John E. Fike Copywriting & Content

The Marketing Power of Enthusiasm

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

One of the things you hear a lot in copywriting circles is that it doesn’t matter what you think about the product you’re selling, what matters is what the customer thinks. There is certainly a lot of truth to that, since the customer is the one doing the buying. On the other hand, I find it is extremely helpful to not only like your product, but to be enthusiastic about it and share that enthusiasm with your customers.

Enthusiasm gets attention. If you are excited about your product or service and display that excitement in your marketing, then people want to know what you’re excited about. Then you get a chance to explain why you’re excited and enthusiastic about your product or service; you get the opportunity to tell them how this incredible product or service you have will change their lives or improve their business. And that’s where the selling gets done.

As a copywriter, I find it ten times easier to write copy for a client who is enthusiastic about his or her product or service. Enthusiastic people like to talk about the thing they’re enthusiastic about—they want you to see the light and get enthusiastic too. So they share everything about it. When I ask one question of an enthusiastic person, I get an answer that might take 10 to 20 questions to get from someone who is not enthusiastic.

A client who is enthusiastic about their product or service also tends to get me interested in that product or service. When I’m interested in something, researching and writing about it seems almost effortless—words just sort of pour out onto the page. Of course, the reality is that I’ve gathered a lot of information about it and developed a plan of attack to write about it and put a lot of work into it. But like any work that is enjoyable, writing about products and services that capture my interest just doesn’t seem like work.

And it will seem that way to your customers too. If your enthusiasm helps capture the interest of your customers they will be driven to find out more. They’ll research your product or service, they’ll ask questions, they’ll look for reasons to buy, and they’ll do it because they’re interested—because they caught your enthusiasm.

Now here’s the caveat. I’m not talking about being bubbly or faking enthusiasm. I’m not talking about using hype and hyperbole to seem enthusiastic. Those are just tricks that your customers will easily see through. I’m talking about a genuine, deep-down belief that your product or service provides great value to your customers and that people are missing out if they don’t buy from you.

When someone has this kind of enthusiasm for your product or service, whether it’s you, your copywriter or your customer, it causes them to ferret out all the details and look at all the different ways that product or service will benefit someone. These details supply the support and evidence that your product or service is as awesome as you say it is. The result is great marketing copy and high-volume sales to customers who are excited about your product or service.

In essence, your marketing and sales copy will go much better if you first sell yourself on your product or service and become an enthusiastic believer before you try to sell others on it.

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Writer

posted by John E Fike @ 9:04 AM, ,

"Is Your Marketing an Empty Envelope?" RT@actionplan.com

Thursday, September 10, 2009

I received this article in an email from Robert Middleton. It made such a clear statement about clear, targeted marketing messages that I had to post it. FYI: I have no affiliation with either Robert Middleton or Samantha Hartley.

"Is Your Marketing an Empty Envelope?"

Imagine you're walking along one day in a park. You look down and see an envelope, which you pick up. It's fine quality paper with a logo on the back and full postage on the front. Impressive.

To your surprise, however, the envelope has nothing written on the front - no recipient's name, no address. And you can tell, on closer inspection, that it's empty.

This envelope, I'm sorry to say, is like most small business marketing. All the investment is spent on the vehicle or marketing strategy, represented here by a nice, stamped envelope. This is like purchasing advertising, web sites, brochures, Chamber memberships and trade show booths.

But, what's missing is a target market (address) and a message (letter inside the envelope). Who should get this envelope? What do you want them to know?

In marketing terms, this missing piece is a differentiated brand message stating who your services are for, and why they need to purchase from you. Without a brand message, you may as well toss your money out the window, because your marketing strategy is doing nothing for you.

Not having a brand is like sending out sealed, stamped envelopes without addresses or anything inside.

This is why so many small business owners find marketing expensive, difficult and a waste of time. If they just did Step #1, things wouldn't be this way.

Marketing Strategy #1: Identify Your Brand Value

A brand is the unique identity of a business. It's not just what we communicate; it includes all the impressions and beliefs your target audience has about who you are and what value you bring them.

Well-branded businesses attract attention with clear, compelling, authentic messages. This can actually shorten the sales cycle, because prospects more quickly understand why they should do business with you. They also appreciate your value, so you can charge premium prices and expect both repeat business and referrals.

No Brand? You're Not Alone.

If your client attraction marketing strategies aren't working, you're not alone. Recent polls I took of large audiences at my seminars consistently showed less than 10% of the business owners felt confident they knew who their ideal clients were and how they were different from their competitors.

Frankly, I was horrified. Over ninety percent of them were wasting money on marketing strategy, sending out sealed, stamped envelopes without addresses or anything inside!
 Your Edge in Any Economy: Brand Your Business

Before you waste another dime implementing strategies that deliver NO message, invest in identifying your brand. Here's what you need to do:

1. Develop a Vision of where your business is going, and the role your brand will play in getting it there. If you can describe what success will look like, it'll be a lot easier to build a bridge to it.

2. Assess the alternatives to your brand. When people don't choose you, what do they choose? How, why and for whom are you actually the better choice?

3. Define your target market. Exactly who needs what you offer and will most value how it helps them?

4. Identify your specific point of difference or Unique Selling Proposition. In other words, what's your special sauce or secret ingredient? Whatever you choose, it must be clear, compelling, authentic and consistently communicated.

5. Package your differentiators, verbally and visually. Here's where you create your audio logo, saying who you're for and what you do that no one else can do as well. Develop a look- and-feel for your brand, too: a logo, color scheme and visual style, imagery and a "voice" to use in your marketing communications.

6. Select the marketing strategies you'll use to deliver the message of your brand to your target market. Great ways to emanate your brand message include writing articles or speaking on signature topics, networking and blogging.

7. Finally, cascade your brand through all your "touch points." Every place your brand is seen or experienced by your target audience should be consistent with your core brand identity.

Well-branded businesses attract more prospects with less effort, get superior, charge higher prices and enjoy more profitable and joyful businesses.

If creating your brand right now seems like a luxury you can't afford, consider the money you're currently wasting on ineffective marketing strategies. Why wait any longer?

