How To Write A Really Great Marketing Letter That Makes Readers Take Action
Unfortunately, many marketing letters do not end with a compelling call to action. When you’re developing your marketing plan you always want to think about what is next? What do we want our reader to do? That is why you need to create intriguing and compelling offers that motivate people to take that next step.
Marketing letters are a very powerful tool. However, they are limited in terms of what they can realistically motivate a reader to do.
For example it is very unlikely that a single letter will:
Get a reader to call you up and hire you.
Result in a flood of phone calls of interest.
Immediately enable you to set up a large number of face-to-face appointments.
It would be nice if a single letter to a never-contacted-before prospect galvanized them into hiring you. Nice, but unrealistic.
Although common sense would dictate that this is true, it is surprising how many people tell me, we tried letters and they did not work. No one hired us as a result of our mailing.
Well what were you expecting? Unless you are marketing tree-trimming services, you are probably not going to get someone to hire you on the basis of a single letter. That is just not a good criterion by which to judge the effectiveness of a letter.
Keep in mind that this is all about building relationships. And in order to do that we need to crawl before we can walk.
What we need is a smaller request. Something that advances the relationship, but offers better odds that the reader will say Yes. Remember that this is a lot like dating. You do not go up to the pretty girl (or handsome guy) who you have never met and say, want to get married? That is akin to saying, I hope you will hire me, in your marketing letter.
Maybe you will get lucky with your letter and it will hit the desk of someone who desperately needs your services. But that is luck. And being lucky just is not an effective long term marketing strategy.
Unless your letter is lucky enough to reach someone who has a crying need for your particular service, the best your letter can accomplish is to raise a mild level of curiosity. Unfortunately, marketing letters are often judged on how many meetings they generate, or how many people call to discuss their problems. From a practical level this just is not how most readers are going to respond.
You will achieve a lot more long-term success if you structure your letter so that it intrigues those who might have a little bit of interest in what you do, rather than only appealing to those with a burning need. This means that the letter needs to offer something that does not commit the reader to a lengthy meeting, a telephone call or anything that requires they actually communicate with someone. At this stage in the relationship, the reader may be interested in your services, but they are also very leery of leaving themselves open to a sales pitch.
This is why the offer of Free Information works so well at this stage in the relationship building process.
The scenario is something like this. Your reader puts down the letter and thinks to himself. That is kind of interesting. They seem to have an understanding of the issues I am facing. However I really do not want to meet with this person, nor do I really want to talk with them on the phone. However they reference some additional information and that might be kind of interesting to read. If I can go to their website and get it, I just might do that.
This is why it is so important to think about marketing your services as a system. Each step in the process should lead to the next component in the sequence. And the step that has the greatest likelihood of succeeding at this-point-in-time is the offer of some more information.
This call to action should direct readers to your website in which this offer should be prominently displayed. Naturally the information form people must fill out in order to get the report links to your automated stay-in-touch system. That is crucial in order for you to continue to move prospects from curiosity to interest to action.
Article author is Mark Satterfield
Press Release - The First Step Of The Marketing Campaign
A press release is usually a definite statement about a new product or service, released singly or simultaneously via the media. There are many ways to issue a press release, i.e. call for a press conference and give a concise statement regarding your product, write a descriptive note and send it to the editors of all newspapers which you identified for this purpose, send it to the local TV network, the national and international TV channels, depending on its importance and your marketing strategy.
Most of the times, official press releases are short and power packed with the news and details about the product or service, in order to get the attention of the public to it. A press release acts like a launching pad for any marketing strategy; once the product is launched in the knowledge of the public at large, the marketing campaign can formulate ways and means to complement and build upon the official press releases to keep the image of the product fresh in the minds of the public.
An effective press release usually has a definite structure. Its body contains the information in a given pattern; so as to ensure that the news is presented in such a way as to create the greatest impact on the mind of the person who reads it. The best format will have a two-line title, normally a very catchy one, describing briefly an event or an important aspect of the product or service. In newspapers this could even get to be headlines on the first page.
This is followed by one paragraph which gives a summary, or a synopsis of what the press release intends to say. This paragraph will be able to tell the whole story for those who will not have the time to read or listen to the whole story.
Next, you will have the lead sentence - which is actually a paragraph - whose main aim is to grab the interest of the reader or listener. For this purpose, this is one of the most crucial components of the official press releases. The catchier the starting phrase or paragraph, the more effective will be your campaign.
The body of the press release should carry enough information about the product as to whet the public’s appetite to know more, to see more, to have more. It should showcase its advantages, its qualities, its use and its edge over the competition.
The whole things may be wrapped up in the last paragraph, summarizing the best features of the product or services soothe readers carry this last picture in their minds long after they stopped reading the press release or listening to it.
