Niche Marketing

The Question You Should Ask Yourself Every Day

This idea woke me up Saturday morning sometime before 5 AM.

I say “sometime” because it was dark and I really didn’t want to know what time it was.

I just wanted to go back to sleep, but the thought literally wouldn’t let me. After quite a bit of internal resistance, I finally rolled over and scribbled the words “Results vs. Activity” in the notepad I keep by my bed.

So what does it mean? Because I’ve worked with so many entrepreneurs over the years - hundreds directly and many thousands indirectly - I’ve had a chance to see what works and what doesn’t in business.

Claude Hopkins Prophetic Insights

In 1918 Claude Hopkins published the book "Scientific Advertising." This book was so revolutionary - and so fundamentally correct - that I can say the following with a straight face:

Every person who is successfully selling online in 2007 is following Claude Hopkins' advice from 89 years ago, whether they know it or not.

In fact Bryan Todd and I consider Scientific Advertising such a landmark text that in our own book "The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords" (now at your local bookstore), each chapter has a segment called 'Advice from Uncle Claude' where his sage advice applies to today.

Long Copy, Long Copy, Long Copy.

I don’t write long copy because I like long copy.

I write long copy… because that’s what works.

You start at the beginning of your sales message… cover the points your prospect needs to hear in order to make a decision… urge him toward the right decision (buy your stuff)… and close with panache.

When you can do that in a few terse sentences, or in a single brief whiz-bang video, let me know. I’ll be right on your heels with my next pitch.

After almost three decades in the front-line trenches of business — slogging through the fog and chaos of multiple technological upheavals — I’m not holding my breath, though.

Why Aren't Your Ads Working?

Is your business growing slower than you think it should? Do you suspect its slow pace might have something to do with ineffective marketing? Most entrepreneurs feel their business should be growing faster, but few know how to isolate the problem. Today we’re going to fix that.

The elements that affect the growth of your business will fit into one of four distinct categories. Understand these categories, and you’ll have a solid framework for self-examination:

1. Share of Voice
What's your percentage of the total exposure for all the businesses in your category? How much of the total signage is yours? What about TV advertising? Radio advertising? Newspaper? Direct mail? Web traffic? If there are news stories related to your category, do they mention your brand or someone else’s? What percentage of the word-of-mouth advertising is yours? Each of these things contributes to your total share of voice.

What Makes Prospects Buy?

We've talked about headlines, subheads and photo captions, the critical attention getting and interest building components of advertising supported by good, effective copy. The fourteen tips that go into writing effective copy.

Now let's switch gears and talk about what I believe is the single most important device that gets your customers or prospects to buy... the call to action!

The call-to-action in the form of a response device. In person-to-person professional selling one of the most common failings in sales people is the fear of closing the sale. Or in other words, the reluctance to ask for the order.

"What Great Advertising Really Is"

Many business people have a distorted view about the distinction between sales and marketing. The common view looks something like this. "Market by advertising to get your name out there, so that people will be familiar with you when you come knocking on their door to sell your products and services".

And off they go, to promote their company with image advertising that shouts to the world how great they are.

They hope, and they pray that some how, some way, the message about their brand will stick in people's minds. Never knowing if it does, or if it doesn't. Or whether their marketing dollars are paying them back in increased sales.

Bob Parsons' Rules Of Success

I'm a sucker for any article promising "rules for success."

You too?

If you're like me, deep down you suspect that you already know whatever the rules are going to be. But you harbor a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, you'll uncover a gem, an "obvious" secret that has somehow eluded you all these years and will now lift your performance to a new level.

Even if not, such lists can be quite valuable because, as one of my mentors used to say about the rules for writing good copy, "We need not so much to be taught as reminded."

"Why the Most Important Success Ingredient Has Nothing to Do With Google!"

100 years ago, in 1903, the Wright Brothers achieved their monumental goal of flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Most people don't know that there were quite a few other people trying to build an airplane at the same time. One was Alexander Graham Bell; another was the President of the Smithsonian Institution.

All of these men were much better funded than a certain little-known pair of bicycle shop mechanics from Ohio with a wind tunnel in their garage.

But there's a key difference that led to the Wright Brothers' success.

The other guys focused on making a more powerful engine.

Does Copywriting End After The First Sale Is Closed? Here Are Some Interesting Success Stories To Suggest It Keeps Right On Goin

If you hear what they say, your business will thrive.

This news is as old as the hills, but there are a couple of recent developments that underline these longstanding truths.

These developments could also have major implications for how you use copy in your business.

This week Jim Burt of The Car Connection Web site reported on a J.D. Power study that says Toyota, for the first time, is getting more repeat buyers than any other car company. Toyota has become increasingly profitable and is doing better than any of the Detroit-based automakers.

The ONE Thing That Separates the Men from the Boys in the Google AdWords Game

There is ONE central idea, one key concept that Google wants you to understand.

If you have this right, Google will literally reward you by giving you lower prices on clicks, and your customers will reward you by buying what you have to sell.

If you DON'T have this right, you'll pay way too much for clicks, your competitors will eat you up, and your whole Google experience will be very, very unpleasant.

The one thing that matters on Google is relevance.

You might think of this as "message-to-market match."

This will make complete sense once you understand a bit of Google's history.