they want what you have to offer, your’re way ahead of the game.

Too often, businesses spend (or should I say waste) tons of money sending their ads, postcards, or sales letters to a broad list of people that can’t or don’t need their services.

And if those people can’t or don’t need your products or services…they’re surely not going to put any money in your pockets!

To significantly improve you advertising and marketing success, you first need to find out who your best prospects are, then research the heck out of them, and learn about them inside out, figuring out what they really want.

Only then can you decide on the best advertising and marketing copy to write that will suck ’em in like a vacuum cleaner.

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

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
www.crestviewmarketing.com

Visit www.webcontentNH.com for Website design & copy or online marketing strategies

Direct mail is not dead – not even close!

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Recently, I’ve heard certain marketing people proclaiming that, with the low cost of email marketing, direct mail is quickly dying.

But I disagree.

It is true email is a low-cost alternative to mailing a postcard or letter. But unfortunately, with the massive amounts of spam getting into your in-boxes each day, many have a great relationship with the “delete” key.

And if an email doesn’t even get opened, it is a failure because it certainly can’t sell anything.

More and more savy business owners and marketers are taking advantage of the average user’s indifference about their emails and reverting to sending direct mail again.

You know, the letters and postcards you get in your real mailbox. Paper you can actually touch and at least has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting your attention long enough to read it.

Some people have told me they look forward to getting sales messages in the mail, even prefer it to email.

Direct mail has been proven again and again to be an effective and profitable way to generate leads and sales.

Don’t believe it for a second when you hear real mail is dead!

Are you up to the challenge of using direct mail to your advantage with postcards and letters thet get opened and read – then call you for more information or to order?

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

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
www.crestviewmarketing.com

Visit www.webcontentNH.com for Website design & copy or online marketing strategies

Do you have a website to effectively promote your business?

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Do you have a company website?

If you don’t, you’re probably losing tons of business. It’s a fact that a lead generating website is one of the most important marketing tactics you have at your disposal, yet, every day I run into businesses that don’t have one.

I shudder to think of all the potential business being giving away to your competition. Money that could be going into your pockets – just because people are searching online more often than the printed Yellow Pages to find local businesses to deal with – over 66% as a matter of fact.

And if you ain’t there to be found, you’re sure not going to get their business…but if you are and you get found, then you’ll be the king of the hill.

Having a good website also makes your business legitimate and real to your prospects.

So, if you have a business and don’t have a website – but know you need one to survive,  click here to get more information about how a website can grow your business,  shoot me an email or call me at 603-686-5140.

To your marketing success!

Merrill Clark
Web SEO Copywriter and Online Strategist
www.webcontentnh.com
www.crestviewmarketing.com

Marketing your business in a recession?

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Is your business running into hard times?

The current economic picture is indeed bleak, but there is one positive step you can take right now to keep your company open for business. 

Just imagine how it would be to see your business not only survive, but thrive, while others are going under at an alarming pace.

Would you do it?

It’s simple really…

Most companies want to be everything to everyone.  Their focus is too broad, not letting themselves be the “expert” at any one thing, but just okay at a lot of things.

And the problem with that is it’s not cost effective to market and advertise to many different markets.

Businesses need to re-evaluate their core competencies and who their most profitable customers are.

Once you’ve decided on the profitable products, services, and customers, then market the heck out of them with some powerful ads, postcards, website copy, and other lead generation strategies.

By specializing, you become the go-to company in the area for those products, and will increase your market share, so when the economy turns around, you’ll have a leg up on your competition.

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

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services
visit www.webcontentNH.com for Website design & copy

 

 

Target your marketing campaign to maximize the results

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Aim your marketing and advertising directly at only the people that could become your customer – and assuming your message, timing, and choice of media is right, the results will speak for themselves.

Today, my wife showed me an oversized postcard she got at the office she works for.

She brought it home and asked me to look at it and tell her why they would send one to her, knowing full well her type of company would never think of using this particular service.

It was a great question, and it also proves a valuable marketing point.

In this case, it was a parking lot striping company and they sent their postcard (a poorly written one, at that) to an accounting office in a huge office building, obviously that didn’t have the least bit to do with maintaining the office building or grounds.

I told her how unfortunately, many companies waste significant amounts of money marketing to the wrong people. They do mass mailings without filtering the lists of prospects to get the best results.

What they should have done is sent the postcard to the owner of the building, not the tenants.

The moral of this story is this:

When businesses send out marketing materials to generate leads or sales, make sure the list you send it to is approporiate for your products or services.

The overall list size will be much smaller, but your overall costs will be less and your response rates will be much higher.

The best chance of a successful marketing campaign follows this basic formula:

You need to send the right message to the right people, at the right time, using the right media.

If you follow this proven rule, your campaigns will be much more successful than a mailing blitz.

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

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

 

 

Are your marketing efforts being sabotaged by your own employees?

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When you invest your time and money in various marketing effors in order to grow your business, there’s a certain point where you expect to see a payoff with new leads and customers.

But what can be the cause when smart and solid marketing techniques don’t seem to be working?

I’m only going to talk about one of the many possibilities, and unfortunately, it’s one I saw in action recently at a small local retailer, which shall go nameless.

I received a sale flyer in the mail advertising something I desparately needed. So I took a drive to their store. As I walked in and took a look around, I noticed a couple of workers stocking isles and a cashier talking on her cell phone.

Then, I walked up to the cashier to ask where to find this particular item. As she continued talking on her cell phone, I stood patiently, waiting for her to even acknowledge me. Obviously, she was more interested in the call than in helping me.

After a couple of minutes, she looked at me like I had 3 heads.  How dare I interrupt her call!  I asked my question and all she managed to grunt was “go ask one of those guys”.

