Marketing

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How to Circumvent Resistance and Stay Out of the Trash Bin

by Travis Heermann  ||   No Comments

In an age super-saturated with marketing messages, your prospects have developed such an aversion to being sold anything that you have to overcome resistance at every step.

They pick up your direct mail package, see what it is… and toss it in the garbage. So you add some intriguing copy or graphics to the envelope, just enough to make them open it.

They open up your envelope, see what you’re selling… and toss it in the garbage. So you include some headlines that snag their attention, capture their imagination, and keep them reading.

They read some of your headlines, recognize it as just another ho-hum sales pitch… and toss it in the garbage. So you write copy that they simply cannot put down, filled with dramatic benefits, showing them how much better their lives will be if they listen to your message.

They finally reach your call to action, see the cost… and toss it in the garbage because they don’t want to spend any money, even if you’ve managed to get them this far. So now your job is to help them rationalize what their emotions want.
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Tags: , , | Posted in Business Development, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Writing
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Testimonials Trump Sex: Are You Getting Any?

by Travis Heermann  ||   No Comments

As any marketer or sales pro know, good selling is all about the rationalization. We build up prospects’ emotions, touch them, lead them, and then we help them rationalize whipping out the credit card.  The good news is that we, as human beings, rationalize often. To borrow from the film The Big Chill:

Michael: I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.
Sam: Ah, come on. Nothing’s more important than sex.
Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

And that’s where testimonials come in. We can make the prospect feel, we can make her want, but we cannot make her act–until she rationalizes the action.
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Tags: , , | Posted in Business Development, Marketing
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How to Be a Marketing Drama Queen

by Travis Heermann  ||   No Comments

Evoking response is the primary duty of any marketing campaign. Generating more sales and revenue than the campaign cost to produce is the bottom line. Any good marketer knows that the first step is understanding the benefits of the product or service. Why should the customer care about what you’re saying? How can your widget make their lives better?

Advertising legend David Ogilvy realized that the best ads focused on one major benefit and included the others in subordinate roles. Stressing the strongest benefits creates the strongest possible response. But you can’t just say what the benefits are. You have to make them dramatic, so that they fling themselves at your prospect’s mind and stick there. You want to make them keep reading, call, click, whip out their credit cards.

A powerful way to do that is to turn your benefit into a promise.
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Tags: , , , , , | Posted in Communication, Marketing, Writing
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What Motivates Your Prospect?

by Travis Heermann  ||   No Comments

The Myers-Briggs Temperament Test is an increasingly popular way to identify what makes a person tick. The Myers-Briggs Test, originally developed in the 1950s, is now used worldwide to identify patterns of behavior and attitude. The expansion of the test’s popularity has been spurred in large part by Dr. David Keirsey, who refined and expanded the Myers-Briggs types in his books, Please Understand Me and Please Understand Me II.

Human temperament theory states the following: all individuals can be categorized as one of four basic personality types. These personality types can each be broken down into four sub-types based on introversion/extroversion and the person’s preferred role as leader/follower, but those sub-types are irrelevant to the core values of the main types. Each holds a specific core value–the thing that drives people of that type.
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Tags: , | Posted in Audience, Business Development, Communication, Marketing, Writing
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3 Important Reasons to Use Lift Notes in Sales Letters

by Travis Heermann  ||   No Comments

Lift notes, also known as lift letters, are so-called because studies have shown that they can increase the response rate of a sales letter by as much as 50%.  But what is a lift note exactly?

A lift note is a short letter or note from someone other than the writer of the main sales letter—editor, director, expert, creator of the product, etc.  There are three powerful reasons why this is an effective tactic for increasing direct marketing response.
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Tags: , , | Posted in Business Development, Direct Marketing

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Lucien Harriot

"I'm always inspired after a meeting with Market it Write. Mistina's insight into the needs of my company's marketing strategy brings clarity to our messaging and pushes our company closer to the high-performance business model we strive for."

 

Lucien Harriot, Mechanism Digital
Industry: Media   |   Services: Marketing strategy, marketing materials

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2015-04-25T18:47:19-04:00

Lucien Harriot, Mechanism Digital
Industry: Media   |   Services: Marketing strategy, marketing materials

"I'm always inspired after a meeting with Market it Write. Mistina's insight into the needs of my company's marketing strategy brings clarity to our messaging and pushes our company closer to the high-performance business model we strive for."  

Market It Write