So, How's Your Brand Doing?

Stuff your envelope with a unique brand message that will differentiate your services, attract perfect clients and build the highly-profitable business of your dreams! There's just a few days left to enroll in the Enlightened Marketing Branding Action Group.

To find out more about Samantha's Group, please go to the link below:

http://tinyurl.com/branding-action

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Marketing

posted by John E Fike @ 5:58 AM, ,

Overcome Your Targeted Marketing Reservations

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

The evidence is conclusive. Marketing and copy that targets specific segments of your customer population gets significantly better results than marketing and copy that targets "everybody". This is because marketing that targets "everybody" is so generalized and non-specific that it actually targets "nobody".

If marketing and copy don't speak to the issues and motivating circumstances that influence an individual, then that individual can't be motivated to buy. But everyone has different issues and circumstances than everyone else. While it's impractical to hand-craft sales and marketing to target each individual, we can successfully group customers according to what they have in common.

So, while both the stay-at-home mom in rural America and the Silicon-Valley CEO both have need of email, they have very different uses for it. You can't write a sales copy for your email service that will address the needs of both without significantly watering down your response--you'll lose many potential customers in both markets. But you can run one campaign for the stay-at-home mom and folks with needs similar to hers and another campaign for the technology CEO. The result will be a better response from both sectors.

Why we don't get it. . .
Despite the clear-cut advantage to running multiple targeted campaigns, many marketers are still trying the shot-gun approach and trying to hit "somebody" by aiming at "everybody".

For a handful of marketers that occurs because they're not aware of the advantages of targeted campaigns. But for most it's an issue of perspective. Running multiple campaigns targeted at different market segments requires more work and more investment than a single campaign. Therefore multiple campaigns appear to be an unnecessary waste of time and money. Therefore, we need to re-examine the perspective.

There are three main reasons that targeted marketing is a smart financial move:

A non-targeted campaign typically costs more to acquire a certain number of customers than a targeted campaign, because you have to shoot wider and market to a higher number of prospects in order to make your sales goal. With targeted campaigns you can usually reach your goal with smaller outreach. So you spend less to acquire the same number of customers.
It's usually also true that different campaigns often share resources, so your second and third campaigns don't really cost as much as the first campaign. For example you don't really need to develop a whole new web site for every customer segment, just and additional page or two. Both of these factors mean you get a better return on investment by running multiple campaigns at targeted segments than you do by trying to hit everyone.
Lastly, targeted campaigns help you identify the most profitable market segments. Once you identify those markets, you can focus your marketing resources on those segments and decrease your cost per sale because you're acquiring a higher-percentage of profitable customers.

Does sedgmenting your marketing involve higher costs up front? Probably. But it also yields higher returns and profit margins on the back end. A good way to start segmenting your marketing is to keep your non-targeted campaign going while you target just one segment of your customers with a small campaign. If you see success with that campaign, you can increase its size. If you don't see an advantage to targeting that segment, you can target another. As you identify market segments that yield a higher ROI than your non-targeted campaign, you can cut back on the non-targeted campaign and put those resources into your targeted campaigns and increase your overall customer acquisition rate while decreasing your cost per sale.

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, Marketing, Marketing Campaign

posted by John E Fike @ 8:49 AM, ,

Social Media: Answered Prayer for Marketers?

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I'm finding social media marketing to be an interesting animal in the marketing kingdom. It actually allows marketers to do what they've always wanted to do: engage the customer in conversation. Of course the end goal of the marketer's conversation is to sell goods and services. But to achieve that, the marketer needs to understand the customers needs, wants and aspirations.

Until now, the marketer could only guess at his customers' needs, wants and aspirations. Surveys, test runs, and other tools helped the marketer get as close as possible to knowing those things, but there was still a lot of guessing going on.

Now that social media has come along, the marketer no longer needs to guess. He (or she) can go out and find out exactly what people are thinking by what they say to each other and what they say to the marketer. Using Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other platforms, the marketer can search out and find people who are talking about his product or service or about issues that his product or service addresses. He then has the opportunity to make an appeal to those people in the context of problems they are facing and show how his product or service provides a solution.

The beauty of it is that by engaging in this conversation the marketer is not only appealing to the handful of people that he is talking to directly, but also to all the people connected to those people--those who follow their tweets or posts. And those people can also share it with all the people they are connected with if they find it helpful or interesting. So it combines the personal conversation with a sort of mass media distribution. It's far more efficient and effective than traditional mass media or mass mailing advertising in which the marketer hopes he's connecting with the customer but doesn't know for sure until the sale is made.

One of the famed copywriter of marketing lore (I forget which one at the moment) said sales and ad copy should join the customer in the conversation he or she is already having. With social media marketing you really get an opportunity to do that. Additionally, you have the opportunity to customize your message to each conversation--something that cannot be achieved to the same extent through traditional advertising venues.

However there are marketers that don't understand that the key value of social media marketing is the conversation. They're trying to use social media, but they treat it like television or radio. Every tweet or post is a plea to buy from them. Or they send out link after link hoping enough people will check their profile or web site and eventually buy from them.

Let's put this as plain as possible: The value of social media in marketing is engaging the customer in CONVERSATION.

Conversation is an interaction--a give and take exchange of information and opinion. You have to go out and look for the conversations. No one signs up for Twitter or Facebook in order to get a stream of advertisements. Search for people and groups who are having conversations about your product or a topic related to your product. When you join the conversation, add value to it. Don't just show up and billboard your business. Answer and ask questions. Engage them. It may seem like a waste of time to engage one or two people in a conversation that touches your business, but there are hundreds or thousands of others who are witness to that conversation.

The more conversations you engage in, the more people will understand your expertise and come looking for you when they need your product or service.

So get out there and have some conversations.

