Sales Come First

I’d like to know. Was I too harsh?

A couple of weeks ago I was on a popular business forum and conversation moved to my favourite chestnut, newsletters.

OK, just to be clear on this topic, if you’ve got a business where you have repeat customers, or want repeat customers and you’ve got the ability to get people’s addresses, then a monthly newsletter is an absolute MUST. And not emailed either. It has to be real, on paper and delivered straight to their letterbox.

There are plenty of reasons for this, and I won’t go into detail because I did that here: “http://salescomefirst.com/all-about-newsletters/”

But let’s just mention continual customer contact, the value of repeat business, the extra perceived value of something in the mail that’s far away from a ‘DEL’key. And also consider the people who also advise newsletters like Dan Kennedy, my personal mentor Ed Burton, Pete Godfrey, Leela Cosgrove. The list of millionaires keeps going.

Anyway, some moron came up with the comment that you have to consider that people will end up throwing it out because after a few publications they’ve read it all before. And you have to weigh up how else you could spend your valuable time on other marketing activities.

So I instantly replied with the question (which remains unanswered): What better ways are there to spend your time than developing a relationship with your customers?

But his post went on to say that he read somewhere that you only need to contact your customers every 90 days for them to remember you.

So my response to this was: “I read rubbish all the time. I hope you ignored it. “

But what really got up my nose is that this guy is a business coach! Yep, the kind of guy you’re meant to go to and pay for advice! You’ve got to be kidding me! I mean, I give away good advice all the time with these articles, and for nothing. I really feel sorry for anyone who’s gone to this guy for ‘advice’ and now their customer list is decaying month after month because they only hi to their customers on the change of the seasons.

So I wanted to write this as a warning to you to study direct response marketing. Look at the resources I sent you last time here: http://salescomefirst.com/great-resources/ and make sure that anyone who gives you advice actually makes sense. Don’t take advice on face value. Study it, and ask if it really makes sense. And if you want, send me a note and ask me and I’ll more than happily give you my take on it.

And I’d love to know, what do you think? Do you think what I said was harsh? Was I right? Is my advice right, or am I wrong? I’m not above scrutiny, nor should I be. Question everything people tell you and make up your own mind. Even what I say.

Warm Regards,

Hugh Thyer

www.salescomefirst.com

PS If you want a newsletter designed I do have a pretty cheap offering to get you started. Plus I’ve got people who can help you get it out every month without you needing to spend time in front of a computer or sticking on stamps etc.

Every time I buy a course one of the things I really want is the swipe file. I’ve got one of my favourite swipe files permanently on my desk, covered in scribble from my kids.

So why do copywriters treasure their swipe files so much? It’s simple. And I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Copywriters aren’t creative. Some people think of copywriters as a creative bunch. Sitting all together in an executive meeting room with views over the city, drinking champagne as we develop marvelous new campaigns on a whiteboard, slapping ourselves on the back for our creativity.

OK, that actually sounds like fun but sadly it’s not the truth. You’re more likely to find us locked away in our studies with our heads buried in our swipe files, creating YOUR next campaign.

I mean, why create something from scratch, when other people have done it successfully in the past? It just doesn’t make sense. So we copy what’s been done in the past and modify it to the campaigns we’re working on.

This is a lesson, NOT a confession!

Swiping is not as easy as you think. It takes practice and you need to know what you’re doing. For example, if you just take a successful sales letter and just change the words to your product, odds are you’re not going to do that well, even if you used a letter that made a million bucks. That’s because you’re doing it wrong!

So, how DO you swipe? Well, here’s what you’re doing when you do it.

- Look at the structure of the letter. What’s in it? Where is the guarantee, the offer, the bonuses? Work out the flow and see if it makes sense.

- If the letter is in the same market you’re writing for, look at how it creates a bond with it’s reader. What are the pain points it’s targeting? What dream is it selling? What are the central ideas?

- What’s the headline, and the opening? How have they attracted attention? Do the open with a story? Do you have a story that might fit this structure?

- What are the power words they use? The emotional words that create a connection?

- Do they build pain, then hit with a solution? Or do they get the reader excited, then build credibility? What do they do?

Swiping itself doesn’t work. You’re looking for a whole lot of things when you do it, and copying another letter word for word isn’t just silly. And it isn’t just a lazy way to write sales copy. It’s immoral, and worst of all it’s bordering on illegal.

I look at headlines I can modify. And I just love using bullet points that have been successful in the past.

And honestly, I’ve got a pretty big swipe file, but I usually go back to a handful of ads and sales letters for inspiration. Some of the best are Gary Halbert’s, Brett McFall’s and Pete Godfrey’s.

