Benefit-Laden Titles For Your Products

Master copywriter and copywriting instructor, Ray L. Edwards, talks about alternative, benefit-laden, ways of saying the same thing in copy.

What's With All The Guru Bashing?

There's a shed load of guru bashing on the internet with no end in sight. And it seems to be getting worse.

To be honest, I've even gotten swept along with it once or twice?

Why is it we love to bash the gurus? Because it's in people's nature to want others to fail.

Don't get me wrong, not everyone is like that.

Personally, while I may get swept into a little bashing myself once in a while, I do it because it is a little fun... isn't it?

However, I love it when people succeed. And when they do, I go out and get their product to see how they succeeded.

Of course, there was a time when I'd get the product and let it sit on the shelf, 'looking pretty'.

Not any more. I make use of everything I get. And it's showing in my work and business.

But I digress, yet again.

Okay, I'll just say it, like me or hate me for it...

Dudes... leave the gurus alone!

All they're doing is finding out what people want, and giving it to them. If you could make money doing the same, chances are you would.

They are giving you something you want, the way you want it and in the packaging you want it in. Now it's up to you to make use of it.

If you don't, and you feel you've wasted your money - and you want someone to blame - look in the mirror.

I've got quite a few packages sitting on my shelves, but I use them.

In fact, as I look at them now, here's a few of what I have:

1. Dotcomsecrets - Russell Brunson


2. The 7 figure code - Mike Filsaime


3. Mass control - Frank Kern


4. The copywriter protege program - Carl Galletti


5. Stomping the search engines - Stompernet


6. License to steal - John Carlton


7. Stomper - Stompernet


8. Internet marketing protege program - Terry Dean

Those are just a few of what I have.

I also have a ton of books and a load more audio and video courses. And I make use of them all the time. Even if it's to just dip into them for reference.

Have they been of any use to me? You bet they have. But it's only because I make use of them.

Every single book and course I have has served its purpose. But it's been up to me to make use of them to ensure the purposed is served.

Would they have been any use if I just left them on the shelves without making use of them. Heck no.

Would that have been the gurus' fault? It seems a lot of people like to think so.

Do I think it's been money well spent on all those courses? I wouldn't be sitting here writing this article if I didn't learn what to do and how to do it otherwise.

And yes, I like watching Fank Kern strutting his stuff on stage, cursing and blinding his way through his talks. I don't know about you, but I quite like the idea of being enterained while I'm learning, something Frank - and Drayton Bird - do very well. If I wanted boring lectures I'd go to university.

And yes, I like watching Mike Filsaime talking about Butterfly Marketing in his care sales-mansy way. If we all hate car sales-men so much, how come there's so many cars on the road?

And yes, I like watching Russell Brunson talking about his attempt to go to the Olympics to wrestle for his country. Want to know why? I'm a martial arts instructor myself and I enjoy things like that.

And I like watching John Carlton go into his story selling mode - my father was the same. He had a story for everything - not that he was a salesman.

(I have to say, John could have picked up a few things about copywriting from my father, as could plenty of others. I wish I had taken much more notice of what he used to say. These guys have no idea what life experience is compared him.)

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Best,

Rezbi

Marketing Management (Hardcover)

The American edition of Marketing Management is the world's leading marketing text because its content and organization consistently reflect changes in marketing theory and practice . This new European Edition of Marketing Management has been inspired by the American edition and explores the challenges facing European marketing practitioners, with all the case studies and exercises newly re-written for European students. 




From the Back Cover

Praise for th (more...)

Best Garden Decor

Make Sure That Before Anything Is Created, Database People Talk To Creative People

A little later I have a free offer for you, but first ...

Years ago I used to talk about what I call the "Nod Factor", which is essential in your messages.

I came up with this because most selling messages get one of three reactions.

• The first (and most common) is total indifference, because the message is irrelevant, stupid or meaningless, such as "T-mobile - stick together". This gets at best a puzzled "Uh?"


• The second, almost as common, occurs when the message is boastful drivel - like "The future is bright. The future is orange" - and almost all car advertising. This gets an irritated "Oh, come on."


• The third is what you should aim for. In it you say something the reader simply cannot disagree with. This gets the nod. And it is the beginning of successful persuasion.