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Fikopy, Internet, Marketing, Multimedia, Social Media, Web

posted by John E Fike @ 8:20 AM, ,

Advertising & Culture

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

It doesn't take long for the wife of a copywriter to understand almost as much about copywriting and advertising as her copywriting husband--especially when they share the same workspace day in and day out. My wife, Erin, discovered an interesting article in Fast Company over the weekend and wanted to share her thoughts with you all, so I'm giving her the floor (or blog) today. I'll chime in with my 2 cents worth at the end. Here's Erin:

There are a few ads that I really love. Like Geico's Caveman that goes to a therapist. That makes me laugh, so I watch the commercial instead of channel surfing. I only have 30 years or so of advertising to remember, but advertising has changed a lot in that time. Meow Mix anyone? That one was memorable, at least, but there were a lot that were not.

Over the weekend, I read a profile of Lee Clow in the June issue of Fast Company. He's the Global Director of Media Arts for TBWA\Worldwide and#32 on Fast Company's list of the 100 most creative people in business. According to the profile, Clow took advertising beyond memorable to cultural. For any of us that are in the business of trying to get people to take a second look at a product or service, Lee Clow should be on our syllabus. He's responsible for Apple's "Think Different" ads that launched the iMac--and Apple's return to relevance. Some newer TBWA\Worldwide clients include Visa and Pepsi.

I went to TBWA's website, http://www.tbwa.com/ and discovered that the Visa "go" ads are theirs--including the aquarium ad that is perfectly backed by The Moody Blues' "Tuesday Afternoon." At that point my respect for an accomplished ad man became a full blown "advertiser crush." I love that ad, probably because of all the hours I spent listening to The Moody Blues in the car with my dad. As marketers, that's the kind of touchstone that we need to hit. In Fast Company, Clow says, "When advertising's done well, I think it can become part of our culture. When it's done badly, it becomes visual polution." If you're a wordsmith, the same is true for your words. Check out what Fast Company had to say about Clow here:

http://www.fastcompany.com/100/2009/lee-clow

OK, me again. Certainly Clow's ads are much more entertaining than most ads on television and are less likely to cause channel surfing. And, yes, the ads Erin mentions have definitely reached cultural icon status. However, I have a couple of beefs with the notion of advertising as culture.

First, becoming a part of the culture only comes AFTER a company establishes itself firmly. Too many young businesses fall for this trap of trying to become part of the culture--often referred to as brand advertising or awareness advertising. Brand advertising and cultural advertising will help perpetuate a brand, but young brands--especially those backed by young companies--do not generate revenue quickly enough to establish a brand and make it successful. Small companies and young companies must focus on advertising that directly increases revenue or they won't be able to run their ads long enough to become a cultural icon--they'll go broke.

Secondly, I question whether every product should become part of the culure. Here I'm going to pick on VISA. The Tuesday Afternoon ad Erin mentioned would not be very successful by itself--memorable, yes, but not successful. The ad is successful because it is backed by a huge mail order campaign. VISA is just about guaranteed that every time one of their mail pieces hits your mailbox you've seen that Tuesday Afternoon ad or one similar to it within about 48 hours. So as you open the envelope, you remember "Oh, yeah, if I have a VISA card it's easier to do things I couldn't do otherwise." And so you fill out the application and send it in. At least it works that way enough times for the whole campaign to be worthwhile.

Now this is a good example of how multiple marketing solutions work together for overall improved results. It's a good strategy. But consider these two points:

VISA and fellow credit card companies clog U.S. mailboxes and, subsequently, landfills with their envelopes, sales letters and response cards on a daily basis. They hurt the environment from both a deforestation and pollution perspective. Their campaigns could hardly be considered targeted since nearly every American with a postal address receives numerous applications each year. And they show no signs of changing their tune.
VISA and other credit cards are part of the predatory lending industry that has brought our economy to its knees. Should it be easier to go to the zoo on Tuesday afternoon if you can't afford to do so without a VISA card? Isn't that the kind of spending habit that has put us behind the eight ball?

Quite frankly, I'd have more respect for Mr. Clow if he showed more judgment in the clients he chooses to make part of the culture. In my mind, good advertisers, marketers and copywriters have a responsibility in who they choose to represent. Because success, especially success in becoming a part of the culture, impacts more than just the contents of our wallets.

Labels: Advertising, Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Environment, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Sustainability

posted by John E Fike @ 6:00 AM, ,

Be Clear on Your Goals

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Reading a recent entry on Seth Godin's blog: Are we solving the same problem? It struck a chord with me. Everyone sees things through a different perspective. When you ask someone to solve a problem or give their opinion without defining the desired result or the kind of opinion you're seeking, then you get an answer based on the person's own motivations.

For example, I recently wrote an award entry for a client. They are trying to win an award based on a project they completed. When I finished with the first draft, my contact with the client passed it out to everyone who worked on the project to get their opionion. There are several things wrong with that approach, but the biggest one was that my contact didn't qualify the kind of opinion they were looking for. What we needed was a review of the facts to make sure nothing was misrepresented or forgotten. What we got back were largely comments on the literary style of the entry. And one crew leader was just about outraged at how little of his crew's "passion" for the project came through.

While grand literary style and a story of "passion" would make a great magazine article or short story that would attract readers, that wasn't our goal. We had to win a contest based on four distinct criteria. The entry would win only if we showed how my client excelled in all four criteria. Unfortunately for a certain crew leader, "passion" wasn't one of the criteria. It certainly was an important part of what made that project important to the client and their customer, but it wasn't what the judges were looking at.

Actually, the draft that was passed around at my client's office was the second draft. The first one I wrote with the kind of style and grandeur that makes a good profile or story. Unfortunately it came out twice as long as the contest allowed. So what got cut? Everything that didin't directly support my client's case for winning according to the criteria. That meant that some of the literary grandeur that folks in the office would have liked to see got sacrificed. I kept the language simple and easy to understand so that judges could clearly understand the excellence of the project, but to get all the facts and supporting information in there it wound up reading more like a hard news story than an article fit for The New Yorker magazine.

It's not that the feedback we got was "wrong". It's just that they didn't know the criteria by which they needed to judge the piece. Once I reminded the client of the particular goal we were trying to achieve and what we needed to do achieve that goal, we found that we were actually on the same page.