So whatever you do, don’t reinvent the wheel. You don’t have time, and you can’t afford to pay the price while you learn everything from scratch. Build your own swipe file of ads you know have been successful, particularly in your field and re-use what you can.

Next week I’m going to tell you why I cracked the proverbial in a forum recently. Bad advice costs people money, and this was BAD advice. Tell you the story, next week, and there’s a great bit of advice in it for you too.

All the best,

Hugh

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

I’m writing this article because I thought it was about time to share some of the great resources I use all the time.

And I’ve got cheap (ie Free) stuff, and I’ve got stuff that costs several thousand dollars. And all of it’s great value if you get it. The problem is that to do marketing and copywriting right, you have to always be updating your knowledge. Putting more tools in your case, as it were.

So I’m going to give you a lot of free, or at least inexpensive things to grab:

First, the websites. These are cool because they’re free and I check many of them daily.

www.thegaryhalbertletter.com -The ultimate free resource in my opinion. Gary used to spill his wisdom on this site regularly and it’s widely considered to have the best collection of information anywhere. Plus its a great read. Gary had an incredible life and knows how to tell a yarn. Put an hour aside and check it out.

www.makepeacetotalpackage.com – Clayton Makepeace is one of the world’s top paid copywriters and his (and his contributors) blogs are superb.

And of course http://www.marketingbullets.com/index.htm by Gary Bencivenga. Gary’s one of the top copywriters in the world so subscribe for his rare (but incredibly insightful) articles.

www.hardtofindads.com and www.hardtofindseminars.com are sources of great ads written by the masters, and downloadable interviews.

And here are some inexpensive books. Well, how about I give you the authors…

Dan Kennedy – Dan is the master at business building, so grab anything he’s written. His Ultimate Sales Letter is the ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ of the marketing world. And his No BS series are eye opening.

Maxwell Maltz wrote Psycho-Cybernetics. The easiest way to explain it is the instruction manual for your brain. Should be read several times (at least).

Anything by Claude Hopkins and David Ogilvy. Some of these can be found free, especially Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins. I recently bought My Life In Advertising and Scientific Advertising in one book for about 20 bucks.

Think And Grow Rich is a freebie but a classic, as is Acres Of Diamonds. Actually, Acres of Diamonds is one that really influenced me and if you want to make more money, then reading this will turn a lightbulb on for you. Seriously.

And this one is essential reading: http://www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com/ Many people haven’t heard of Drayton Bird. He’s a direct response genius.

As far as courses go, you can buy courses at all sorts of prices.

Here are a couple, but you’ll have to jump on Google and do a bit of research for yourself.

Alexi Neocleous – Advertising Secrets. It’s a manual, and I think it’s about $300. It was one of the first formal things I read on copywriting and I read it twice in 4 days. I don’t know who sells it, and I’m not promoting it for anyone so just Google it and you’ll find it. Pure gold.

Brett McFall’s Ad Camp. This is one I can help you with. 2 days with Brett McFall, and it’s a well structured course and goes through every component of writing sales copy. Costs $997 and get in touch with me if you want more info.

Robert Boduch has a whole package of stuff, including really simple books on writing all sorts of advertising. Dirt cheap, way too cheap in fact. So go find him and just get it. Don’t even think twice.

If you’re in mailorder get Jim Straw’s book on mailorder. It’s straight from the 80’s, possibly even the 70’s but the advice is better than anything else I’ve read since on mailorder. Even if you’re online this book should be a classic. It’s about $50 . He’s got all sorts of goodies so check them out here: http://www.businesslyceum.com/ And he’s a really lovely guy too.

One last person to mention is Pete Godfrey. Pete’s a mentor of mine, and a fantastic copywriter and marketer. Go to www.petegodfrey.com and see what he has on offer. And as way of testimony, I not only have most of his courses, but I’ve actually got 3 of his courses in front of me on my desk right now, and they get used all the time. He’s got a great deal on his Sales Letter Workshop at the moment. It’s worth getting for the swipe file alone.

OK, over to you. What do YOU recommend? I’d love you to share because you’ll help everyone out, and promote that person too.

Next week I’m going to tell you how to swipe (that means ‘ethically steal’) sales copy. Done right it’s a great shortcut…but I said ‘done right’. I’ll tell you how to do it properly.

All the best,

Hugh

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>

It’s not often I use the term ‘knucklehead’ but I’m rolling it out for a very special reason.

