“Free Gift”, and other poor grammar that boosts your sales

Copywriter Bob Bly refers in this post to a debate he’s been having with one of his newsletter subscribers about the phrase “Free Gift”. Although a gift is necessarily free, many direct response ads and sales letters feature this phrase, along with many other instances of poor grammar, like:

• Excessive… use… of… elipsis and other punctuation marks
• “Use of quotation marks around headlines”
• Phrases like, “return the product for a prompt and courteous refund” - what exactly is a “courteous” refund?
• Lots Of Headlines Printed In Sentence Case
• Sentences that begin with “and”, “but” and “so”.

Mr Bly’s correspondent argues that “Free gift” is bad writing, whereas Mr Bly’s position is that you should do what works. Including “Free” has been proven to outsell the alternative - so why not use it?

I’ve conducted tests in the past that use “unconventional” English, and where these outperform the control, it’s not uncommon for a client to argue for staying with the less effective version that features “correct” grammar.

While typos and sloppy punctuation are unacceptable in marketing materials, isn’t this all about greater response for less marketing spend? Whadayareckon?

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15 Ways To Leverage an Article

Friend and client Mike Krsticevic from Advocate Mortgage Corporation recently sent me a mind map called “How to leverage an article found in a magazine that relates to your industy”.

It contains a number of great ideas so with Mike’s permission I’ve reprinted it below. Or if you prefer, here it is in PDF version.

How To Leverage an Article Found In A Magazine That Relates To Your Industry

1. Email a scanned copy of the article to your database preceded by a short commentary (if not already understood by your readers) that you wanted to keep them informed of changes in the industry. Induces reciprocity; builds pre-eminence.

2. Keep a copy of the article on file (preferably in scanned form that is readily accessible or searchable in a database) so that when you meet someone and the conversation you have with them lends itself to you being able to offer to email, fax or post the article to them, you can do so quickly. This will build your pre-eminence with that person.

3. Refer to the article in future emailings to clients generally and quote portions of it that are interesting without needing to send the whole article.

4. Contact the author and build rapport with them with the view to leveraging the contacts this author has with prominent people in your industry that he or she has interviewed and will interview in the future.

5. Contact the author and build rapport with the author with the view to becoming a quoted person/expert on future topics related to your industry in order to build pre-eminence.

6. Use the ideas in this article to realise that if you are trying to create a host-beneficiary partnership arrangement with a particular person or company, you could find a swag of articles that relate to your prospective H-B partner’s industry to increase your own knowledge of that industry AND send to the intended contact, from time to time, articles of interest to your prospective H-B partner - build rapport and pre-eminence via your increased understanding of their industry.

7. Develop a “stadium pitch” opening line using the statistics provided in the article, eg, “There are only two mortgage insurers in the market today and one of them has substantially increased its claim denials over the last 3 months. How will this affect your attempts to get a loan? Does your broker know who this mortgage insurer is? If they don’t know this information, what impact will that have on their ability to help you get the best loan deal when buying your new home?”

8. Use statistics from the article in your own copywriting material.

9. Presentation Aid: Make a copy of the article, highlight portions of the article and then place it in a plastic sleeve and bring it out when dealing with clients. Refer to highlighted statistics to show prospects three things: (1) you keep up with industry developments; (2) show how your knowledge of this information means you will provide them with a better service or the product you are promoting will help them avoid the problems raised in the article; and (3) use it to overcome an objection or pre-frame a prospect to remove a potential objection.

10. If the article is found in a magazine that is read by your prospective clients, you could consider entering into a H-B partnership arrangement with the magazine to access their database of readers (ie, your prospects).

11. If your prospects read the publication in which the article was published, you could prepare an article or two or a series for publication in the magazine in order to build pre-eminence with your target market.

12. Once you write articles that are published in the magazine, keep copies to send to your list of suspects, prospects and clients - massive pre-eminence builder.

13. Consider advertising in the publication you found the article in IF its readers are also your target clients.

14. Use an article or the information you find in an article (particularly statistics) as a reason to contact your database of clients (preferably via email) to conduct your own survey to cross-check the findings in the articles with a promise that you will share your findings with them. This creates pre-eminence again and gives you an excuse to contact your client base at least twice with some interesting and useful information.