So, the lesson is, when you are asking for feedback, opionions or solutions, make sure that everyone understands what the goal is and what is required to get there.

Labels: Articles, Copy, Copywriting, Product Quality

posted by John E Fike @ 6:01 AM, ,

Announcing: Our Who’s-Afraid-of-the-Big-Bad-Wolf-Anti-Recession Event to Celebrate 5 Years in Business

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Get up to $1,000 in FREE Copywriting, Content, Multimedia or Marketing Services from John E. Fike Copywriting and Fikopy.com

Copywriter John E. Fike is celebrating his fifth year in business by helping fellow businesses market better and market more to overcome effects of the current recession.

For August and September 2009, all customers of John E. Fike Copywriting and Fikopy.com will get $250 in free services for every $1,000 purchased. This Who’s-Afraid-of-the-Big-Bad-Wolf-Anti-Recession Event is ongoing through September 30. Customers must buy a minimum of $1,000 in services to qualify and each customer will receive a maximum of $1,000 in free services.

“Being in business is a good thing and staying in business is even better,” Fike said. “This Anti-Recession event helps other people stay in business by multiplying the effect of their marketing dollar. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate this 5-year benchmark of success.”

A Better Way to Combat Recession than Downsizing or slashing budgets
Downsizing puts more pressure and more stress on your remaining employees, which inevitably leads to decreased efficiency that hurts profitability. It also leaves a business unprepared for post-recession growth. Slashing budgets, particularly the marketing budget, leaves a business with fewer resources for acquiring more customers and slows growth rates.

But taking advantage of John E. Fike’s Who’s-Afraid-of-the-Big-Bad-Wolf-Anti-Recession Event boosts your marketing power and sets your business up for growth in three ways:

Stretch your marketing dollar: You get 25% more free—so you get more services for your money (up to a maximum of $1,000 in free services).
Your marketing is more effective: John Fike tackles every project, from advertisements and sales letters to web sites and white papers, to generate better results than your previous marketing efforts.
Refocus on higher-profit markets: John Fike can show you how to target markets and product lines that will widen your profit margins rather than shrink them—even during a recession.

All Services Apply
Do you have a writing, marketing or multimedia project in mind, but don’t see it listed here? John Fike says, “Give me a call and tell me what you need and I’ll tell you how much more you can get.”

John E. Fike Copywriting Services was launched full time in June of 2004. The Fikopy.com brand was launched in the spring of 2008. John E. Fike and Fikopy.com deliver high quality writing, marketing copy, online content, custom publications and multimedia services designed to increase the success of your business. John Fike has experience serving a wide array of businesses and industries, but places particular emphasis on the following industries:

· Health & Fitness
· Healthcare
· Nutrition
· Personal Growth & Development
· LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health And Sustainability)
· Education
· Wealth building
· Business Building
· Christian Spirituality
· Sustainable/Green Lifestyles
· Sustainable/Green Business

###For more information about John E. Fike Copywriting Services and Fikopy.com, please call 419-371-2302 or send email to john@fikopy.com. We are also available online at http://www.fikopy.com/

Labels: Advertising, Articles, Brochure, Content, Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Fikopy, Internet, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, News Release, Press Release, Web

posted by John E Fike @ 2:53 PM, ,

Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #4: Include a Response Mechanism That Tracks Response for Testing and Follow-Up Promotions

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

This component is highly critical in any promotion, but it’s the one that’s most commonly missed.

In this series I’ve been talking about essential components of successful direct mail and e-mail campaigns. But I’m going to expand this installment to include all promotions, because you can include a response mechanism with any promotion—even commercials and print ads!

So, what is a response mechanism and why do you need one?

A response mechanism is anything that allows you to tie the activity of your prospects and customers to your promotion. A response mechanism allows you to track which promotions and ads are working and which are not. This will save you money, because you can stop running promotions or ads that aren’t generating an acceptable response. You can also determine whether a certain mailing or e-mailing list generates better response so that you only spend money on the more successful list.

You can also improve your promotions by testing headlines, leads and other components. If you see that a new headline generates better response than your old one, then you can start using the new headline on all your promotions and, ideally, improve the return on all your mailings.

In a direct sales package in which the customer is asked to place an order via order form or phone call, the response mechanism is built in—it’s the order form or phone number. You can track how well your direct sales promotion does by counting the number of orders you receive. In a direct e-mail campaign, your response mechanism is the link they click on to place an order.

Outside of direct sales campaigns, including a response mechanism is a little trickier. Well, it’s not exactly trickier, but it’s less obvious. If you’re trying to get customers to come into your store or office, including a coupon or promotion code number directly tied to a discount or other offer is a very successful response mechanism. If you’re trying to drive traffic to your web site, include a unique web address that takes the prospect to a unique page on your site. In a commercial, you can include a phone number or a web address (make sure it’s one that’s easy to remember).

In order for a response mechanism to work, you need to have the following four components:

A reason to contact you—This is everything from placing an order, to requesting information, to entering a sweepstakes. Make sure that your prospect or customer gains something of benefit or potential benefit by contacting you.
A call to action—If you don’t tell your prospect to call, fill out a response card, or go to your web site, then they won’t. Your prospects won’t take any action that you can track if you don’t have a call to action.
A method of contact—This is the phone number, order form, web link, etc. that I talked about above.
A unique identifier—You need to be able to identify each promotion individually so that you can track results accurately.

Let’s talk about that last component a little more, because this is something that most marketers miss.

It is impossible to know whether a particular promotion is successful if you include the same phone number, web link, order form, or promotion code on every promotion. What if you want to test whether one headline works better than another or which publication gets the best response with your ad? If you place the same ad with the same promotion code, web address or phone number in five different publications, you won’t know where the responses are coming from. In direct mail and e-mail you could keep track of which addresses and e-mails you send different promotions to, but it’s a lot easier to track this information with a unique identifier of some sort.

A unique identifier is as simple as assigning a unique promotion code or web address in the advertisement, on the order form, or in the letter/e-mail. A unique phone number is particularly effective if you have the budget for it, because you can hide the unique identifier (most people won’t check to see if you are using the same phone number on each promotion, they’ll just call the number in front of them).

