Carol Bentley

A light-hearted finish to the week. Lesley posted this on his blog showing images that are thought-provoking or just plain amusing.

I particularly liked the last image because it demonstrates a phrase that was used in advertising this particular fruit when I was in my innocent, pre-copywriting youth!

Enjoy Lesley’s images.

~ Carol Bentley

In my 36+ years in business (oops! I think I’ve just given my age away! ) I’ve gone through a fair few recessions. And time and time again I’ve seen businesses make a big mistake that, in some cases, has been the beginning of their demise.

You see, when the economy is good business people actively engage in marketing; pro-actively look for new business. They are hawk-like, ready to use all their skills and resources to flush out prospects who want their products or services.

Then the economy dips, maybe a recession hits and suddenly some of these companies turn into an ostrich! They bury their head in the sand, stop marketing; stop spending on the one activity that could help beat recession and generate the sales they desperately need.

Why?

Whenever I’ve asked that question I’m invariably told “Because we aren’t getting enough revenue and we haven’t got the money to spend!”

It’s a catch-22 situation, isn’t it? If you stop or reduce your marketing you’re less likely to find new or additional business, which in turn means your revenues slump and there’s less money for your promotions.

But is this a wise decision? History might say otherwise. If you look at businesses that continued their marketing and advertising, in spite of a recession, they not only survived they often prospered. Prospered because their competitors, who didn’t have the courage to invest in their business marketing had gone to the wall, leaving more of the market ripe for picking.

How To Give Yourself Confidence In Your Marketing

It’s a scary time.
How can you be sure your marketing is a good investment?
Is it worthwhile?
How can you be confident about what you’re doing?

There’s only one way that makes any sense to me. . . and that’s by knowing what your customer is truly worth to you in terms of the overall gross profit they generate for you. Not just on the first sale, but on all the purchases they are likely to place with you. And knowing your direct acquisition costs; how much you spent on your marketing to get that customer in the first place.

Then - and only then - can you calculate how good an investment your continued marketing is.

In fact, I think if you carry out the exercise I’ve described above, you’ll discover a stronger, more active marketing strategy could pay dividends.

So why not be a hawk and spread your marketing wings and flush out all that business that’s waiting for you?

~ Carol Bentley

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I think this must be a ‘business resource’ week because this is the fifth business tool I’ve told you about since last Friday!

If you are subscribed to this blog then you got the private post in which I gifted the specially recorded audio of the conversation I had with Phil Hutchinson.

Since then Phil has generously said you are invited to request an audio-CD (complete with workbook) of a business presentation he gave. In the CD he shares 10 Direct Mail Secrets which, in his experience, make an impact on the success of a mailing campaign.

Listen whilst he tells us:

• How to determine who to write to
• How to trim your mailings costs whilst still generating the highest impact
• The single, most effective thing you can do to make sure your message is read
• Why the wrong presentation of your mailing can decimate response
• Why using the wrong addressing method can drastically cut your open rate

And, because the tips he gives are important, I’ve decided to make this a publicly available invitation so you can get your copy even if you are a casual visitor to this blog.

Pop over to Phil’s website at Direct Mail Services and click the Free Direct Mail Secrets graphic in the right panel.

Enjoy Phil’s generosity and use the tips he reveals to boost your mailing responses.

~ Carol Bentley

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Well - actually you do get a great business book to download - but it is with the express permission of the author who wants to test the effect of digital piracy.

The book is The Irresistible Offer by Mark Joyner. It claims to describe ‘How to Sell your Product or Service in 3 Seconds or Less’.

It is one I bought a couple of years ago and the text in my copy is almost obliterated with highlighter markings because it contains some interesting, and simple to follow, marketing philosophies. If you’ve been studying marketing for a while some of the content will be familiar to you - but if you only get one new marketing gem from the book it’s got to be worth downloading.

To get the book you do have to open a free simpleology account - I suggested looking at that in an earlier post about time management.

You can get more details at: Mark Joyner’s The Irresistible Offer

~ Carol Bentley

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This is a very quick, take action now notice because I’ve only just found out about it.

Ed pointed me towards Ryan Healey’s Birthday Gift Post - in which he is offering a printed copy of his book Million Dollar Marketing Secrets for just $7 (about £3.50) BUT the gift expires early morning (US time) today, Friday 9th.

Now I don’t know Ryan’s work, and I don’t know how good the book is - as you’d expect the write up in Ryan’s post sounds intriguing. But I do trust Ed’s opinion.

And c’mon £3.50 - and the guy isn’t even charging postage - means it’s got to be worth going for.