Most of the times, the first indication of success will be the generation of enquiries from the public about your product or service. The more enquiries, the more interest is generated. Gauging from the results of the first press release, you need to plan and design your marketing strategy to take your campaign to full success. Tough this sounds easy; a marketing campaign is a very challenging task. Since the press release is almost always the first step in this direction, it has to be done well, since this will become the launching pad of the whole campaign.
Article author is Kevin Dark
Viral Marketing Ideas
Viral marketing is a very powerful way to promote your online business, it is like having an army of people promoting your website for you, the idea is to create something that will grow and spread by itself with very little promotion from you.
There are many ways to use viral marketing to promote your business, some work better than others but the main points you should be focusing on is how it will spread as far as possible and how it will help you.
Here are some viral marketing ideas you can use to promote your business:
Create a rebrandable eBook. You can create an eBook with links to your products inside it and allow all recipients to “rebrand” it with their affiliate links, this is an excellent way to promote your products as it 1) Gives people a good reason to spread it for you, they can make money, 2) It recruits an army of affiliates for you and 3) It will promote your products to every person that reads it and involves no extra work on your part.
Create a video. If you are going to use video to promote your website then you must make it so that people will want to tell others about it, you can do this in a number of ways such as making it interesting, making it funny, making it mysterious or simply allowing others to “rebrand” it with their affiliate links. People like to tell their friends about things that they are interested in, so you have to find a way to appeal to them. Funny videos work exceptionally well as people love to laugh and they will want their friends to enjoy it too.
Build a community. A community is somewhere that people enjoy visiting and participating in, you can simply build a forum for people to interact with each other or you can build a large membership site with lots of great information, products, videos and so on. The main point is that you must make it so that people will want to tell others about it, forums are excellent for this as people will want their friends and family to join and talk with them on the forum.
Start a competition. You can tell all your website visitors that the person who sends you the most sales/signups/visitors will get a cash prize or a free product or something that they will want, just give people a great reason to start promoting your website on a large scale. This is an extremely easy idea to implement as all you have to do is tell people to start sending you visitors through a tracking link and whoever sends the most gets the prize, then all you need to do is send it, very little work and can result in a frenzy of promotion from many people.
Create anticipation. Tell people that you have something really, really big in the works and it will be revealed to everyone soon, this will make people interested and will make them want to know what you are planning, this usually results in them telling others that something big is going to happen or asking people if they know anything about it, the main point is that it will get people talking and spreading the word.
Create a games section on your website. Most people enjoy playing games of some sort, they like to relax and play a little game and this is an excellent opportunity to get them to come back to your site again and again and also get them to tell others about your great gaming section. You can get free games all over the internet and they are not hard to install, once you get them up and running they will work for you as more and more people find them.
Article author is Khemal Dole
Principles of Viral Marketing
Viral marketing has definitely gained its popularity over the global network. More and more businesses are adopting this marketing strategy to gain their fair share in the market. The approach developed by Hotmail in increasing its number of subscribers is one classic example of viral marketing.
How Hotmail Did It
Hotmail is one of the first web-based email provider that gives away email addresses for free. Their marketing approach starts by giving free web based email addresses and additional services. Each of the messages sent with a Hotmail address has an advertisement at the bottom that goes Get your private, free email at Hotmail.
Then, of course, Hotmail subscribers will use the service to send messages to their friends and colleagues. These friends and colleagues will get the message and read it, and then clicks on the link at the bottom. They will also sign up and be a subscriber like what the sender did. Then these new subscribers will also email their own set of friends. The cycle goes on and on.
This is why viral marketing has the power of reaching thousands, even millions, of people in such a short time and with little effort from the one who initiates it.
Elements of Viral Marketing
Dr. Ralph Wilson, an ecommerce consultant, named six elements or basic principles of viral marketing. A viral marketing technique need not have all of these, but the more principles it follows, the more powerful the strategy will be.
1. Give away products or services. This is the first and most basic principle of viral marketing. When a person hears the word free, it elicits the interest in him and will avail of that free product or service, for sure. Having cheap or inexpensive products may also do the trick, but free will give much faster results.
Patience is important in viral marketing. Giving away products for free may not earn profit today but if the business gets to develop customer base by giving something for free, it will soon generate income for them.
If you find yourself confused by what you have read to this point, do not despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.
2. Easy transfer to others. The medium used to carry the marketing message to other people should relatively be easy. Viral marketing has been powerful over the internet because of the ease of communication the technology offers. Email, web sites, software downloads are just some examples that can be used in viral marketing.
Also, it is better that the message be short for easy copying and transmission. Simple and short but straight to the point is best, just like Hotmails advertisement at the bottom of each email sent out.
