Thanks to Dean for his feedback last week on email marketing versus paper and ink.
I hope you go back and read his comments, he makes some good points.
I actually believe email has a place in your marketing systems. A major place in fact. Lets face it, if your business is entirely online you’ll probably never send out a letter in the mail. Its great for reminding people of offers, getting information to them quickly and even sending people your latest blogs and articles. Hey, this article goes out to my subscriber base via email.
I’m concerned that people are losing that personal touch in favour of saving a few bucks and sending out their newsletters and offers via email. When you’ve got a customer base you can easily get to via snail mail then you shouldn’t think twice. I used to get an industry magazine in the mail, and a couple of years ago it changed to an email newsletter. When it came in the mail I used to grab a cuppa and spend the time reading it. But when it became an email newsletter I rarely even looked at it. And if I did it would be brief. Now, that company lost the opportunity to get in front of me for 15 minutes. Totally dedicated to them. I gave them my time…I was a FAN! They’ve lost that now.
Anyway, my point is to use the BEST medium every time you communicate with your clients and prospects. Not the cheapest but the one which develops the best relationship and the most profit!
OK, now onto this week’s article. And its something you should incorporate into your sales copy whenever you can.
Its a story!
OK, I know what you’re probably thinking…why would I want to tell a story???
Actually we’ve been conditioned to love stories from our infancy. We were read and told stories by our parents and our teachers. Movies and TV shows tell stories. We’re curious and we satisfy our curiosity with stories people tell us.
So when people tell a story…we listen! Its in our instincts.
Stories also help us tell our prospects about our product or service. We can tell them about the success a client had. We can tell them about how easy they found it and what happened along the way. In a lot of ways, stories are a bit like testimonials in that they tell a real life situation in which your product or service helped achieve an outcome.
But here’s another thing you can do with stories. You don’t just talk about the success your client had. You ALSO tell them the before story. What problems did they have? How did these problems make them feel? If your prospect is in the same boat then that’s a hell of a way to bond with them.
The most powerful word combination is “Let me tell you a story”.
Next week I want to tell you why you need to research your market. Yes it sounds like a boring task, but as a copywriter its often really exciting because this is where the BIG breakthroughs occur that’ll pile cash into your pocket.
But don’t worry, I’ll let you know some sneaky ways to get inside the head of your prospect really easily.
Until then, take care.
Hugh
PS I used to think the word “You” was the most powerful selling word. Now I’ve got kids (and just been to 2 kindergarten sessions in about 5 days for Father’s Day) I can tell you the most powerful word is “Daddy”.
<Are you looking for a copywriter for your next project? Contact Hugh at www.salescomefirst.com to discuss your needs>
