Are you thinking about adding or switching to a heavy dose of online email campaigns?

Likely you are trying to "keep up with the times" and at least flirting with email marketing. For those of you who don’t know my background- I LOVE DIRECT MAIL!

Direct mail is on the decline due to costs and environmentally conscious consumers. Let’s not fool ourselves, direct mail is getting the brush off more so because of $. It is far cheaper to rent/buy a list and sign up with an email service like iContact and start blasting out your offers.

I am all for smart email marketing, but there is nothing harder if you are not contacting people who know and want to hear from you.

Direct mail has a far greater chance of reaching the target (if done right) than email. It is not likely to piss them off either. I have opted out of a lot of people I admire email lists because I get sooo much crap.

The USPS is reporting that 12 billion pieces of mail were delivered this fiscal year. Meanwhile 210 billion emails were sent  yesterday!

With email all we have is a tiny line of text to get them to open it. With direct mail getting them to look is fairly easy. If we cut down or cut out direct mail and utilize only  the cheap email campaigns, does that make us more or less money?

Last time I checked an unopened email is worth nothing. They don’t even get exposed to anything

There is no doubt that extreme caution needs to be taken while doing email campaigns. It will be a very short time before you become labeled as SPAM. Next thing you know that is the only folder your emails show up.

Nobody reads SPAM.

Build a relationship or peak interest using direct mail. Keep in mind how much less mail is going out these days. Create a good letter with a good offer and lead them to you. Once you got them it is up to you to keep them.

Go get some

Paul McQuillan

The dreaded drawer monster is on the rampage…

If you use offline marketing like direct mail, flyers or some other kind of physical ad, do you know what happens to it?

I deal with a lot of small businesses selling locally on a small budget. They send out mailers or they get in a Val-Pak or some other ad that gets delivered to their target market.

I am amazed how some of these business owners show happiness in saying "we are still getting calls from our ad from 8 months ago".

My first question is always- "how many calls did you get when you delivered the ad?". Whenever we create ads and have them delivered there absolutley needs to be accoutability. More so if there is a small advertising budget.

People that call months after an ad is put out are incidentals, not response that can be counted. Direct response devices like direct mail are to do what? CREATE A DIRECT RESPONSE! That response tells you what you need to do for your advertising so you can get on track, fast.

If you mail 2000 postcards and get 5 responses you know exactly what you have. Those 5 customers may have been worth it depending on what you are selling in addition to the lifetime value of the customer.

Let’s face it, if you can get 20 new customers out of an ad you got 5 from in a previous attempt, wouldn’t you do it?

There is only one way to get that percentage higher- immediate and trackable results. The faster you get the results the quicker you can asses your marketing.

Here are a few things you can do that make tracking easy:

• Deadline- Every ad must have an offer with a deadline (I like 2 weeks from delivery)
• Use a code if you have several ads. i.e "Call now and use "summer slowdown" for special"
• Keep written track of the results! Too many of you take mental notes on results. Almost always 100% wrong

I can’t tell you how many times a business will mail an ad and get a rush of calls from Google or yellow page ads. The business owner assumed that the mailing was the source. I have had this happen several times to me.

We are resistant to find out the real results sometimes. I know it sounds counter intuitive but we do not want to know the real results (unless they are great).

Why do you think small companies put out terrible ads over and over? You have seen the ads, you see them all the time.

Nothing will help your business grow faster than marketing smartly. Instant results are your best friend. Instant results help you to make more money. Instant results help you demolish your competition.

These results are your future

Go get some

Paul McQuillan

Onslaught Marketing

Contact me today if you need some help on your marketing

You don’t know your competition…

I bet you look at Google ads, websites, yellow pages, direct mail and any other ad your direct competition has out. I bet you think that is your main competition, and you would be wrong.

Sure, your competition is like products or services for people actively looking, but not those not looking.

When you utilize direct response vehicles such as mail, space ads (on and offline), flyers or whatever… your competition is massive.