Anyway I’ve ordered because I always like to see what tips other people offer. And if you act quickly - like now you might catch it before it goes.

Good luck.

~ Carol Bentley

Wow! I was hoping I might get some useful feedback in the survey I invited you to visit, but I didn’t expect such an overwhelming response. So I’ve just got to say ‘Thanks’ in my normal way…

You see the questions and feedback left on the survey gave me some real food for thought. As a result I can see where the frustrations lie for many business people when creating sales campaigns. It wasn’t just writing the letters, there were other aspects that were highlighted too.

So I’m going to give them some serious thought.

But, to start with, I decided to talk to a very good friend of mine who is the Managing Director of a mailing house. We spent 40 minutes on the phone last night discussing some of the issues that impact on the success of a mailing campaign; how a badly structured mailing can dramatically suppress the open rate of letters and subsequently give a low response.

Actually - it was more of an interview than discussion, I wanted to be sure you got some extremely valuable insights so I asked rather a lot of questions for you. And I recorded our conversation so you could listen in like a ‘fly-on-the-wall’.

My friend revealed some startling facts and, frankly, offered good advice - in fact this recording is the sort of thing some experts would make into an audio programme and sell. I’d say it’s worth a good £100 or more, especially when you hear how one company cut their mailing costs in half, slashing it by over £400, in a way that you could too.

But I’m not ’selling it’ - other than to persuade you to look out for the post containing your free gift.

It will take a day or two to get the audio prepared and converted into an MP3 file. When it is ready, you will be the first to hear it. Ah, but that is only if you are subscribed to this blog because this audio is only available to the people who completed my survey or who are subscribed to this blog. The download link will be in a private, password protected post; another gift for my subscribers.

I’ll do my best to get it to you before the weekend if I possibly can, otherwise it will be next Monday afternoon.

Watch out for the post subject ‘Breaking barriers to sales’.

If you are not subscribed before that post is sent out then, sorry, you won’t be getting the download link.

You can make sure you get this valuable gift by subscribing, simply add your name and email to the boxes at the top of the right hand panel and hit the Tell me! button underneath. And, of course, you also get the two reports when you subscribe - it will feel like it’s your birthday this week!

Don’t forget… keep an eye on your inbox for the post.

~ Carol Bentley

P.S. If you haven’t already given me your thoughts in the survey I’d love to know your opinion. Simply visit http://copywriting4b2b.opinion.sgizmo.com

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When I talk to business owners, clients or prospects the most frequently asked question is “What works best in a letter or web sales page?”

It is a question any marketing professional or experienced copywriter is asked time and time again.

And none of us know the definitive answer! In fact the only people who do know what’s working is your customers. Because they are the people who responded to your offer and bought.

That’s all very well - but until you get the content of your message right; targeted specifically to the people you have identified as your ideal audience you’re not going to get those customers, are you?

Test, Test and Test Again…

I’ve said it before - and any marketing expert worth their salt will say the same thing - you must test. The 3 minimum things you should be testing are:

• Your offer:
  -what your prospect will receive
  -how it will be delivered (post; special delivery or, if online, digitally)
  -price
  -payment method (single charge or spread payments, or ‘try before you buy’)

• Your headline
• Your guarantee

Fred Black gives a good description of testing in his blog post Test, Test, Test.

Testing Takes Time…

Testing can be time-consuming - especially if you are testing and sending by post. And in this age of ‘instant satisfaction’ that delay may be too much.

If you are getting high traffic (large number of visitors) to your website you may decide to create an online sales page and use that for testing these different elements.

If you are not getting streams of traffic you can use Google Adwords - or a similar PPC (pay per click) advertising to drive traffic to your test sales page. (If you want to know more about Google Adwords check Ed Rivis’ Google Adwords Voyeur [Aff])

One distinct advantage of using an online sales page is that you can test more than one element at a time. It is known as multivariate testing.

You can use testing software to control this more complicated testing. I’ve just discovered a software package that looks extremely easy to use without costing an arm and a leg; I’m looking into it in more depth and if it lives up to its initial promise I’ll tell you about it in a future post.

In the meantime - remember - only your customers truly know what works.

I can only take an educated guess based on experience. ;¬D

~ Carol Bentley

P.S. If you are wondering what the [Aff] I occasionally include in my posts means, it indicates the link I’ve included is an affiliate link, i.e. if you follow the link, like what you see and decide to buy I get a commission from the vendor.

This is one of the ways you can create an income stream with your online blog.

Is there a difference between corporate businesses and SMEs or entrepreneurs? Three questions asked in my recent survey raised this issue. My answer; Yes… and No!