In an e-mail campaign or online campaign, most service providers who handle these campaigns will automatically include unique trackable links. If you’re handling the campaign in house, ask your web programmer set up trackable links in your e-mail, banner ads, or AdWords ad.

However, in print ads or snail-mail campaigns, it’s a little trickier. Many marketers solve the problem by using the company’s main web address followed by a slash and a unique page name or identifier code. Here are two examples:

http://www.proclaimstudios.com/Fikopy/johnefike.html
http://www.ironballwarrior.com/?affid=8434

However, your prospect may think it’s too clumsy to type in a long URL like that and either not bother or just type in the main web address without the tracker information. My favorite way to deal with this is to spend $10 on a unique domain name and forward that domain name to a campaign-specific landing page.

For example, I might use “www.FikopySolutions001.com” for a promotion that gets people to download my Marketing Solutions manual from my web site and I would forward that domain name to a special sign-up page on my web site. If I wanted to run a test and see if a different subject line gets better results, I would use something like “www.FikopySolutions002.com” for the test promotion.

Another way to handle long links is to use a short URL generator like www.tinyurl.com, which creates a short URL that forwards to a web address that may be excessively long. For example, I’ve shortened http://www.proclaimstudios.com/Fikopy/fikopy.html to http://tinyurl.com/5pajnk.

All right, that should give you a good idea of how to use a response mechanism in your promotion and get better results. Next time, we’ll look at Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #5: An Excellent Product or Service That Excites Customers and Offers Many Benefits.

Talk to you then.

John E. Fike
www.fikopy.com

Labels: Advertising, Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Internet, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Web

posted by John E Fike @ 7:52 AM, ,

Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #3: An Outstanding Offer That Is Difficult To Reject

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

No matter how good your copy is, a bad offer will kill response rates.

Your offer is not just the end of your letter or e-mail where you tell the prospect how much the product or service costs. Your offer is everything you are giving your customer and everything you are asking your customer to give you or concede to you in return.

Don’t make the mistake that thinking the only thing your customer is giving up is their money. They are also giving you their trust and, in many cases, their time. Many customers, especially in the B2B arena, are also putting their credibility or reputation on the line when they recommend your product or service to someone else, like a boss.

Your offer includes both the tangible and intangible.

Most marketers do a decent job of including the tangible elements of an offer, such as price and features. But only exceptional marketers also include the intangible elements—the things that can’t be measured or counted.

The key to a good offer is providing more value than you are asking for in return. The mistake most people make here is believing that they have to slash their price point or give away the house in order to accomplish this. But that is not the case.

Fortunately for you the biggest elements of value are intangible and don’t have to impact your price point or cause you to give away more than you can afford to. Let’s take a look at the principle components of an offer:

KEY COMPONENTS OF AN IRRESISTABLE OFFER
Risk Reversal
How can you make your prospect feel that they have nothing to lose by trying your product or service? What are you willing to risk instead? The money-back guarantee is the most popular form of this, but you can eliminate risk in other ways as well. For example, my unlimited revisions policy states that I’ll revise your copy as many times as you require so long as it doesn’t constitute a change in assignment. It assures customers know that they will get what they want. The tangible benefit is that their money isn’t at risk, but the intangible benefit is peace of mind knowing that I’m not going to stick them with copy they don’t like. Don’t underestimate the power of peace of mind.

Price point
The price you’re charging for your product or service is a key point of value for many customers. But instead of lowering your price, show how you offer more value per dollar than your competitors or show how much lifetime value you offer and how small your price is by comparison. For example, a client of mine who is a coffee retailer sells coffee in 1-pound (16 ounces) bags while her competitors sell it in 12-ounce bags. Her price is higher, but only because she sells more coffee in a package. I recommended including this phrase on all her bags: “LOOK! FULL 1-POUND PACKAGES! Leading competitor only 12 oz. Pound-for-pound, KaffeeScape gives more value!”

Unique Selling Position
What sets you apart from your competitors? What will your customers get from you that they can’t get anywhere else no matter what the price? Sometimes just being different or having a name that’s associated with a particular concept is enough to ensure the sale—that’s part of a good branding. But if there is something unique about your product or service that addresses a real need creates even more value. A great example of this is Market Leader Solutions. This executive and sales headhunter takes a step beyond its competitors by guaranteeing the performance of new hires for an entire year instead of just 90 days.

Payment options
How many ways can your customers pay for your product or service? How can you make payment easier for your customers? Internet retailers usually find that sales go up when they offer purchase by both credit card and PayPal (or similar), but sales are pretty meager for Internet retailers that only accept check or money order—it’s a trust thing. Another option that works well for high-ticket items is offering a payment plan. If customers frequently turn away because they can’t afford a lump-sum payment, try breaking it into monthly or weekly payments.

There are many more ways to add value to your offer, but these are the key points to consider when working on your next campaign.

If you’d like to talk about ways to increase the value of your offer, I’d be glad to schedule a FREE, no-obligation 15-minute consultation. Just give me a call at 419-371-2302.

Next time we’ll move on to Secret #4 in the Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits in Direct Mail and E-mail Campaign series. Secret #3 is A Response Mechanism that Tracks Response for Testing and Follow-Up Promotions.

Talk to you then.

John E. Fike
www.fikopy.com

Labels: Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Internet, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Web

posted by John E Fike @ 6:22 PM, ,

Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #2: Research That Identifies the Desires and Fears and Uncovers A Fresh Marketing Approach for Your Campaign—Part II

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Yesterday I explained that good sales copy in direct mail and email campaigns requires research to be successful, because it provides details that your prospects need in order to make a purchasing decision and it reveals fresh, unique marketing angles.

Today let’s talk about what kind of research you should be doing and what you should be looking for in order to achieve these objectives and motivate more customers to buy.

Features & Benefits
One of the first kinds of research I do in preparing for a direct mail or email campaign is uncovering all the features and benefits of the product or service that I’m selling. Features and benefits help the prospect understand what your product or service does and how his or her life will be improved by it.