Now you are competing with everything from a new car to a new pair of shoes. When these people get your offer they were not sitting there thinking about it, they were thinking about something else. Something they want.

You have the incredible task of blasting through those other wants and replace it with your product or service. You literally need to scramble their thinking.

Most of my clients (and it is safe to say almost all business owners) never go beyond getting their product or service in front of people. Most think that people seeing their name over and over creates customers down the road… which is horse dung.

I know Budweiser very well, yet I never drink it. I know Ford very well but never owned one in 40 years. Why is that? If Ford and Bud can’t get me to buy spending billions on ads how is your teeny ad going to convince me?

To eliminate the ego ads and redirect your ads from comparing yourself to similar products or services, you should be more worried about Nine West.

In this economy people do think more than they used to. Most control their splurges. You need to make your offer very appealing from a point of view they can relate with.

To illustrate the point I found this massively successful ad (it has not been beaten in more than 25 years!). It shows a different angle on how ads can be created. It is an ad that brings people into the the thing being sold.

When creating ads keep it in mind. Here is a snippet of the ad that sold a newsletter subscription for offshore real estate. Below is the massive headline

You look out your window, past the gardener, who is pruning
the lemon, cherry and fig trees…amidst the splendor of
gardenias, hibiscus and hollyhocks.

A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and refreshing,
as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.

The guy who wrote that has a $300 million per year business

Go get some

Paul

Direct Mail Gone Wrong

I do a lot with offline advertising. Most of my clients get customers through direct mail, fliers or space ads.

I have noticed that most of my clients are a little over confident in their direct mail. Some figure that if they send out massive amounts that even a small return would be profitable.

Then there was Mike in Minneapolis

Mike runs a service business and he has done pretty well. He has a good relationship with his customers and his service is top notch.

Mike decided to upgrade his usual mailers (postcards mailed bulk) to a sales letter mailed to specific demographics. Mike decided to create the letter himself. Mikes only experience with writing ads has been his postcards (which averaged .5% return).

Mike went big. He put all of his chips on the table and looked the dealer in the eye and said; "hit me".

He mailed 10,000 letters at a cost of $30,000 (notice I said

cost

). Two weeks after sending out the letters he got 1 phone call. That was the last call.

I have in my years rolled the dice and got burned. I have never been scorched like Mike but I had second degree burns.

Mike thought that because his postcards got around .5% that if he did close to that he should make $60,000 after costs. He made zero. The one call he got had to cancel for some reason.

Mike should have done what almost no small business does- TEST! If Mike mails out a 100 letters and gets no calls something is wrong. So now he finds out for $300 rather than $30,000.

I believe that before sending out any mass ads, you should test it first. Even postcards or fliers. It is not only the cost of the piece you need to keep in mind, it is the money you are losing that you could have had if the ad was better.

Your service or product may sound great, but your offer may be crap. Maybe your offer is great but you poorly described the benefits of your service. Maybe you mailed a great piece to the wrong people. I promise you that you do not know without testing.

Direct mail is a wonderful form of advertising (my favorite), but it can eat you alive if not handled with care.

Go get some

Paul

A LOT of small businesses think their company name will be imprinted on the readers brain if seen over and over.

Name all of the ads you seen yesterday. Hmm, that is tough. Name the ones for a service or a product that interested you…. Come up with any?

There is a strong theory that we see 2000 ads a day. When we mix in those ads with our daily life almost all is forgotten. Back a few years ago with the beer commercials and their many funny, cute and expensive ads could not get separation from the other beers. Most people when polled could not name the right beer for the ad. Millions and millions of dollars wasted.

Institutional ads (getting your name out their) suck. Small businesses try like hell to create these meaningless ads to look bigger. Meanwhile the bigger companies are trying to look smaller by being more personal.

Do you want to know how you can be remembered? Turn the reader into a customer. Your company slogan, song or logo are not reasons to buy from you.