Am I hedging my bets here? ;¬) Maybe… but let’s look into it a bit further.

First here are the three questions posed about dealing with big companies:

Q1: How to generate more interest in my business from larger organisations.

Q2: How do you adapt your copy if your targets are senior executives and buyers in major corporates? Most of what I read about copywriting proposes big, bold headlines with “huge” specific benefits. And I must admit that when buying myself, these offers can be very seductive. Yet I know from over a decade working with senior executives in major companies that this sort of hyperbolic language and copy tends to go straight in the bin - it’s just not credible.

Corporate executives (in my experience) tend to react better to more conservative approaches. Is my experience out of touch? Obviously these people are human too - and have the same underlying psychology. Yet their experience and background (in my view) means they don’t react well to over-strong selling messages.

Q3: How to find out who makes all the purchasing decisions in a large organisation.

Don’t expect to do a bulk mailing to corporate businesses and get a great response. It’s unlikely to happen. You have to work a little harder for those lucrative contracts.

I advise selecting 10 companies to target and work on, adding others as a rolling prospect line as and when you are able to deal with them properly.

Decide and Research

• Decide which companies you want to do business with. Define exactly what you are offering and which companies benefit most from your solutions. When you contact them talk about a specific ‘niche’ area. Don’t give a smorgasbord of products and services that confuse your prospect and - in their eyes - dilutes your perceived level of expertise and ability to deliver a focused result.

• Do your research. Research the company; the department or division your product or service applies to; discover the challenges the company or that division are currently facing. Check news releases (they are often shown on the company website); is something they have announced likely to give them logistic or ‘knock-on’ effect problems you can resolve?

• Find your target buyer. Don’t go to the HR or purchasing department (unless your offer is for them); aim for the person who heads up the area you are targeting. Read the corporate website; some do give contact names in their ‘about us’ section, although this practice is dwindling. Use the phone; call and ask “who takes care of …. in the company?” (you fill in the blank).

  Careful! You are in information-gathering mode NOT selling mode. One whiff of a sales pitch and the person you are speaking to is likely to clam up.

  In her book, Selling to Big Companies, Jill Konrath describes how to make those important fact-gathering calls so you reach your prime target within the company. Steve Brewer also gives pertinent and easy to follow advice in his CD programme High Impact Cold Calling.

A Slightly Different Approach

• Write individual letters. I’d advise against using extremely large, bold headlines - it doesn’t give the right impression for corporate correspondence. But that’s the only change I would suggest to the structure of your letter. You are still writing to an individual who has challenges within his/her work life and wants a solution. So you do have to grab attention immediately.

  Start your first paragraph with a compelling statement of what you discovered about the company or department’s challenges. Then ask a question that is geared towards the problem he has - the one you identified in your research. Explain the value your offer could bring to his company; quoting case studies from other organisations rather than a general self-serving statement.

  For example, instead of writing “our QR2 system saves production costs” say “Xyz company discovered that 3 months after implementing the QR2 system, production costs had reduced by 2.8% which gave them a projected annual savings of £4.37million.“Be wary of creating a general ’sales pitch’ - it’s unlikely to work unless you are extremely lucky.

• In her book Jill strongly recommends avoiding subservient language such as ‘delighted’, ‘pleased’ or ‘honoured’ and I agree with her. All of your contact (whether letter, email or phone call) should be from a position of equality and strength. Talk as a peer-to-peer. Treat your prospect with respect but expect respect from him too. After all, you are the expert that has a solution to the problem he wants resolved.

Realistic Expectations

• Don’t expect to get an appointment with your first letter or phone call. Have a campaign of actions you will take to secure your appointment to meet. But make sure you deliver valuable information at each contact point; don’t make a self-serving push to get through the door.
  • Let your prospect know about case studies from other companies.
  • Articles from trade publications.
  • Informative reports you can supply (make sure they are informative not just a sales brochure).
  • Gift a copy of a good book you’ve read that gave some good insights to their industry or business or helps address issues they are likely to come up against. (Of course, if that book happens to be one you’ve written and published it gives you an even bigger boost in your prospect’s eyes because you are perceived as knowledgeable; assuming you’ve written good content in your book).

• If it’s practical, be prepared to secure a small contract initially. Once you are delivering great results and the company is pleased with your service you can start negotiating the larger deals.

Share Your Thoughts…

Have experience with larger companies? Either as a provider or perhaps you work (or have worked) within one of these behemoths? Use the comments link below to add your views.

