Continued from page 1
This is why we offer our customers a free copy of
book that some of most famous and creative people in advertising have credited with helping them invent breakthrough, off-the-chart results time and time again.
It’s book that David Ogilvy said "changed course of my life"! In fact, he thought so much of this book that he went as far as saying "Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book at least seven times."
It is also why we’ve added a section to our website that will let you acquire some of greatest direct marketing books of all time. Most of them are out of print. But, you can get them here.
Perhaps most unusual of these books is "The First Hundred Million". This book was written by E. Julius Haldeman. In first half of last century, Haldeman sold a series of little blue books. And only "salesman" he had for each book was its title.
What makes this book unique is that when a book didn’t sell at least 10,000 units a year, Haldeman would change title. And he would keep changing it till book sold enough units to keep it in stock or he would give up on it.
What this gives you is a unique insight to what it takes, in a headline, to motivate someone to buy. It’s a unique book and that is why we offer it to you.
The bottom line, however, is that if you don’t stop traffic with your headline, no one will read or listen to it. That’s Fatal Mistake Four.
I once knew a Real Estate salesman who was having no end of difficulty selling prospects on some terrific opportunities he’d discovered for them. Everything was right about these opportunities. Yet, he couldn’t get anyone to sign on dotted line...till he bought himself a Mercedes.
Once he started driving prospects around in a Mercedes, everything changed. Now, subconsciously, people believed him. They thought: well, if he can afford a Mercedes, he must be successful. If he’s successful, it must be in Real Estate. And, if he’s successful in Real Estate, it’s possible he can make me successful in Real Estate.
This is called congruence. It means that people, when they check you out, come to conclusion that it is safe to believe you can solve their problem. That brings us to Fifth Fatal Mistake in Direct Marketing:
5) Believability. If people have a need for what you are offering, but don’t buy, most likely reason they didn’t is that they don’t believe you.
Guarantees help. Long guarantees help even more.
So do endorsements and testimonials.
Copy can help by giving enough information to make your offer credible.
Anticipating and answering objections and concerns of your prospects help, too. They will always have some objections. If you don’t deal with them, you’ll lose sale and commit Fifth Fatal Mistake of Direct Marketing. The bottom line is that as a prospect must believe a salesman before ordering, so they must believe you.
One of important differences between a salesman calling on a prospect and a Direct Marketing effort is that because you are not there, with your prospect, you cannot watch his or her reaction to you as your unfold your offer. This, in turn, means you have to "take you best shot". You have to put your best and biggest benefit up front. In Direct Marketing, this means:
6) Creative. Perhaps most successful sales letter of all time is letter that The Wall Street Journal has been mailing for something like 24 years. It’s been estimated that this letter has sold $2,000,000,000 worth of subscriptions. Obviously, it is doing something right.
And, what it is doing right is reaching people with right promise. Samuel Johnson said essence of advertising was "promise, big promise". If you read this letter carefully you’ll see what that promise is and why it is so difficult to say "no" to it.
If you don’t make a good promise, you won’t get thru to your customer. Thus, not being creative in your Direct Marketing is Fatal Mistake Six.
Finally, both a salesman and your direct marketing effort must "ask for order!" It seems like and obvious point. But, both salesmen and Direct Marketing efforts frequently forget to ask for order. And, that’s Seventh Fatal Mistake!
7) Not Asking For The Order. This is a crucial element and must be in every single direct marketing piece. Make sure to give prospects a simple, easy way to order. Whether that be a website URL or an 800 #, this should be repeated often in course of your letter.
--Conclusion--
Hopefully, you’ve found these thoughts useful. And, hopefully, they will help you craft even more successful direct marketing packages. Every element of this white paper was written with experience of List Werks' direct marketing specialists.
If you'd like to find out more about our background or to see if List Werks' creative team would be right for an upcoming project, call us at (800) 851-9400.
List Werks, Inc. specializes in business-to-business marketing, primarily for the high-tech industry. For other innovative and low cost ways of increasing business, call us at (800) 851-9400.