Features include all the technical details of a product or service, including shape, color, functions, purposes, who made or provides it, how it is made or provided, how it does its job, how or why it was invented, etc. Benefits are all the ways these things make life better, easier, simpler, or more exciting than it is right now.

Uncover the features and benefits of your product or service by looking at the product or service itself and experiencing it with your hands, eyes and ears (and any other sensory organs that may apply). You can find additional features and benefits by sifting through customer feedback, examining how it is made or provided and why it is made or provided that way.

If you sell computer software, for example, your features are all the things the software does and the experience that it provides. I’ll use Achieve Planner by Effexis Software for an illustration. Two of Achieve Planner’s features are that it allows time mapping and automatic product scheduling (based on the estimated time it takes to complete the project). The benefit of these features is that the user can organize and take control of his schedule by designating certain times of the day for certain kinds of activity, such as client work or marketing efforts. Then the user can easily see how long it will take to complete a project based on how much time is available for the type of activity that the project falls into. It cuts down on scheduling confusion and reduces estimation errors so the user experiences fewer headaches.

That’s sort of an obvious example of features and benefits. A less obvious example is how Achieve Planner is delivered to the customer. The feature is that Achieve Planner software is downloaded off the Internet immediately after purchase. The experience-based benefit is that the customer doesn’t have to wait for a CD-ROM to arrive in the mail and can immediately begin experiencing the product’s benefits, like reduced scheduling stress and fewer headache-causing errors.

Don’t ignore features and benefits that are shared by competitors. Copywriter Claude Hopkins took Schlitz beer from the fifth best selling beer to the first by being the first copywriter to describe why Schlitz beer was pure. All the other brands claimed to be pure and made their beer pretty much the same way. But Hopkins’ Schlitz ad was the first to explain it all. By providing proof that it was pure, Hopkins gave Schlitz the competitive advantage.

Use the features and benefits of your product or service to prove the claims and promises that you make about it.

Identify new marketing angles
I’ve already covered this a bit in the Schlitz example above. In researching your product or service, you can uncover new ways of thinking about it that will increase your prospect’s interest. Hopkins’ ad got beer drinkers to think of Schlitz as The Pure Beer because Schlitz can prove its purity.

Going back to the Achieve Planner example, most of Achieve Planner’s features are available in other software-based planners. But those planner systems typically sell for $250 to $300, while Achieve Planner sells for only $89 (at the time of the posting). So Achieve Planner is positioning itself as the planner system that delivers $300 of value for less than $90.

So far we’ve talked about research involving the product or service and how it is produced and/or delivered. Another way to uncover new marketing angles is to research your prospects and their needs and desires. This assumes you have good information on who your prospect is. As mentioned in a previous post, you probably aren’t going to sell Omaha steaks to a vegetarian.

Let’s assume that you do sell steaks (not necessarily Omaha steaks). What do your customers want out of a steak? They probably don’t care that the steak is delivered to their door by truck. In fact, that feature may seem a little weird—wouldn’t it be easier to just drive to the market rather than wait for a truck to arrive? Wouldn’t the meat be fresher that way, the customer thinks.

But your customers probably do care that their steak is thick and juicy and so tasty that it practically melts in their mouth. Perhaps you found a survey or series of customer testimonials that support this idea. So you’ll play up the thick, juicy and tasty aspects of your product. You could also use this desire of your customers to eliminate the weirdness of having steaks delivered by truck by explaining that the only way to get a steak so fresh tasting and mouth-watering is to deliver it directly from the farm to the customer’s door.

Lastly, do research outside of your product/service and market as well. Keep abreast of headlines and surf the Internet using key words about your product/service. While this is harder to systematize, many times an unrelated topic can give your product or service a fresh marketing angle that none of your competitors had thought of previously.

Just yesterday I read a sales letter for a wealth-generating information product that compared Houdini’s failure to escape from an unlocked safe to the close-mindedness people often have in regards to wealth-building schemes. I won’t say that this is the best example, because it didn’t get me to buy the product. The letter also had some other issues that prevented it from being successful. But you can see how tying in an apparently unrelated topic can put a fresh spin on your marketing.

So, research is absolutely critical in developing fresh, unique marketing angles that get your prospects’ attention and proving to your prospects that your product or service actually lives up to the promises and claims that you make about it. Without the research, all you have is hype.

All right. Next time we’ll move on to Secret #3 in the Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits in Direct Mail and E-mail Campaign series. Secret #3 is An Outstanding Offer that is Difficult to Reject.

Talk to you then.

John E. Fike
http://www.fikopy.com/

Labels: Advertising, Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Internet, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Research

posted by John E Fike @ 5:21 AM, ,

Direct Mail/E-mail Secret #2: Research That Identifies the Desires and Fears and Uncovers A Fresh Marketing Approach for Your Campaign--Part I

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

We’ve been talking about the 5 Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits in your direct mail and e-mail campaigns. Today I want to address secret #2—which really ought to be secret #1, because this is the thing that is lacking from 99% of all unsuccessful direct-response campaigns: RESEARCH.

There is a lot of copy out there that relies on an over-abundance of emotional superlatives and shock-factor headlines to sell products and services. Emotional superlatives are words like Awesome, Great, Fantastic, Out of This World, Dynamic, etc. They are supposed to make the prospect feel that the product or service is so wonderful that they absolutely must buy. Unfortunately, it rarely works. Audiences are becoming immune—no, they’re becoming annoyed by these marketing tactics and choose not to buy.

While shocking headlines and superlatives have their place in their copy, they cannot be relied upon to make the sale. Without facts, figures, details, and other ingredients that prove you can deliver on your promise, all you have is hype. Once upon a time, hype was fairly successful at making sales. Today, however, your audience demands to know why you think your product or service is so great.

Research does two things for your copy that will dramatically improve the response you get from your campaign:

Research provides the information your prospects need to understand why your product or service is exactly what they need and why yours is better than better than any competing products or services.
Research helps you identify a fresh, unique marketing angle that eliminates the need for hype and shock and hard-sell tactics.