15. Create mindmaps which summarise the main points of an article you read and send your database a copy of the full article and your summary so they can choose to read one or the other depending on their desire for a low or high level of detail.

Thanks for the great ideas, Mike!

By the way, Advocate Mortgage Corporation is a Sydney-based mortgage broker with a difference - their property finance consultants are also experienced solicitors, enabling them to offer “your loans and legals in one place”. Advocate Mortgage are specialists in first home loans and mortgage refinance.

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7 Key Trends In Advertising and Lead Generation for 2007

The other day I was chatting with colleagues about some of the implications of a recent happening in Australian media: Electronics maker LG was barred by all commercial and Pay TV stations from televising an ad for a TV recorder that specifically promoted the benefits of skipping ads.

From the original article:

The original ad featured a line that would have had universal appeal to TV viewers: “When you replay, you can skip the ads.” But after the commercial and pay TV networks refused to run it LG recut it to include the considerably less catchy line: “And when you replay, you can skip straight back to the action.”

While the networks may have won this time, it’s obvious that TV recording technology is here to stay and that the power balance, at least ostensibly, will shift in favour of consumers.

This article sparked off some thoughts that I’ve written up into my…

7 Key Trends In Advertising and Lead Generation 2007

1. Greater use of product placement, sponsorship and ads that aren’t ads.I’ve recently been watching HBO Drama The Wire (best drama on TV?) and one thing that caught my eye is the omnipresence of Heineken beer, usually featured with the label nicely facing the camera. Obviously some moolah is changing hands there.I also lived in Japan for 4 years, where I swear almost everything on TV is an ad. Whenever a product, place or event is favourably reviewed, you can bet dollars to doughnuts (or if you’re from the US, “donuts” ;)) that money is involved (a fact that is almost never disclosed). Me, I prefer journalistic impartiality, but that’s clearly on the way out.
2. More precise targeting of messages, even mass media onesFollowing the inevitable rise of TV recording technology, some industry experts have commented that advertising is not dead, but that advertisers will be forced to target their ads more precisely at viewers to make them want to watch the ads.It’s also fairly easy to conceive of a system that serves ads according to individual viewer habits and preferences, perhaps on a “pay per impression” or pay per action” model (mmmm… the Google Adwords of TV marketing?)While this concept would obviously be many times more effective than current mass-broadcast technology, it’s still “push” marketing. While there’s some mileage in this concept, search-based marketing is likely to return higher conversion rates and ROI (cf. Google Adwords Search conversion rates vs Content conversion rates - search is almost always higher).
3. The rise of education-based lead generation and marketing Reports, White Papers, DVDs, Audio Programs, software etc. will be given away (or sold) with the aim of enticing prospects to “self-select” and allow advertisers to focus their energies and promotional dollars on high-probability prospects rather than anyone and everyone. I’m now currently conducting lead generation campaigns for companies who traditionally wouldn’t have touched this “direct marketing” stuff with a bargepole.
4. Accountable, by-the-metrics marketing will become an imperative If you don’t do it, you’ll be eaten alive (or at the very least, have a few limbs savaged by hungry corporate alligators). The web obviously facilitates accountable marketing like no other medium, but “offline” direct marketing will also experience a boost at the expense of above the line advertising.
5. PR and spin will trump orchestrated brand-building and marketing efforts. Making products and services into news will be a skill for which companies will pay handsomely.
6. Tighter niches and greater specialisation Gaining greater “share of mind” will become even more difficult, and we can expect more focus on more highly-specialised niche markets as opposed to line-extension or diversification strategies. (See Al Ries’ magnificent book, Focus)
7. Blue Ocean Strategies The rewards of value innovation will become even greater as smart companies refuse to mash themselves to a pulp butting heads with their competitors in hyper-crowded markets. Instead, the most successful companies and brands will strive to create uncontested market space - easier said than done.

So there are my 7 key trends. Do you have any more you think deserve a mention? Leave a comment!

** By the way, a recent blog post by Yaro Starak touched on a related subject to this post, Should Bloggers Accept Money For Reviews?

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8 out of 10 Marketing Approaches You Try Will Not Work

98%* of the books or articles you read about marketing will contain glowing reports of what worked well. You never hear much about the things that fizzed, splatted or imploded.

