Here are the 11 secrets to direct response marketing – how to get more business to come to you in a month than most get all year! discover the real reason virtually all businesses never make the money they could… and should be making!
Secret #1: Marketing Is Everything…Here’s Why!
From the first day you got into business, you were taught that knowledge about what you do was what you needed to become successful. That your “professionalism” will be the key to success. That people will come to you once they hear about how “good” you are. You were probably given the age old “wisdom” that says if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door! “Yeah, right!” Which brings us to our first, and possibly, most important point: Knowing how to get customers, clients or patients is infinitely more important than any other knowledge you may attain!
Secret #2: If You Want Your Phone To Ring, Your Advertising Must Get People’s Attention…And Arouse Emotions!
If you remember just one secret from this article, remember to follow this proven five-step formula in every bit of marketing and advertising you do: 1. Get Attention! 2. Arouse interest and emotion. 3. Tell an interesting story in a believable way. 4. Offer an incentive to take action…NOW. 5. Ask for action, and make it easy for people to do it.
Secret # 3: Typical Yellow Pages Ads Get Typically Lousy Results!
Another example of boring advertising is found in any Yellow Pages anywhere in the country. Most Yellow Pages ads are just a big blur! They all look exactly the same and do nothing to get anyone’s attention! Can you spot one truly noticeable and different reason why a prospective customer or client or patient would be motivated to pick up the telephone and call one of the companies listed? The problem? Yellow pages “advertising” like this is just one big blur of sameness. There’s nothing unique. Everybody looks the same and says the same stuff. You could literally swap names and phone numbers on the ads, and no one would even know the difference! To be a successful advertiser and marketer, you must always remember that…People Don’t Read Ads That Look Like Advertising and Sales Pitches! The Secret Is All In The Headlines and Topics You Use!
Secret #4: News-Style Advertising Gets Up To 500% Greater Response Than Image Advertising!
Yes, you read that right. It’s a proven advertising fact… News-style advertising gets up to 500% greater response than color brochures, business cards, and all other forms of product or image advertising. Do you know why? News style advertising doesn’t look like advertising! It looks like news. Very few people read advertising….but a lot of people read news and other stories. If It Looks Like Advertising, Most People Won’t Read It.
Secret #5: Here’s The Amazing Advertising System That Attracts Qualified, Motivated, Interested and Ready-To-Do Business ProspectsWithout Any Wasted Traditional Advertising Or Cold Marketing!!
Here’s some common sense that seems to be missing in most businesses: You should never advertise or prospect to anyone who isn’t a likely to buy customer in the very near future. We find that the highest profit system is to generate leads who are interested, and then do follow-up marketing to the leads that express interest, and to them ONLY! What better list could you mail to (other than your past customers) than people who have responded to your offer (usually free information) and said, “Tell me more, I’m interested.”? This kind of list, (when marketed to properly with the right kind of killer advertising copy) can yield results and profits beyond anything you’ve ever imagined!
Secret # 6: Make It Easy And Non-Threatening For People To Respond To Your Emotionally Driven, News Style Ads!
One of the most amazing things to us is how many advertisers make it hard to respond to your ads. With traditional, boring, cute and clever advertising, it’s rare indeed to have someone want to respond. But, on that rare occasion, you make it even harder for them to respond by doing things like not having a toll free number they can call, or a 24 hour free recorded message attached to a toll free number, and so on. Real live testing has shown that virtually in all cases, where someone ran tests offering the exact same things in their ads, with the only difference being a toll free number versus a local numberthe toll free number wins! And, when tests are done with the ads offering the exact same things except one has a plain toll free number and the other has a toll free 24 hour recorded messagethe recorded message wins hands down, time after time.
Secret #7: TEST, TEST, TEST!
The importance of this topic cannot be stressed enough. You must develop a mentality to always test everything you do, before rolling out in a big way. Testing is the most important way to be a smart survivor! Don’t ever feel like something is a failure if it doesn’t work. No matter what you do, you’re not seeing failure or success. You’re just seeing results. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just results. If the results are bad, then you need to adjust what you’re doing. If the results are good, then do more and bigger of the same thing! The bottom line is this: The only true measure of your idea is what the market tells you with real, live testing! All the conjecture in the world will not replace a well-designed test! And testing with emotional direct response marketing increases your success rate more than any other form of advertising!
Secret # 8: The One Question That Your Advertising And Marketing Must Instantly Answer, Or People Won’t Respond!
Everyone is totally self-absorbed and selfish. All they care about is themselves, and maybe their family. How about you? Do you care about us, or what we think…or are you reading this because of what YOU thought you could get out of it? Of course, you’re no different from us, or anyone else. All we care about is ourselves. It’s just human nature. So, when doing any marketing or advertising, there’s one question that your prospects are going to ask, subconsciously, when they see your ads or whatever: “What’s In It For Me?” This is a major point you have to understand. If the headlines and copy and reports and client newsletters you use answer this question, they will be moneymakers for you! If they talk about things that don’t answer this question, they will not create responses!
Secret #9: The Most Important Emotion To Create If You Want People To Call You!
What is the single most important element that leads to responses? Do you know what this amazing Secret is? Well, do you? Curiosity! (Yes, we are all nosy as hell, whether you want to admit it or not!) Think about why news and publishing media use teasers as their headlines. Is it because they feel they are “professional” statements? No, we don’t think so. We think that the reason they use them over and over and over is that they: Get responses like crazy! They know something that most advertisers and marketers have zero clue about. They know, if someone is curious, the person will be compelled to take some action in an attempt to satisfy their lust for nosiness.
Secret #10: Solving ALL Your Sales Problems Simply Requires You Solve Your MARKETING Problems!
See, “selling” in the sense that we all think of it is really a dead activity. Nobody wants to be “sold” anything anymore. They want to BUY products and services and think it was their idea. Trying to suck people into hard selling techniques like “closing”, “objection handling” or using any pressure is as successful as trying to push a string uphill! Here’s the secret to solving sales problems: Solve your marketing problems and sales problems will go away! Using these techniques to get qualified, motivated and interested prospects into your marketing funnel exclusively, and make the right emotional connections with themthey will buy without anyone having to sell!
Secret # 11: Using The Right Media For Your Advertising That Delivers The Right Audience To You When The Prospects Are Receptive And Ready For Your MessageAnd That Can Be Tracked And Accounted For!
Choosing where to place your now improved message that stimulates responses is the final step in the success system! As technology has progressed, and as society becomes more complicated, specialized and fragmentedyou must look hard to find the best place to advertise. The two requirements are that: 1. You get to the right people when they’re receptive to you, and 2. That you can track and monitor your results! See, even if you develop the right advertising copy, and you find the right audienceit’s still not very useful if you can’t tell whether or not what you’re doing is working at a cost affordable level!
Now you know the secrets. Think about the whole picture we’ve painted for you here. We’ve told you what advertising needs in order to be effective. We’ve told you about delivering the right message and testing it to make sure it works before you spend even more. We’ve told you that targeting your audience so you match up the right message to the right market is criticaland we’ve told you that you have to find the perfect location to advertise! Implement these secrets and you will truly Get More Business To Come To You In A Month Than Most Get All Year!
To receive the complete “11 Secrets” series, send a blank email to 11secrets@ajwassoc9.par32.com. Steve Robichaud and Andrew Wroblewski have been involved in direct sales and direct marketing since Moby Dick was a minnow. http://www.direct-response-marketing.net