Ok, that’s all I have time for today. Next time I’ll get into more about what I mean by “research” and what kind of research you should be doing for every marketing campaign. After that, I’ll get into how to use that research to develop a fresh marketing angle.

So long for now.

John E. Fike
http://www.fikopy.com/

Labels: Advertising, Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Fikopy, Marketing, Marketing Campaign, Research

posted by John E Fike @ 7:11 AM, ,

Successful E-mail and Direct Mail Campaigns: 5 Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Direct mail and e-mail campaigns can generate higher return on your investment dollar than any other form of marketing—when done correctly.

But if you’ve tried putting together a campaign for you business without the guidance of a direct mail/e-mail expert, you probably got dismal results from your campaign. When I look at failed campaigns—especially email campaigns on the Internet—they are missing 1 or more of five ingredients essential for a successful direct mail or e-mail campaign. Most failed campaigns lack 2-3 of these ingredients and some are missing all five!

Without these five ingredients your campaign efforts are wasted because you will not reach an audience that desires your product or service with a marketing message that appeals to them and motivates them to buy. Nor will you be able to test various parts of your campaign to make it even better and generate more response and more revenue.

The 5 Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits are:

Over the next week or so, I will be blogging about these 5 Secrets to Generating Huge Response and Outstanding Profits so that you will understand how to make your next direct mail or e-mail marketing campaign a huge success.

As I get the blog entries posted, the each of the five secrets above will become a live link to the appropriate post.

Make sure you subscribe to this blog so that you don’t miss any of the five secrets.

At any time, if you wish to get more information about making your next direct mail or e-mail campaign a success, give me a call at 419-371-2302 or email me at john@fikopy.com for a free 15-minute consultation about your campaign.

John E. Fike
http://www.fikopy.com/

Labels: Copy, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Direct Response, E-Mail, Fikopy, Marketing Campaign, Product Quality, Research

posted by John E Fike @ 12:32 PM, ,

Is Your Brochure Building Business or Wasting Money?

Thursday, December 13, 2007

A brochure is more than a series of bullet points and a phone number slapped on an 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper and folded in three. Like any marketing tool, if a brochure doesn’t increase your business it’s not worth the paper and ink it’s printed with.

While the most common form of a brochure is a three-fold piece of paper printed on both sides, that is not necessarily the most effective form. A brochure is any printed product that explains in brief your business and why others should do business with you. Brochures can be quirky or straight-laced, colorful or black and white, be mostly text, be mostly pictures, be rectangular or cut in interesting shapes. There are few limits as to what a brochure must look like or contain. The only ‘must’ is that it must increase your business or accomplish whatever goal you want it to achieve.

I encourage clients to think outside the office cubicle and broadly consider different approaches to brochure design--even if it’s only in the brainstorming stage and is later refined to more conservative modes.

An important piece of any brochure--and one that is frequently missing from most brochures--is effective copy that helps your prospect move further along the buying process. Copy should tell your prospect what your product or service is and what they stand to gain by using it. Benefits. Benefits. Benefits. The most important thing to include in your brochure copy (with very few exceptions) is an explanation of how your customers benefit from buying your product or service. Many people like to list lots of features in their brochures. Features are important, without a doubt--but if you customer doesn't understand the benefits of those features, they won't understand the value of what you're offering.

For example, one of my clients created and sells a fantastic time-management software. One of the features of the software is that you can create hierarchical project and task lists. Well, if you don't understand that this feature helps keep you organized and makes it easier and faster to prioritize your to-do list, then it doesn't mean anything to you and doesn't help you decide whether to buy the software.

How much copy should your brochure have?

This question gets debated a lot, with copywriters pushing more copy and designers pushing for less copy and more photos (generally speaking). If your product depends highly on its appearance, such as jewelry, travel packages, or furniture, then it's appropriate to include lots of large photos. But for most services and products that don't depend highly on appearances, it's better to give the copywriter lots of room. While it may make sense to include a photo of a telephone operator or phones on a brochure for a telecom company, it doesn't make sense to dominate the brochure with those when what is really being sold is phone SERVICE--something that can't be seen. Instead, the brochure should focus on delivering the features and benefits of the service.

With these things in mind, here are a few things to think about as you go through the design process :

How will you use the brochure? As a mailer? A handout? A business presentation? Will it be carried in a vest or coat pocket or displayed on racks or some other presentation form?

How will your client use the brochure? To compare your service/product to competitors? To present to a boss or colleagues? File it for later use?

How will it draw your clients' attention while still presenting the image you want to project?

How much information do you need to include?

How will photos and illustrations play a role?

Do you need to stay conservative in your format or can you press the limits of creativity?

If you need to stay conservative, why and how conservative? If you can go wild, what are the limits?

What is your budget? What can you spend on printing? What can you spend on design costs? Note: Spending more on design can yield a brochure that can save you printing costs and produce better results, which will give you more bang for your buck.

What your brochure should accomplish:

1. Your brochure should grab your customers' attention. You could accomplish this through its appearance, but it's more effective to do this through the headline by immediately addressing an undeniable need the client has.

2. Your brochure should make the case for using the kind of service you provide. Do you save clients money? Make them money? Prevent lawsuits? Make them more efficient? Increase productivity? Make a list of the statistics and features you can use to build your case.

3. Your brochure should make the case for hiring your company over other companies that provide the same or similar products and services. What is your unique selling position? Are you more affordable? Provide more value? Higher quality?

4. Your brochure should illustrate the process by which you provide your service or product. Does your client come to you or do you go to your clients? What will clients have to do to use your service? What do they have to provide? What do you provide?

5. Your brochure should invite a call or other contact for more information. What incentive do they have to call today? Do you have a special offer, such as a discount price, free information product or premium to give them in return for responding immediately? Will they make or save more money by responding sooner rather than later?

6. Your brochure should explain what the client has to do to get started and state why sooner is better.

7. Your brochure should provide all your company's contact information: company name, address, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, Web site url, different people's names and extensions/e-mail addresses, any other way a client can contact the company.