~ Carol Bentley

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If you are one of the many people who managed to spare me 5 minutes for the survey last week - thank you - I really appreciate your feedback. In fact I was really chuffed with the number of completed forms we got in - far more that I’d expected. I do hope the e-book you got in appreciation is proving handy.

A number of people asked some very interesting questions; many about topics I intend to explore with you in future postings on this blog. The exercise of carrying out this survey gave me some valuable insights, which you might find interesting as well:

It’s no surprise the highest score for what you’d like to see in these posts is copywriting; after all, that’s what this blog is mainly about. But asking the question meant I found out what else interests people who visit this website so I can add variety to the content.

It is so easy when we are in the thick of our day-to-day business to lose sight of what is important to our customers and prospects. Holding a survey like this is a valuable way to discover what your customers think about you and your products or services.

Have you asked your customers recently?

You may be surprised at what they’ll tell you and you may even discover something new they’d really value that you could provide, thus giving you a new revenue/profit stream. Worth asking, don’t you think?

On a blog site like this it’s a fine line between overburdening visitors and satisfying a thirst for knowledge. Of course that ties in strongly with the actual content too. As you can see the overwhelming majority felt that 3 blogs per week is sufficient, with the remainder fairly evenly split between random and every weekday.

Why did I start by posting every weekday?

A few people asked why I posted so often… I promise it’s not because I like the ’sound of my own voice’ ;¬D - there is a strategy behind this.

I’ve mentioned previously starting a blog is a great way of keeping in touch with existing customers and prospects. It’s also a great way of finding new prospects… but only if they find your blog first.

To do that they need to become aware of it; search engines, other blogger’s posts and ‘word-of-mouth’ recommendations are some of the ways to get a website known and encourage people to visit.

But…

• A stale website doesn’t show up on search engines; they like dynamic sites with constantly changing content.

• Other bloggers only talk about someone’s blog if there is something interesting to mention - that can’t happen if the posts are infrequent.

• And why would anyone recommend a blog if very little useful content is delivered?

So it was a deliberate decision to make my posts as frequent as possible with the intention of delivering interesting content to everyone in my prospective and actual audience. If you’ve followed this blog for a while you’ll know that I do try to cover a variety of topics to make sure there is something to suit every reader at some point and keep the blog as vibrant as possible.

I will continue to make regular posts - sometimes it will only be 3 during a week. But on other occasions, if there’s something to tell you that I believe is important, I may slip a few extra posts in. ;¬D

I hope that satisfies what you’d like to see.

Other Website Promotional Activities

I’m currently exploring other methods of getting visitors to this website. I’ll let you know how successful those are once I start seeing results.

Thank you once again for sharing your views and helping me to make sure I deliver what you want to read.

~ Carol Bentley

P.S. If you want to run a survey there are a lot of websites offering different solutions. The one I used for my survey, which automatically created the graphs above, is SurveyGizmo [Affiliate link] which offers a free account.

Will you help? Will you answer just 7 questions and in exchange I’ll gift you an e-book giving you a wide scope of off-line marketing activities you can use to drive visitors to your website - actually you can even use these for generating your business sales off-line as well.

Why do I need your help?

Keeping the posts on this blog fresh, pertinent to what you want to read and offering valuable advice is both interesting… and challenging. Most of the time I’m asking myself “What would I be looking for?” “What useful advice would help me achieve my goals?” “What have I seen or experienced that has impressed me or created a measurable result I can share with you, my reader?”

And then I remember that only your ‘customer’ knows what’s right for him and you only get to find out when they respond to your offer.

And that’s where you come in… because only you can tell me…

1. Are these posts useful?
2. Have you taken any of this advice and put it into practice?
3. Have you got results from implementing these tips?
4. Am I delivering what you really, really want?

So now I’m asking you. Please give me your feedback in a short, 7-question survey (there is a question 8 but that’s optional). copywriting4b2b survey

And in return - as a ‘Thank you’ for your time, support and insights you get a great little e-book called Offline Marketing Strategies for Online Businesses; 24 pages packed with crucial tips on how to use ‘real-world’ marketing to effectively promote your website (valued at $47, aprox £25).

• 9 proven ways to advertise that do NOT involve the Internet.
• 8 ways to evaluate if your website is ready for offline promotions.
• Why print publications (like newspapers) aren’t going to disappear anytime soon.
• 3 tips for placing an ad in the classifieds.
• The secret to getting ads into newspapers and magazines for free.
• The number one rule you must follow if you’re going to invest anything in TV or Radio.
• How to launch your website’s presence with direct mail advertising.
• An easy way to add direct response (and direct profits) to your business plan.
• How to determine if your response and conversion rate is high enough.
• 6 places in your town you can likely advertise for free.