That’s quite different from the real world. Yes, there are some smart or experienced marketers who can make campaigns work like gangbusters most of the time. But in most cases, the reality is this: Most marketing approaches you try will FAIL or be only marginally successful.

You’ll send out direct mails that get a pitiful response. You’ll place an ad that burns a hole in your marketing budget but goes nowhere. We’ve all been there.

But the important thing to remember is….

It doesn’t matter!

If you follow the rule of conservatively testing marketing approaches on a small scale before rolling them out only once they’ve proven themselves, you won’t go far wrong.

Most marketers don’t test enough options (I include myself here). Over the next quarter I resolve to double the number of marketing tests I conduct - I’ll report back with any interesting results.

Question: what marketing tests have YOU conducted in the past? What were the insights or results?

• This figure may not be strictly accurate. I just made it up.

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Example of a Well-Positioned Business - Dilmah Tea

There’s an interesting article in the latest edition of Wealth Creator magazine about the founder of Dilmah Tea, Merill J. Fernando.

Apart from enjoying a cuppa of Dilmah Tea on a regular basis, I’ve always admired Dilmah as a well-positioned product.

What does “well-positioned” mean?

To me, it means, clearly differentiated from competitors and focussed around a single, appealing idea.

Dilmah’s USP [definition: Unique Selling Proposition] is encapsulated by the tagline, The Single Origin Tea.

Now a tagline alone does not a USP make. Dilmah goes much further, fleshing out their commitment to the perfect cup in myriad ways.

For example, each box of Dilmah tea contains a folded insert that explains the care that goes into the sourcing, packing and delivery of every cup of tea.

The website features some great copy too. Here’s an exerpt:

Dilmah is the product of a lifetime devoted to tea. Founder of Dilmah, Merrill J. Fernando embarked on a quest to bring quality back to tea when in the 1950s, he witnessed the concentration of ownership in the tea industry into the hands of a few large corporations and as a result, the ‘commoditisation’ of tea. As one of the first Ceylonese to have the opportunity to be trained in tea, Merrill harboured a dream since his initiation in the world of tea, to launch his own brand of tea, and to offer consumers the choice of something truly different. His dream took over three decades to come true, and in 1988 he launched his own brand - Dilmah, coined from the names of his two sons Dilhan and Malik. Dilmah introduced lovers of fine tea to the concept of tea ‘picked, perfected and packed’ at origin. Being owned and managed by a tea producer, Dilmah is also a role model for producing countries. Merrill pioneered the concept of ‘Single Origin Tea,’ choosing to remain faithful to Ceylon Tea, acknowledged the finest tea on earth.

Essentially, this is really just “About Us” sales copy - but look at the different strands that are woven together into a captivating product story…a lifetime devoted to tea…struggling against the corporate hegemony to fulfil a dream…the family story behind the name…a model for developing countries…remaining faithful to Ceylon Tea….

This passage oozes with authenticity - so often missing from most marketing communications and something so difficult to convey well. As soon as you try too hard, it slips away.

Almost every day, I’m reminded of how important a strong USP is to the success of any marketing project. A great USP with average execution can succeed, but a weak USP with superb execution often tanks.

To make your marketing work better (without spending any more money), consider re-thinking your USP.

Will

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The “YOU” Mentality Sells More

I was on a conference call the other day with marketing genius Jay Abraham, and he said something very simple but powerful that I wanted to share with you.

That is, the single most powerful marketing strategy or mentality available to you and your business is the YOU mentality. Put simply, the YOU mentality means focusing on the needs of your customers over and above your own needs.

“Of course”, you say, “That’s marketing 101 for dummies”. But isn’t it funny how often many businesses ignore this most basic principle? For example, over 50% of websites start by focusing on the company, NOT on the needs of the visitor. They open with something like this:

“ABC widgets is the foremost supplier of quality plastic, vinyl and stainless steel widgets in Australia”

YAAAAAAAWN!

This approach is spectacularly unsuccessful, because

1) people care more about themselves and their problems than about other people AND 2) it’s invariably filled with unsupported claims and meaningless boasts.

All you have to do is turn this around is to focus on why the customer is even interested in your widgets in the first place - that is, their PROBLEM. Once you’ve shown that you understand their problem, you can start to get them interested in your SOLUTION.