Labels: Brochure, Content, Copywriting, Marketing

posted by John E Fike @ 4:50 PM, ,

What Your Direct Response Copy Requires to Be Successful

Direct response copy is marketing copy that gets readers to take action and contact you or order your product or service. You see direct response copy in your mailbox every day and it is equally present on the Internet.

Direct response copy includes sales letters, direct mail packages, web site sales pages, requests for e-zine subscriptions and advertisements that ask for a reply from the reader. It can be used to generate leads or generate sales.

Direct response copy isn't as easy as it may seem. Making a sale through writing requires that the writing evoke both an emotional and logical response from the reader that creates a desire to buy the product/service or contact you. Achieving this is difficult, because many of the conventions for direct response writing run contrary to the instincts of most people.

I've been trained in direct response copywriting by the American Writers and Artists Institute in order to provide you with the valuable resources you need for an effective direct response marketing campaign. Call me for a free consultation on how to get your direct-response copy and sales letter to be more effective and generate greater response.

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Direct Response, Marketing

posted by John E Fike @ 3:53 PM, ,

Make Your Marketing Work Harder and Get More Customers for Every Marketing Dollar

A lot of marketing material today is nothing but flash and sizzle. That is, it makes an initial visual impression, but after that it does very little to bring the prospect closer to becoming a client or customer.

How many brochures, flyers, leaflets or business cards have you seen that do nothing more than just list products or services and give an address and telephone number, but leave you wondering about the company's quality and expertise or why you would even need the company's services?

Good marketing copy (the text or wording on a promotional device) helps the reader to relate to your product or service so that they understand why they need it. It should explain the benefits of your product or service and make it clear what your unique selling point, or USP, is in order to create a desire for it in the mind of your prospect. John E. Fike Copywriting Services provides this kind of effective marketing copy.

Brochures
A brochure is a condensed and concise representation of your product or service. It should do more than brag; it should also supply genuine information that is helpful to your prospect or client.

Identity Package
Presenting a unified image is important to building business. From brochures and stationary to mailing pieces, envelopes and business cards, you should be presenting a consistent image-not only in appearance and graphic design, but also in the message you convey. A consistent image and message helps people identify you and what your product or service is.

Annual Reports
This important marketing tool is profoundly underused. Many organizations view the annual report as a burden or chore and believe it gets read by very few people. But anyone who wants to know the strength of an organization turns to the annual report first. This makes the annual report a valuable tool for bringing on new partners, collaborators, investors, volunteers and more. The annual report is an opportunity to showcase the accomplishments and successes of an organization that may not be readily apparent in the financial figures. By adding articles or including financials as part of a corporate story, the numbers are given more relevance and serve to attract people to your organization.

Web Sites
Good web copy quickly lets the reader know whether they need your product or service and why they need it. It also directs them to the next step they need to take or the next piece of information that they need.

Slogan
Most business choose a slogan because it sounds nice or evokes a certain image or feeling. While a slogan should do both of these things, a slogan is more powerful and identifies you better when it reflects your unique selling point (USP).

Advertisements
Whether for TV, radio or newspapers and magazines, your advertisements should avoid hype and be more than just cute. Advertisements should relate benefits to customers and create desire for your product or service.

Multi-media & Presentations
Presentations that represent your business, whether in print, video or electronic media, such as a Microsoft Power Point presentation, should be scripted to keep people's interest and to create emotional buy-in.

Effective copy for all these marketing vehicles is available from John E. Fike Copywriting Services and our network of service providers. Call us for a free consultation on how to make your marketing more effective at generating leads and customers.

Labels: Advertising, Copywriting, Marketing

posted by John E Fike @ 3:33 PM, ,

John E. Fike Tops of List of Freelance Writers Serving Up Articles, PR, Content, & Sales Copy

Companies across the globe needing high-quality press releases, newsletters, case studies, Web content, and marketing copy can get affordable rates from highly-ranked copywriter John E. Fike.

Guru.com, the world’s largest online marketplace for freelance talent, ranks freelance copywriter John E. Fike among the top freelance writers in its international network.

Out of more than 629,000 freelancers working through Guru.com to connect to potential employers, John E. Fike’s high-quality writing and practical pricing place him within the top 25 freelancers offering similar services. John E. Fike was ranked among the top 30 freelancers in all writing categories as of September 2007 and maintains a strong position among the top 25 writers in the following categories:

Report Writing & Editing (Ranked 17 as of Oct. 18, 2007)
Article/News/Press Release Writing & Editing (Ranked 24 as of Oct. 18, 2007)
Web Content Writing & Editing (Ranked 24 as of Oct. 18, 2007)
Creative Writing (Ranked 24 as of Oct. 18, 2007)
Copywriting (Ranked 25 as of Oct. 18, 2007)

Clients from across the country and around the world consistently rate John E. Fike as a Five-star professional on Guru.com.

“John completed our three case studies quickly and for a very reasonable price,” said Dale Harris, advertising manager for Washington State Correctional Industries. “He conducted several interviews, needed very little guidance, and produced excellent copy that effectively communicates our brand to our customers.”

“John is a very talented and skilled writer,” said James Villepigue, author of 15 published fitness books for whom Fike ghost-wrote some material. “His ability to translate and articulate ideas is impeccable. I highly recommend his work to anyone looking for a seasoned writer, who is additionally timely and of the utmost professional caliber.”

Clients who are not part of the Guru network also applaud Fike for delivering high-quality products on time and taking time to thoroughly understand an organization and its project before beginning work.

“John has been able to relate to our company’s needs as far as providing great articles for our publications, especially our annual report,” said Rhodes State College Public Relations Coordinator Paula Siebeneck. “John always has the work turned around in a timely manner and has always met our deadlines.”

John E. Fike combines a creative-writing education with a practical background in journalism to deliver information-packed copy in a style that is pleasant to read and easy to understand. Educated in direct-response copywriting by the American Writers & Artists’ Institute, John E. Fike also delivers high-response sales copy for letters and web sites. John E. Fike focuses on promoting the benefits of products and services and helping prospects understand their need for those products and services.

Labels: Articles, Content, Copywriting, Press Release

posted by John E Fike @ 2:58 PM, ,