But it’s not just good for promoting your online website… all this important advice applies just as much to your ‘real-world’ business promotions.

You have 6 Days… but it only takes 10 minutes

The survey closes on Friday 14th March at 12p.m. (GMT) and, because there are only 7 easy questions, it only takes about 10 minutes to complete.

I wonder… are you like me?

If I don’t act on something straight away; if I put it to one side there’s a pretty good chance I’ll forget about it until it’s too late. If that’s a trait you recognise then, do me a favour, take a few minutes now to answer these 7 questions (they’re mainly multi-choice so you only have to click to choose your answer). Click here to go to the copywriting4b2b survey

I look forward to getting your feedback - have a good weekend,

~ Carol Bentley

technorati tags: copywriting marketing strategies survey

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Applying the Pareto Principle to your activities is the way to truly achieve more in the time (or even less time) than you currently have is the claim from some experts.

Although not an exact science, many studies frequently seem to show 20% ( or thereabouts) of effort generates 80% of the results achieved.

OK - hands up (mine are already waving high in the air) how much of your time is not as productive as you’d like it to be?

Gary Bencivenga (have you heard of him?) gives a great description in his Bencivenga Bullets newsletter of how this principle applies to copywriters and marketers; how he discovered it for himself many years ago and what action he took to turn it around so he didn’t continue to waste 80% of his time.

If you have ever looked back over your day and thought “Where the heck did the time go today? What have I got to show for it - nothing!” then some of the insights Gary shares in this bulletin (and his next one) may give you back a feeling of being in control. Read it here: Bencivenga Bullets

And talking of being in control… tomorrow’s post is an important one for making sure you get what you want from these snippets - don’t miss it.

~ Carol Bentley

technorati tags: copywriting Pareto Principle Bencivenga Less time more productivity

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When a well respected UK business coach decides to share his knowledge and experience then taking advantage makes sound sense.

Brian James is just such a person… you may already know him. Brian has recently started his business coaching blog and I know, because I get his regular e-newsletters, his posts will be packed full of useful business tips.

If you don’t know Brian then I strongly recommend you pop over to his blog at http://www.business-coachinguk.com/ and browse his site. You can start by getting 3 chapters from his book for free; he’s gifting them just for letting him send you a notification email whenever he makes a post. Talk about something for nothing!

I’m looking forward to getting great ideas from Brian… you can too if you subscribe.

~ Carol Bentley

technorati tags: business coaching brian james marketing business advice

I’m getting withdrawal symptoms - not having written my daily blog post for a few weeks. I’m getting back into it gradually (time still being taken up sorting my Father’s estate) and I’m starting with an extract from my book that may be a reminder (if you have a copy) or a useful insight if you haven’t.

It’s taken from chapter 10 and is my unique way of looking at how to structure your sales letter. But… I’m starting to get to grips with hubpages so I’ve put the whole article on this hubpage: Outline of a Winning Sales Letter

Take a look and, would you do me a favour, give me a thumbs up rating? Cheers!

~ Carol Bentley

technorati tags: sales letters copywriting hubpages

Whilst doing my usual browsing of other people’s blogs a post on Ed Rivis’ called ‘Write Press Releases That Sizzle’ caught my eye. He described how to boost your company’s visibility, with both on and offline PR… so I followed the link he included and found an interesting article on Terry Dean’s blog offering some inspiring ideas at http://www.terrydean.org/21-ideas-for-hot-press-releases-part-1/

PR is a great way to get some free publicity. But you have to stand out from all the other businesses trying to get noticed. And news editors are looking for something that is interesting for their readers; something a little different from the ‘norm’.

Some of Terry’s ideas may seem a bit wacky - but they’ve all got merit. I particularly like number 20 - it made me smile.

Help Your News Editor Make Your PR An Attention-Grabber

When I first released my book I sent a press release to my local paper’s Business Editor describing some of the tips it contained and how they help business people get a good result. I wanted to make sure I had the highest chance of the news release being printed so I sent a bit of an odd picture to catch his attention:

The editor asked if the money I was holding was real - it was!

He published the picture, and a long article about the book , on the first page of the business news section. Great result!

In fact he used the picture again when a local Ottakar’s bookstore hosted my book-signing event a few months later.

So what can you do to promote your business? Perhaps Terry’s tips have given you an idea or two?

If you have never included PR in your marketing toolkit maybe now is the time to try. See which of his 21 ideas appeals to you and give it a go. Then come back here and share your results.

~ Carol Bentley

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technorati tags: press releases Terry Dean free publicity