A good rule of thumb is, the word “YOU” should either be written or implied in your headline, and it should feature many times over in all of your advertising materials.

Here’s an example: In my work as an advertising copywriter, I recently wrote the copy for a website aimed at helping companies Export to Japan. Notice how many times “you” and “your” are used to engage the reader.

By examining all of your marketing materials and honing your “YOU” mentality, your marketing results can only increase.

If you haven’t already subscribed to the free monthly “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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Are You Making These Common Small Business Marketing Mistakes? (Part 4)

This mini-article is one of a series aimed at helping you avoid common small business marketing mistakes.

Many businesses only generate a fraction of sales and profits that they’re capable of because they limit the number of different marketing methods that they use.

In fact, most businesses use exactly the same marketing methods as every other operator in their industry - in effect, they focus all their energies on the areas where they have maximum competition!

On the other hand, many small businesses have grown their profits by adapting the successful marketing practices of other industries to their own situation. By simply using a greater number of successful marketing methods, they’re able to do achieve excellent results.

Here are a few examples of slightly unorthodox marketing methods that some of my marketing consulting clients are using with good results…

1. A sticker printer sends direct mail to targeted industries, offering “Full-Color Promotional Stickers at a 1-Color Price”. None of the competition are doing it, so he mops up!

2. A proofreading business hands out flyers at local universities, and gets a huge amount of interest from students who want help checking their essays.

3. A rubbish removal contractor has a very profitable website, which they use to get new business - while their competitors slog it out in the overpriced and hyper-competitive Yellow Pages. Who would have thought people are looking for rubbish removal on the web? But they are.

4. A counsellor uses an active referral program to generate many new clients from a tighly-knit social group.

5. A professional services firm gets highly qualified prospects by offering a free informational report, then converts prospects into clients using a sequential sales process.

My point is - there are a huge variety of marketing methods at your disposal. Do you know what they are, or how to get the most out of them? As a first step, you can subscribe free to our “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” Newsletter, where you’ll learn how to implement effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Sign up here…

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Not Making The Most of a Powerful Guarantee

This mini-article is one of a series aimed at helping you avoid common small business advertising mistakes. Many small businesses don’t have a strong guarantee, or they don’t know how to incorporate their guarantee into their ads. This is important, because powerful guarantees have been shown to increase ad response by 50+ percent.

Gurantees work because they remove the risk of purchase from your customer, making it easier for them to buy. When you guarantee your product or service, you’re showing confidence that it will produce the result you claim - customers respond to that.

Here are a few tips for successfully incorporating your guarantee into your ads:

1. Your guarantee should be a specific promise of performance or results.

Don’t use boilerplate phrases like “Satisfaction Guaranteed” or even “Money-Back Guaranteed”. While these are probably better than nothing, they don’t have a fraction of the effect of a specific promise like:

“Be thrilled with your treatment or we’ll pay you to go to the competition”

” Enjoy a minimum 50% increase in website traffic within 60 days or your money back”

“Send $35 to [Your Company Name and Address]. $40 refund if you’re not completely satisfied.”

2. Test Your Guarantee

In my work as a small business marketing consultant and copywriter, I often work with clients to develop a powerful guarantee. Sometimes the business owners are hesitant - what will happen if customers try to take advantage of a money-back offer? The simple answer to this is to test. Test small at first (one ad with the guarantee, versus one ad without). Keep track of the difference in sales results and any returns or refund requests. If it works, keep doing it!

I’ve always found that a strong guarantee generates more than enough additional sales to cover any returns or refund requests.

Also test different aspects of your guarantee (e.g. wording, time period, conditions etc.) The difference in sales generated by a 30 day and 60 day guarantee can be significant.

3. Make your guarantee highly visible

If you have a strong guarantee, don’t hide it away where it won’t be seen. Strong guarantees make great headlines. Visual devices such as a “Money-Back Guarantee” rosette also work well - but remember to enlarge on your guarantee statement.

What powerful guarantee can you offer your prospects to make it easier for them to do business with you?

If you haven’t already subscribed to our free marketing newsletter “Results-Driven Marketing Secrets” newsletter, sign up now so you can start implementing effective low-cost and no-cost marketing strategies in your business. Subscribe here…

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