Sales Come First

If you want to put more money in your pocket this year, DESPITE the recession then there’s all sorts of ways you can do it easily. Today I reveal another way you can laugh at the recession and grow your business while all your competitors are panicking (the worst thing to do).

This strategy is quite simple. And its incredibuly powerful too, because you’ve got an opportunity to do something that a) WORKS like crazy and b) your competitors (for whatever reason) DONT want to do.

Not only that, but with so many of your competitors going bust at the moment, there are probably MORE potential clients coming flooding into your marketplace right now just looking for someone to work with.

I’m talking about giving away information FOR FREE!

I bet you’ve seen ads and websites where someone offers you a Free Report or Audio CD. That’s exactly what I’m telling you to do. Here are the main reasons it works so well.

1. You get to showcase your knowledge. Just because you’ve got a mountain of knowledge in your industry, doesnt mean your customers know this. But putting some of this knowledge down on paper shows people that you ‘know your stuff’, and they’ll be far more confident in you. After all, who’s going to get the new client? Someone who puts down 50 words in a yellow pages ad, or someone who write pages and pages of thorough, usable information in a report.

2. The law of reciprocity. If you havent heard of this, it basically says that if you do something for someone they’re far more likely to do something for you. So if you give them free advice, they’re more likely  to give you their business, or at least an opportunity to try for it.

3. People LOVE anything for free. In fact, one of the most powerful advertising words is simply ‘FREE’. So simply putting this word prominently in your advertising will get people to respond to your ad straight away.

4. You get people’s contact details which give you a database of people who are interested. And this is great because you dont just have a list of people who are ready for you now, you also get the details of people who are thinking about you, but are not ready to make a decision. And if you keep in contact with people, you’re in the #1 spot when they ARE ready to make a decision.

In fact, more than anything, a free report is actually a sales letter. Its job is to sell, so it should be written with all the basics of a sales letter in there. In fact, you’re telling people the most important things that they need, and (funnily enough) you can do all of them.

OK. Here are some practical pointers for you to put this into action.

First, you can have either a Free Report or a Free Audio CD. I wont go into the audio CD right here, but its another alternative. (If you want to know more, let me know and I’ll let you know more about it.)

• You must give your free report a title. Think of it as a headline, which it is. Have a look for my other posts on headlines, and follow the rules  in there.

• Keep it lively and conversational. If its hard to read, people just wont bother. But dont waffle on. Keep it to the point, and dont get bogged down in details. The details are for the PAYING customers.

• The best format is the “7 Secrets” format. It might be the “7 Secrets to taking years off your appearance” or “7 ways to rip the tax office off legally”. What about the “7 things to watch out for when choosing a financial planner”.

• Dont forget the next step. What do you want people to do once they’ve read your report? At the end of your report you need (in a very big font) some sort of offer. It could be a free audit of their needs, or a reduced price service or something along these lines. I’m writing a free report right for a prominent financial planner which offers a free 1 hour consultation. Others have included free consultations, audits and bonuses.

• Push your report hard. Make it a prominent part of your ads, whether its a newspaper ad, yellow pages ad or an online PPC campaign. Put it on your business card and your website. When people talk to you, tell them to go to your website and get a copy.

• And my last and most important point here is to TAKE ACTION! If you’re comfortable writing your own sales letters, then set aside an hour a day until its done. If not, get someone to do it for you. But don’t put it in the two hard basket or this powerful opportunity to get new clients will pass you by, straight into the hands of your competitors. Especially right now when your competitors are closing their doors and their old customers and clients are looking for someone else to do business with. Seriously, I can’t stress this enough.
  

Next month I’m going to talk about something I mentioned way back in October last year, and that is newsletters. Unlike free reports which are there to get NEW customers, newsletters help you retain your clients and charge higher prices. In fact, since its way more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, you should be doing everything in your power to keep the ones you’ve got. This in depth article on newsletters will be a real eye opener.

There you go! Two weeks, two articles and two great ways to get an unfair advantage over your competition!

All the best,

Hugh Thyer

www.salescomefirst.com

So you’re writing an ad or a sales letter. You want it to be something original, something creative. Right?

BUZZZZ. WRONG Answer!

Rosser Reeves, brother in law of legendary ad-man David Ogilvy often said “Originality is the most dangerous word in the advertiser’s lexicon”.

And he was right.

But why is this?

I think its because a lot of people think it takes something different and daring to get people’s attention. And on the surface that seems reasonable.

But let me put it another way.

There are advertisements and sales letters out there that have literally made millions of dollars. These are proven controls which other people have tried to beat…and failed. They’re some of the best advertisements you’ll ever see. And in a lot of cases, these sales pieces have been modelled and changed to create OTHER advertisements which have, in turn, gone on to make millions more.

In fact, many top copywriters will tell you they haven’t had an original idea in years, and they’re simply not interested in coming up with one.