Sure, I’ve had it DIRECTED at me more times that I can count but today I had to get out the little hammer, break the glass on the case and use it.

It’s because the businesses in my home town have broken me down and FORCED me to do it.

You see, later this year the cycling world championships are going to be held in Geelong. That is…WORLD championships. Not just part of a world championship series, or the world cup. No. The winner will go back to their home country and be lauded as the very best on Earth. No kidding, the actual world championships. The EYES of the world will be on them.

And for the local shops on the actual course the eyes of the world will be on them. Tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of people will be lining the streets for days on end watching the cyclists in action. Walking straight past their shops waiting for something to do until the bikes go wizzing past again.

And all these knuckleheads wanna do is COMPLAIN.

It’s hard to get deliveries. The roads are closed. Where are my customers going to park? Sook, winge and whine. Man it’s gotta be hard to be a business with all those brand new potential customers walking past, wallets in hand looking to spend some money. Why not hold…wait for it…

…a cycling themed promotion of some sort? Why not hold a competition and give away some prize to anyone who comes in and shows an interest in their products?

Or even better, a promotion built around the theme of how hard it’s going to be when the cycling’s on, so I’m holding a big sale now.

An electrical retailer could sell portable radios to visitors so they’d have something to listen to while they watch.

Cafe’s should be jam packed.

There should be a barbeque on every corner! With someone collecting contact details of people so they can sell them their special offers.

You know, there’ll be some kid selling food or badges who will one day write about all the money he made when the greatest show on earth came to his hometown in a booked called ‘The Story Of A Millionaire’. And all the while walking past shops full of business brokers who spent the week moaning about how bad life is.

Actually, just remembered a book you should go find. It’s called Acres Of Diamonds. I read it once and made a few thousand dollars just by applying what I learnt. Google it, it’s free. Perhaps the local council should print out copies and leave it with every business owner…

The point is, there are opportunities everywhere, and we just have to open our eyes and go looking for them.

Next week I’m going to give you a whole bunch of resources. Books to read, courses to get and people to subscribe to. I just gave you one of them (Acres Of Diamonds) and it was free.

All the best,

Hugh

I wanted to talk about an advanced copywriting strategy in this article because it’s something that either gets missed or done incorrectly.

It’s called a repelling strategy. We know you’ve got to attract the right people to you but you also have to repel the wrong ones too. For example, if you run a landscaping business and you only want to do landscaping with native plants and trees only then there are two things we want to do.

First, we want to attract people who want native gardens, and second we want to repel people who want other types of gardens.

You see by repelling people who want non-native gardens you send the message out to them that you don’t want them to call. You don’t talk about their type of garden and you make it clear that you are not the business for them. Not only do you stop them calling, wasting your time but you create an even bigger bond with the people who do have native gardens.

Here’s a simple strategy I saw recently. It was an ad for a builder who referred to themselves as the ‘Steep Block Specialists’. Now, if I had a steep block I’d call these guys for sure.

But if I had a flat block I wouldn’t even bother. And so they don’t get hassled by me, because they aren’t interested in my flat block. So they’re both attracting their ideal client, and repelling the ones they don’t want. They’re not so stupid as to simply hang out a ‘Builder’ sign, and then telling people what they do once they come in. They clearly don’t want to waste time doing this, and want to get their target clients from the start.

The language you use is important too. For example if you want to target people with money you use words like ‘exclusive’ and ‘deserve’ and ‘reassuringly expensive’. People without money will shy away from these words. They prefer words like ‘cheap’ and ‘cut price’ and ‘bargain’. I don’t mean to sound snobby or insensitive here. In fact, I write sales copy using both types of words for different audiences. But these word choices not only bond you with your ideal client, they repel the clients who aren’t your target market too.

To put this into action, write down a list of things you know about your ideal prospect. What motivates them? What are their fears and their dreams? What words and language do they use?

Then write down all the qualities you DON’T want in your prospects. What’s their mentality? Budget? What do they want out of your type of product or service?

Then grab a copy of your marketing materials and see if you’re targeting your ideal prospects while repelling the rest. Make it clear who you want, and who you don’t want.

Another example might be the accountant who specialises in property investors. They could say “We only deal with property investors. Sure, if you haven’t got any investment properties we could still help you, but honestly you’re better off with someone else.”

Next week I’m going to tell you about the World Cycling Championships in my home city, and why a whole lot of businesses who should be seeing dollar signs can’t get over their old, outdated ideas. They’ll lose a lot of money and it’ll be their own fault. It’s a real lesson in good old fashioned marketing.

All the best,

Hugh

www.salescomefirst.com

<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>