Small Business Sales, Advertising, Marketing

Please note I am no longer posting here.

All new posts are at www.GSSAM.com

Thanks, Blase

Small Business Marketing Tip – Great Copywriting Equals Big Sales

If you read my last post you probably know that I feel that
copywriting and sales go hand in hand.

The point of copywriting is to draw in your prospect to take
some kind of action that will eventually lead to a sale of
your products or services.

If you create great copy, you will clearly define what you
are offering and create urgency within your prospects to
take the next step to becoming a customer. When you create
great copy, I guarantee your sales will increase.

I talked about this before, but it needs to be repeated.
Keep your information clear and easy to understand. Answer the
questions who, what, why, where, when, and how. If you leave
your prospects with unanswered questions, you are opening up
possible objections and you will lose sales. If they don’t
understand something, they will be less likely to purchase
your product or service.

As you write, try to write from your prospects’ point of view.
People want to know “what’s in it for me?” I call this “WIIFM”
think of it as a radio station playing in your prospects head
24/7. Your job as a copywriter is to answer that question. What
is your product or service going to do for your reader?

Why do they need it?

It is natural for you to want to explain the features and
benefits of what you are promoting. For instance, if you are
promoting an information product you created on designing
websites, you may include a line such as “this product features
a video tutorial that will allow you to follow along and
watch me build a sample website”.

By changing the line to read “this product features a video
tutorial that will allow you to follow along with me as I build
a sample website. It will give you the skills and confidence
you need to build your own website in a simple step by step
manner.” This gives your reader a reason to purchase your product.

Great copy includes a call to action. Don’t get so caught up in
explaining your product/service that you forget to ask the prospect
to buy the product. Some various “calls to action” include the
phrases “buy now”, “call now”, “click here now”.  If you don’t
ask for the sale, you won’t get it. Many people only read the
opening and close of sales letters. Make sure you include a
call to action at the beginning of the letter, and include a
P.S. section at the end that closes with a call to action.
 
When you make your prospects an offer, give them an offer that
is too good to pass up. Offering a discount for a “limited time
only”, for instance, prompts them to act fast. Other incentives
would include a special bonus included with their purchase. To
increase your sales, create urgency within your reader.

Copywriting is a skill that can be learned. It doesn’t come
naturally to everyone. Keep practicing and your copywriting
will become more effective.

Study the sales letter at this link and see how much of what
I talked about is in the letter.

Click Here Now! www.Copywriting-Ebooks.com/ab.htm

Take care,
Blase

Small Business Marketing – Sales Tip

I had a meeting with a client a few days ago, which prompted
this tidbit of information.

I have said for years that the easiest thing to sell is what
someone wants to buy. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Well I can
tell you from experience it’s not for most sales people.

Here is what happened at this meeting. My client had a
presentation that he was going to give to his prospect
and he wanted me to look it over. I read through it and
it was exactly what I thought it was going to be. He
basically backed up the “it’s all about me truck” and
started dumping.

The “it’s all about me truck” contains all of the information
 sales people think a prospect wants to know, like the XYZ
company has been in business since 1892. We have won this
award and that award. Our customers our number one and then
 our next most important asset is our employees. We have the
 best quality, service and price in the galaxy. If you a
buyer you’ve heard it hundreds of times. If you are a
salesperson I really hope you haven’t said it 100’s of
times, but I think a lot of you have.

So I asked my client, “Bill why do you think this prospect
needs your doodad? Does he buy doodads now? Who does he buy
them from? Does he like the company that he buys them from
now? Why does he buy them from that company? What is it about
that company that he really likes? If he could change one
thing about the company he is buying from what would it be?
If he could change one thing about doodads what would that
be? I could go on, but blogs are supposed to be short and
mine never are.

Here is the point. My client never asked his prospect about
his needs so he could tailor his presentation to the
prospect. I know a lot of sales people that do this and
I think they are untaught, lazy, or afraid to ask.

Remember I said the easiest thing to sell is what a prospect
wants to buy? How are you going to know unless you ask what
they want?

Here is how questioning works in action. I was sitting with
the head of engineering and three other development engineers
at a $500,000,000 dollar equipment manufacturing company.

We were discussing building one of the components of their
machine for them. It was a custom design that cost about
$5000 each and we were talking 100’s of them.

The meeting was over and we were all just sitting there
schmoozing so I asked the head of engineering a question?
I said, “Mr. X, if you could wave a magic wand over this
component and make one change to it what would that change
be?” He sat up and thought for a minute, then he looked me
right in the eye and said, “I want it to be smaller, I want
it to be X high and X wide and X deep.”

I looked him back in the eye and said, “Mr. X, if I can do
that for you will you give me the order?” He laughed and said,
absolutely!

After six months of research and development I delivered the
prototype and booked a massive order.

You see the easiest thing to sell is what the customer wants to buy.

If you like this article tell a friend, then go to http://www.gssam.com/
for more information.

Take care,
Blase

Small Business Marketing – Research

This is unbelievable.

I have followed Glenn for over six months just
watching how he markets.

One of his methods is giving away lots of very good
information. It must be working because he just came
out with a FREE video that is 90 minutes long and
of course filled with good information, normally you
would have to pay big bucks to hear this kind of stuff.

Here’s the video,
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6441570332363726861&hl=en

If you would like more information about Glenn’s information
go here, http://www.7stepmarketing.com/cmd.php?af=635367

Now go watch this, it is worth the time!

Blase