Your ads are to create sales, not recognition. Have you tried to deposit false recognition in your bank? It’s worthless.

You want to create a buzz. Get people talking so you don’t need to. Create ads that solve peoples problems and you will destroy competitors. If you all just do the same thing than it is winner by attrition, last man standing or a coin toss.

Screw that, I play to win. Don’t you want to win? Damned straight you do.

I have kicked my competitors asses many times with actionable ads.

If you really want to be remembered for something; you must do something to be remembered for. ‘Here we are" is not one of them.

Go get some

Paul

Thou Shall Not Try to Sell a Half Eaton Sandwich

Solutionless Advertising: Any ad including Web page, direct mail, fliers, space ads, PPC phrases- any ad needs to address a problem.

You may be saying to yourself- "duh, I know that". Do you? Do you talk about your commitment to quality and customer service in your ads? Do you talk about years in business? Do you talk about why you are better than everyone else?

What problem did you address? You did not advertise a solution, you advertised YOU. I don’t give a squirt if you have great customer service as I would need to be a customer first. How would that entice anyone? Has anyone ever called and said "I seen your ad about high quality and how much you love your customers, SIGN ME UP!".

I will guess 0

This happens both with people selling online as much as offline.

If I try to sell an ebook and talk about me through the whole sales page and end with BUY THIS NOW! What happens? click and goodbye (normally the click happens way before buy now). Many onliners need to learn the rules of direct response as much as the offline companies.

That smells good, who’s barbecuing?

You have likely heard the old advertising phrase "sell the sizzle, not the steak". People don’t usually arbitrarely buy stuff without some reason. There is an exception and that is in retail. There is a reason why items are placed in certain areas. There is a reason why tabloids litter the checkout line. Did you notice the easy to grab candy and gum for the kids to hound you about?

Every minute you are in that line the chances of grabbing something you had no intention of buying increases 10 fold.

That does not work when selling a service or a product outside of retail. I can easily look past your postcard and long winded boring Web page. If you add some sizzle buy addressing a problem I have or did not know I had and have a solution, that’s gold.

Your ONLY goal in an ad is to turn that need into a want. People will pass on stuff they need all the time, but they buy what they want. You do not need to be a master copywriter or ad wizard. You need to be a problem solver and state it that way.

People do not need or want YOU. They may need and want what you can do for THEM

You don’t want to miss Sin #2. Bookmark my blog or follow me on Twitter and I will alert you when a new post is up.

Go get some

Paul

If you are like me you likely have problems seeing your service or product in a big picture way. You likely see what you do or sell to be just that. You need to seek and destroy the obstacles blocking you from seeing the truth about what you sell. How do you do that?

You have likely heard the ‘know thy customer’ adage. You know, find out all you can about your customers so you can not only communicate your offerings better, you can find out what else they might want. Trust me they want to buy more stuff, you need to find out what. How should you start?

You can start out by creating the stupidly terrifying and mega easy questionnaire. Most of us fear asking for answers. Half of it is that we feel we are imposing and the other half is we will get answers, some may give us a boo-boo on our ego. Let me ask you this; let’s say you just bought my ebook and I sent you a questionnaire with questions on how I can help to bring you more customers. Would that piss you off? If you just cleaned a persons carpet and you sent them a little survey or directed them to a website survey  that helps them in the future, would they mind? heck no

I will give you an example of a survey but you must be made clear on a few things first. People lie. They may fib a bit on their income or on their true feeling about your thingy. To diffuse this it is wise to do blind surveys so they will be more likely to answer it. Don’t ask for their names or any other identifying information. Make a survey through an online service like surveymonkey or have them fill out self mailer cards if you deal face to face. You are after only one thing, the truth

Questionnaire example:

Thank you for trying ________________. It means a lot to us to make sure you got everything you wanted from our ____________ If you would please take 3 or 4 minutes to answer these questions it would help us to serve you better in the future. Thank you very much. This is an anonymous survey so no name or email is needed

