Do You Want Clients or Relationships?
Are you trying to get a client or a relationship? Which is better? I would argue that you are looking for a business relationship. However, it can be time-intensive. Businesses everywhere are marketed to every day. Think about your own company – are there other businesses trying to get you to buy their services? When [...]
Assemble Your Own Lists For Better Response Rates
Normally, I talk a lot about copy on this blog, but as a direct response copywriter, I think the quality of your list needs to be discussed for a second. I’ve whipped together lists and rented lists many times over the past few years, and I’ve learned that services like InfoUSA just don’t cut it, [...]
Selling to Businesses? The Same Principles Apply…
There is a large trap that many businesses fall into when they are marketing to fellow businesses: they make assumptions. One of the cardinal rules of marketing is that you do not make too many assumptions about your target market. In other words, you need to educate them and show them why you need your [...]
Informative Copy is Worthless
What’s the point of your copy? That brochure you have or that web site you just put up? Lots of “big time” marketing and advertising agencies will throw buzzwords like “brand awareness” at you, but they’re full of garbage. You spend money on this stuff. Why? To make money. The point of your copy is [...]
The Food That Fuels Your Business
When you have to tighten your belt at home, one line in the budget that always seems to have a little bit of give to it is your grocery bill. After all, you can eat a little less and save some cash, right? Even if you are starving, you can go even a few days [...]
You don’t need fancy.
It’s a hypercompetitive world out there. The average person sees up to 3,000 advertisements thrown at them every day. Businesses everywhere are vying for attention, so they put together slick marketing campaigns full of artistic value and trendy execution. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. And their sales barely move. Why is that? Why [...]
The “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Guide To Writing Good Copy
I recently came across a VCR. In my younger days, I had kept dozens of videotapes with my favorite TV shows on it, one of them being “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”. Whose Line was a great show that came to the United States over ten years ago. The basic premise is four performers play [...]
Fight The Economy By Spending Time/Energy Smartly
What happens when the economy goes down? Business goes down. What do you get when business goes down? Less money. What do you need when you have less money? More money. How do you get more money? You bring in more clients/customers. And how do you do that? You market your business more. So what [...]
How to Make a Tri-Fold Brochure Your Secret Weapon
You can drop it in the mail or hand it off to a potential customer/client. You can keep a stack in your office and you can put them anywhere you want exposure. Yes, the tri-fold brochure is a pretty powerful little piece of marketing for your business. It holds a lot more information than a [...]
Why Aren’t You Reading More?
You know your business better than anybody – so why is your copy suffering? Well, let me ask you this: are you reading any copy? Yes, just like they taught you in grade school, to be a better writer, you need to read. In our case, we need to be reading copy: what’s working, what’s [...]