Once you've got someone to agree to one thing you can then say something else hard to disagree with - and so on until you ask for a reply.

Having agreed to everything else, why should they say "no"?

The late Peter Drucker said many years ago:

"The perfect advertisement is one of which the reader can say, 'This is for me, and me alone'."

That means it gets the nod. And mass advertising simply cannot be that personal and relevant, which helps explain why direct marketing - online or off - has overtaken it.

More particularly, it helps explain why the database is so important.

I always refer to the magic crossroads, which for me is that point where what you want to say meets what you know about your prospect or customer. But first, here's some terror for you.

Harvey McKay said in his book Swim with the sharks without being eaten alive: "Something you know about your customer may be more important than anything you know about your product".

So even if you say something dull and unimaginative like "As an accountant" when writing to accountants you will get them reading.

As a matter of fact I have seen exactly those words increase response by 200% in a mailing to sell business loans.

Well that seems very simple doesn't it? Just use database knowledge intelligently.

But I noticed long ago that the chief objective of any organisation with more than one department is to make it hard to do anything intelligent.

In marketing one way this is done is by making sure the people who create the messages talk as little as possible to the people who manage the database.

So today's helpful idea is - make sure that before anything is created, database people talk to creative people.

I mentioned a little freebie at the start. It's a list of 11 database desiderata put together by the person I consider the best practical database expert in this country.

He's worked with everyone from American Express to Coca Cola - and I've collaborated with him many times over the years.

What I like about him is that he focuses quite simply on one thing: how to turn your data into money.

Just right click here to download it.

Unlike most stuff about databases which is pretentious and needlessly obscure, it's easy to understand.

Best,
Drayton

P.S.  This is number 4 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

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Website: www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

Marketing Genius (Hardcover)

Review

"...a good roundup of important marketing theory with some great case studies...." (Brand Strategy, April 2006) "...truly inspiring book..." (Brand Strategy, June 2006) "...exceptional writer..."  (bubblewrap, June 2006) "...fascinating read..." (Irish Enterpreneur, June 2006) "...spot on..."  (Simon Wakeman Journal, June 2006)  "...a good roundup of important marketing theory with some great case studies...." (Brand Strategy, April 2006) "...t (more...)

Do Your Sales Messages Do What A Salesman Would Do?

This is a blinding glimpse of the obvious - yet completely ignored by most marketers. But unlike the first, it comes with a special offer you might find even more helpful.

More on that in a moment, because first I'd like you to join me you on a journey back in time.

If you study advertising - and I imagine you do, or how can you improve? - you will notice that most is very bad. A good example from people who should know better ran a while ago on the London Underground. It was a poster from the Advertising Standards Authority which read:

"We're here to make advertising better. Not to make better advertising. (Sorry.)"

This is what I call "creative masturbation" - produced entirely to please the writer, with no discernible purpose whatever. It does absolutely nothing to satisfy the question in every reader's mind: "What's in it for me?"

But what do they mean by "better" advertising? More original? More "creative" - which for many means the same thing? Or with more "impact" - whatever that means?

Did you say, "yes" to one or more of the above? If you trust the real giants of the industry, they are all wrong.

To explain why, let me take you to a modest office above a bar in Chicago 103 years ago. There the first good definition of advertising emerged. Even now many marketers - even very big ones - don't know it; but those who do have a priceless advantage.

Until then many vague phrases were used to describe advertising and how to do it. Most famous was the motto of A.J. Ayer, then the leading US agency. They said to get good advertising you must "Keep everlastingly at it". True; but not very helpful.

The office above the bar belonged to Lord & Thomas, a small firm destined to enjoy enormous success as a result of that evening. The intellectual curiosity of a young man who had just started running the firm had led him to seek a clear definition of his profession.

He was Albert Lasker, and he went on to make more money from advertising than anyone else, before or since. He realised that the way you define what you do determines what you do.

What built some of the world's biggest brands

On that night I mentioned a man in the bar below. He sent him up his card with a note saying: "I know you want to know what advertising is. I have the answer. Send back the card, and I will come and tell you".

So Lasker sent the card back, and a few minutes later a tall, striking moustachioed ex-Canadian Mountie called John E. Kennedy entered. He said to Lasker: "Advertising is salesmanship in print". Remembering that media now encompass not just print, but radio, the cinema, TV and the internet, that definition still stands.