3. Scalability from small to very large. When viral marketing is used as a marketing style, it is best that the business is prepared for rapid growth. In cases of increasing web traffic thru viral advertising, the web owner should make sure that the host server is prepared enough to handle the expected increase in traffic within a short period of time.
This should not be taken for granted; else, it will defeat the purpose of doing viral marketing. Once people notice that the site takes a long time to load, they will just leave and forget about it. That means an automatic loss of potential customers.
4. Exploit motivation and behaviours. A marketing strategy that builds on motivation and behaviours of people for its transmission is a definite plus. People love to be popular. This motivation will drive them to communicate to more and more people to be known.
5. Utilize existing networks. According to social scientists, an average person has about 8 to 12 members in their close network of family, friends and colleagues. Moreover, internet gives way to creating a bigger network circle. Learning to use these existing networks in viral marketing will yield better results.
6. Take advantage of other resources. Viral marketing need not consume all your resources away. Using other web sites in posting your articles, for example, will get them read by a large number of people without the need of creating your own web page.
It is best to learn these basic elements or principles of viral marketing first before actually doing it. Being too aggressive without doing your homework may just lead to damage instead of success. Try to adopt those that may be applicable to your product. Use all of the principles, if possible, for a more successful output.
The day will come when you can use something you read about here to have a beneficial impact. Then you will be glad you took the time to learn more about viral.
Article author is Gary Shaw
What Type Of Copywriter Should You Hire?
You need something written to sell your product or service. You turn to the Internet, tap the word ‘copywriter’ into Google and search. Bingo!
Thousands of results, plus, swag of Google Ads to boot. So who do you choose? Is the best copywriter the one who’s at the top of the search pile?
Not necessarily. What they are good at - or someone who’s affiliated with them is good at - is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). They know the techniques and tricks to get their website to the top of the search engine rankings. These copywriters are called, quite naturally, SEO copywriters.
Do you need a SEO Copywriter?
If you have a website and need it to climb the search engine rankings, you should consider the services of a SEO copywriter.
The SEO copywriter writes your web page text so that it includes specific search terms, known as keywords. He or she will aim for a keyword density of 3-5 per cent. So for every 100 words, your keyword should appear at least 3 times. The art of SEO copywriting is to make it all read smoothly and, more importantly, persuade the reader that your site is worth staying at until they do whatever it is you want them to do.
In addition to writing the text, a good SEO copywriter ensures that other page elements are optimised for search engines. This includes the Title, Description and Keyword tags, as well as alt text and headings.
All this will help your website climb the ranks. But it’s only part of the solution. A major factor in search engine rankings is the number of links around the Internet that lead to your site. There are several strategies to help you achieve this - but that’s another story.
What about a Direct Mail Copywriter?
A Direct Mail Copywriter is more accurately described as a Direct Response Copywriter. This copywriter can produce not only mailings, but also copy for most mediums, whether it be print, TV or radio. Everything he or she writes should be crafted to get a response from the reader, viewer or listener.
Take a look at any successful direct response advertising and you’ll find the copywriter has followed a formula, often referred to as AIDA, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Adding Conviction after Desire can make the advertising work harder.
Building your brand is not the prime focus of the Direct Response Copywriter. But an element of branding can and should be put into all direct response communications, even if it’s only your tag line.
Or do you need a specialist Brand Copywriter?
If you have a recognised brand or intend to build one, the Brand Copywriter can create the kind of ideas and copy that strikes an emotional appeal in the consumer’s mind.
Most global and national brands are built with the help of full service advertising agencies. An agency gives the kind of total approach - planning, strategy, research, media, creative, production - needed to build a brand.
However, hiring a freelance Brand Copywriter can be far more cost-effective. Before the Brand Copywriter starts work, he needs to know exactly what you want your brand to convey. That’s not a problem if your brand already exists, but if you want to create one you’ll need to have done your research.
In addition - and this goes for all advertising - you need to know your proposition for the job your hired copywriter is going to work on. Your proposition is a short statement that gives the single most compelling reason as to why someone should buy your product or service. Failure to produce a well-conceived proposition is the major reason much advertising fails to produce the desired results.
Don’t forget Technical Copywriters
If your product or service is of a highly technical nature then you’ll need a Technical Copywriter to convey its benefits to your target audience. That could mean communicating to other technically literate people, or else turning the techno-language into everyday speak for a wider audience.
When you know what type of copywriter you want, you then need to find one that’s good in his or her particular field. Check copywriting samples first. Any copywriter of merit will have at least a couple of well-known brand names in their portfolio. Does the copy read well? Does it persuade? If so, ring them up and talk to them. If you feel a rapport developing, that’s a good sign you’ve got the right copywriter.
Article author is Tony Brecher