I have to admit; I wasn’t too happy. After asking one of the other guys, he just pointed me to an aisle.

Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. I asked if they could check stock of a certain color I didn’t see on the shelves, and he had the nerve to say “I’m kind of busy now, but I’ll check in a few minutes.

Just plain disrespectful (and stupid)!  So much for the “customer coming first” and “signing their paychecks”.

This particular store’s marketing and advertising methods aren’t perfect, but they do a lot of things right such as using compelling headlines and copy in their ads, and good follow up after a sale.

This particular store’s marketing and advertising methods aren’t perfect, but they do a lot of things right such as using compelling headlines and copy in their ads, and good follow up after a sale.

Obviously, the owner (who spends the advertising money) wasn’t there to witness this complete sabotage of his business, or else there would be 3 people looking for new jobs.

The moral of the story is this:

If you are spending good time and money on bring customers to you, DON’T screw it up after they get there by hiring incompetent, unhelpful employees that just dont give a damn about YOUR customers or business!

Train them to provide excellent customer service or fire their sorry butts! Expect nothing less than excellence.

After all, it’s not there money.

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

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

 

Keep your customers happy – by constantly keeping in touch

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Statistics show that you will lose 10-17% of your customers each month if you don’t constantly stay in touch with them.

Can your business afford to lose that many customers? I didn’t think so.

Let’s look at why this happens?

Two huge reasons are:

  1. The customer thinks your company doesn’t really care about keeping them as a customer. (which isn’t really true)
  2. Because they never hear from you, they won’t remember you when they need your services, or maybe even think you went out of business.

Customers like to feel important, and do like to periodically hear from you.

So how can you, as a business professional, prevent a continuous exodus of your customers that will ultimately go to your competitor?

It’s actually easy. Just find an economical way to continually keep in touch with them!

There’s many ways such as monthly newsletters, holiday cards, flyers promoting special events, thank you cards, and auto-responders.

Here are just a few of the benefits of using online auto-responders.

  1. They are economical because they use opt-in email to send your message.
  2. Auto-responders are relatively easy to set up
  3. After you set it up, you can keep in constant touch with customers automatically at pre-determined intervals
  4. Your customers will think you care, and you will be in their minds when they need your services again.
  5. You can track open rates and clicks so you know which emails and links are most effective, putting more money in your pocket.

The service I use on each of my own websites is Aweber. You can check out their service for free for 3 months by clicking here.

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

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

Increase your business profits with these proven copy tips

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Every day brings endless sales letters and postcards to your mailbox.

Companies selling everything from windows to internet service to septic cleaning to lawn services.

How many of them do you open and read? Oh… I get it, you just throw ‘em away, like most other people that get them.

Have you ever thought about the reason for not reading them?

I have, and so it doesn’t happen to you, I’m going to give you 3 solid, actionable tips you can immediately use in your own advertising and marketing materials. (and all 3 work with postcards or letters)

  1. There’s no headline that gets there attention by communicating a big benefit of your product or service to your customer. (Think about this… How many pieces of mail do you get where the company name is dominantly displayed in the biggest font?) Give your customers a reason to open the mail and read further. Use incentives such as free information to get new leads.
  2. Quit talking all about you, instead, talk about how your product or service can help solve their problems. No one really cares about your company name and how big your building is…They only care about one thing. Themselves. We call it WIIFM, meaning “What’s in it for me”.
  3. Don’t let your copy be boring. Most sales copy sounds like it was written by a legal department in a bog corporation, and to be honest with you, after a few seconds of blah, blah, blah, you’re bored to death! Be interesting, so the copy sounds like it was written by a real person with a real personality. People will read it if it sounds personal.

So go ahead and start writing better copy. Your response rates will surely surpass anything you’ve done, even if all you do is use these 3 guidelines in your copy.

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

Merrill Clark
Website and Marketing Copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services

Free internet lead generation techniques for local businesses

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There are quite a few free and low-cost ways to generate leads for your local business on the internet, even if you don’t have a website. (Though I do highly recommend having one)

I’m going to quickly share a couple of the ones I’ve used.

The best part is: Using these techniques doesn’t cost you a cent, and they are relatively painless to set up, even if you don’t have a ton of computer experience.

Google Maps and Local Business Center:

If you’ve ever searched Google to find the website of a local business, you may have seen this in action. Say you are looking for some marketing advice and you live in Stratham, NH.  You would type “marketing stratham nh” and you’ll get about 10 results, including www.crestviewmarketing.com,  from Google Maps.

All you need to do is go to www.google.com/local/add and sign up to add your business for free. It takes five to ten minutes to create an account and add your specific information.  That’s it!

Rockingham County NH Business List

I signed up on this local site a few months ago and have received several leads that flowed to my website. It’s a free local business listing and if you want, you can upgrade the free listing to a paid one.

Their website is www.rockinghamcountynhbusinesslist.com.

Basically, you create an account and setup a company profile that gets attention  You can upload pictures if you want.  Like Google, it only takes a few minutes to get yourself listed.

Obviously unless you live here in NH too, you won’t use this site, but there are many other local business directories online. You’ll just need to spend time researching and finding them.

Just make sure your online profile contains a compelling and interesting Bio of yourself and business giving prospects a reason to conact you instead of your competition.

FACT:
According to a recent survey by TMP Directional Marketing, a whopping 82% of online searchers contacted a business offline, and 61% of those made purchases.

Those are some pretty startling numbers.

So what are you waiting for? Go set up some accounts and start getting found!

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

Merrill Clark
Website and offline copywriter
Crestview Marketing Services