And why would they. They’ve got an arsenal of winning ideas and hooks that have worked spectacularly for decades in all sorts of different markets. They know what works, how to structure it, what’s going to get inside their reader’s minds and get them to buy. What’s more important is to take WINNING ideas  and put them together to create an ad with a far higher probability of success.

It would take you years and years of learning and practice to be able to develop something completely different that got you spectacular results. Odds are you’d keep coming up with something similar to the great ads that are already there.

Unfortunately those who want to be different will most likely fail. They do so at the expense of proven, sound and profitable ideas.

Lets take the Wall Street Journal ad written by Martin Conroy. It’s sold over a BILLION dollars of Wall Street Journal subscriptions over 28 years. And smart marketers have recycled the key themes from it for years. They’re using something they know works already, so are miles ahead of a sitting there with a blank piece of paper determined to be different.

So if you want to be original, well, good luck to you.

But if you want to make money then listen up. Here’s what you’ve got to do.

Go and find the top people in your industry and go and grab their ads. Then, when you write your own ads, use these ads as templates. Copy the emotional hooks. Modify their headlines. Create your own closing statements the same way they did.

Or, if you want a BIG shortcut, go and buy some swipe files from some of the masters. I know Pete Godfrey has great swipes in his copywriting manual. Alan Forrest Smith has a whole heap in his too. Dan Kennedy has some products with a collection of hugely successful ads as well. Go and grab them.

Other names to check out too include Gary Bencivenga, John Carlton and Michael Fortin.

And if you want a great FREE source… go to http://www.hardtofindads.com

And here’s the best source of all for writing ads…http://thegaryhalbertletter.com

Next week I’m going to move away from specific copywriting information and tackle a marketing issue…free information, such as free reports, audio CDS etc. If you want to get new clients, this is a MUST read article.

All the best,

PS If you’re in a very specific industry and you’d like to know where to find successful ads you can use as models, shoot me an email at hugh@salescomefirst.com and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Plain and simple, You’re Reading It!

That’s right. The articles I publish on my blog are in fact the most important weapon I have in my arsenal.

And it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, I bet you can publish your own articles and get tons of new business, and KEEP your current clients for longer.

Here are the best reasons I have for writing articles.

#1. Its free. OK, sure. I just mentioned this. But seriously, when you consider how much it costs in time and money to do your other marketing, this one makes perfect sense. Anything you can do to improve your business which costs nothing, and takes you very little time has got to be a good thing. Just go to www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com and get started.

#2. Google loves you! Google just loves fresh content, so by frequently publishing articles on a blog you can keep climbing up and up the page rankings in Google so you get noticed.

#3. Demonstrate your knowledge. I’ve talked about credibility in the past, and what better way is there to PROVE that you know what you’re doing than by publishing articles about your business. An accountant could publish tax tips, a mortgage broker could publish tips about the property and loans market, tradies can publish articles about caring for your home and so on.

Here’s something I do often. I refer new prospects to my blog so they can check out my knowledge and skills. Just having a whole lot of published articles that people can look at does wonders to your credibility.

#4. I love this one the most! You can save time by sending people links to your articles when you’re communicating with them. For example, if I’m writing a proposal on direct mail for someone, I can send them a link to my articles on getting your mail opened or getting great testimonials.

This saves me so much time, and I can give them top quality information without having to rewrite one word of it. It also helps prove my credibility because they can look at the other articles I wrote too.

#5. Reuse your articles in different places. I’m about to start publishing my articles on a few different sites, and they’re a great way of generating traffic. In fact, if you can find someone willing to publish your articles, then you can get access to so many more people than before. You can even use your articles in offline publications too, and I use this strategy from time to time.

#6. The best way to learn is to teach someone else. So one of the side benefits of writing articles is that it re-enforces what you already know.

OK, as always I want to leave you with something you can use. So here are a few rules I follow with my articles.

First of all your articles should be full of killer content. I see so many people write articles that are just mindless waffle. Its almost as if they don’t want to give away any good content in a free forum. Well, that’s a huge mistake. If you want people to follow your articles and use your services, you NEED great content in your articles. Otherwise nobody’s going to read them, and you’re just wasting your time.

Second, if you’re want a mailing list that outside people can subscribe to, you’ll need a way of managing it. I use www.worldinternetoffice.com

But if you’re just going to publish without notifying antone, or want to send out articles to your established contacts then you should be fine without this. That’s how I started out after all.

Second, keep it conversational. Your articles aren’t going to be published in a scientific journal, so keep it in a conversational tone. You can find out exactly how to do this here – http://salescomefirst.com/a-simpler-and-more-effective-way-to-write-your-advertisment/

Did you see point #4 from above in action there? Pretty neat isn’t it!

So in the coming week have a think about how you can benefit from a blog. Then, without delay go to one of the websites I listed above, start up a blog and publish something. The first one’s always the hardest, and once you’ve got it going, it should be easy and fun.

If you want to talk about anything from this article, feel free to email me at hugh@salescomefirst.com.

Next week, I’m going to discuss how original you should be in your advertising. This is a real eye-opener, so dont miss it.