Lasker hired Kennedy, and Lord & Thomas set out to spread the gospel of salesmanship in print. Before the end of World War 1 they were the world's largest advertising agency, which they remained until Lasker - who worked so hard he had regular nervous breakdowns - was away from the office for a while, and J. Walter Thompson overtook them.

Bad advertising is advertising which doesn't sell (and an amazing amount doesn't) or is aimed at satisfying the egos of those who create or run it - the clients - more than making sales.

In fact most creative people are more interested in awards than sales. That's not my opinion - just plain fact from research. They are keener on building their names than your sales.

So if you ever wonder why your stuff doesn't work, that's a good place to start: you're not reading from the same hymn sheet.

If it doesn't sell it isn't creative

Another early advertising titan, Claude Hopkins, succeeded Kennedy at Lord & Thomas. He put it this way: "Instead of sales, they seek applause".

Hopkins may have been the most able copywriter ever. He launched such famous brands as Quaker Puffed Wheat, Pepsodent and Chevrolet and his copy took a previously little known brand of beer, Schlitz, and quickly made it America's biggest seller.

He was so talented that Lasker hired him at the then un-heard of salary of...

I correspond with a lot of US internet experts. They operate in the newest, fastest growing medium. Yet strangely enough they all know and have learned from a book first published in 1924. Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins is the shortest and, still, probably the best book on the subject ever written. The shortest Chapter is called Just Salesmanship. If you read it you will know more about this business than most of the people in it. If you act on its lessons, I guarantee you will get better results. In his introduction to the book, David Ogilvy says that nobody should have anything to do with this business until he has read the book 7 times. Would you like it? Just insert you name and email address in the box on top right to download it.

$185,000 a year - when the dollar was worth 8 times more than now, and tax was almost nil.

Another legendary adman, Raymond Rubicam, noted, "The only purpose of advertising is to sell. It has no other justification worth mentioning". If you assume "sell" means to persuade anyone to do or believe something, it's hard to better that.

Bill Bernbach, named Adman of the 20th Century in Advertising Age, said, "All this talk of creativity has me worried. I fear lest in seeking the creativity we lose the sell".

What about originality? Well, Mozart - pretty creative, I think you will agree - said, "I never tried to be original in my life." And David Ogilvy said "Originality is the greatest sin in the advertiser's lexicon."

David practiced what he preached, too: he stole the line from his brother-in-law, Rosser Reeves, who invented the USP - Unique Selling Proposition.

At this point I bet you're wondering what my second helpful idea is. I've implied it but not said it. It is this. If you want your messages to work, just ask this simple question: Do they do what a salesman would do?

After all, if you could afford to, you would send the best salesmen you have round to every prospect. All other media are just substitutes for the real, live thing.

When we get a new client, if they use salespeople we usually get one to give us a live sales pitch. Then we try and replicate this in other media. The person who delivers that pitch gets his or her bread and butter from it. Nothing could be more powerful.

In the first three months of this year one of our clients enjoyed a 30% increase in sales - at a time when their chief competitors are either in the doldrums or actually losing money.

I would love to say this is all because of us, but of course there are many other factors. However, most of their leads come from two pieces - direct mail and door-drops. They were based almost entirely on a 2 hour pitch one of their top salesmen gave us - of course, without knowing we were not genuine prospects.

By the way, I am just amazed at how few marketers read books. They are like the man I mentioned in my last piece - too busy fighting alligators to drain the swamp.

The swamp is in fact the swamp of ignorance.

Why spend years learning by trial and error when a weekend with one good book can put you miles ahead? If you'd like any suggestions, let me know.

Best,
Drayton

P.S.  This is number 52 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

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Website: www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

Kotler on Marketing: How to create, win, and dominate markets (Paperback)

Amazon.co.uk Review

If you had to chose one person who more than any other has contributed to the literature on marketing, it would have to be Philip Kotler. This is the 15th book in a glittering academic and writing career that started in the early sixties and includes Marketing Management, voted by the Financial Times as one of the 50 best business books ever. More than any other individual, Kotler is responsible for making the "marketing paradigm" (the idea that you prospe (more...)