Please tell me the main reason you purchased our (service/product) _______________________________________________

Please rate on a scale of 1-5 (five being best) why you made the purchase __ The offer was too good to refuse __ What was said in the ad __ Our company name or reputation (or if you are online, your personal name) __ Timing- You have been thinking about it for a while and there we were

How did you find out about us/me? __________________________

On a scale of 1-5 how would you rate your experience with us/me? ___

What is it you liked best? ______________________________

What could be improved? ______________________________

Would you tell your friends or family about us/me? _______________________________

Will you buy from us/me again? If not please explain why _______________________________

Did you consider buying from someone else before us/me? ____ If so, who was it? ________________________________

Why did you choose my/our product or service over them? _____________________________

What is your household income? __ $30,000-50,000 __ $51,000-70,000 __ $71,000-100,000 __ $100,000+

How old are you? ___ Are you single or married? ____ 

What magazines, newspapers or social websites do you enjoy? __________________________

Do you use Twitter? __

Final question: Do you feel like your purchase was money well spent? __

If I may ask you one more simple favor, could you please email me a short testimonial about your experience with us.

Thank you very much for your time and please feel free to contact me personally with any questions or comments

Bob Crabtree

XYZ Inc

333-444-3333

bob@XYZ.com

The reason for doing a survey is reasons that can turn your business into a very successful business. No matter who writes your ads nobody can create a successful ad without knowing really well who you are dealing with. If you keep sending out ads or creating sales pages that speak to everyone you will not make it. Next week we take this a step further. Because all of the answers will not be the same you will need to segment your list into categories of customers. This will help you a lot with selling more and wasting less on advertising.

Go get some

Paul

I know you are feeling the pressure from running your own business. Everyone is.

In these uncertain times it is important to stay focused. Your business success or failure does not depend on your next ad (I hope), it depends on your plan.

What is your plan for the future?

I have a very motivated train of thought. It is very hard for me to stay focused on one thing. I find that nothing has helped me more than planning. I don’t mean a business plan or a 10 year forcast, I mean a daily plan.

Look at your situation right now. What are the things you are lacking to get your business running smoothly? It could be getting your marketing in order to making sure your taxes are in order.

You need to first write down what you need to do. We all procrastinate and that level  depends on how we internalize the issue. The more you have built up the matter in your mind dictates on when and if it ever gets done.

Instead of waking up and going through the day doing things you don’t mind doing, creat an itinary for the day. You may be running your business for 10 hours but you need to spend some time working on your business.

After you look at what needs to be done, start scheduling those things on your daily schedule. If you need to get your website optimized you sit and complete that task. I am not saying that you need to learn SEO or how to create a website. You figure out how you will take care of the issue and have a completion date.

You may do work on it yourself or you may research who can do it for you. Get the time or costs calculated and schedule that in your planner.

The important thing is to DO IT!

When I write out my schedule it looks something like this:

Tuesday

6am-7am : Create postcard for Joe

8am-10:30am: Work on my website

You get the idea. If I do not write these down for some reason it all becomes optional. I am not kidding, I will pick what I want to do instead of what I have to do.

For some reason when I have it scheduled I see it as a task to be completed and it has less ‘think time’. I don’t really build up a lot of bs emotions like I do when I just go through the day doing whatever.

Guess what else, use this to get things done for YOU. Maybe you want to learn a new language or get better at something… SCHEDULE THAT TIME TOO!

I absolutely promise you that you will get more done doing this. This is SO valuable to your future. You will make more money and waste less of your life.

Owning your own business is toughest because it takes massive discipline. We don’t usually hold our time accountable, we’re the boss.

You absolutely need to teach yourself this technique. All the marketing in the world will not help you if everything else is half-assed.

You had the balls to start a business now use your brains to grow it.

Go get some

Paul

You likely own a business. You likely do your own advertising. You are likely driving me nuts with your crap ads. What is a crap ad?

A crap ad is a sales letter, postcard, website, flyer, banner towed around by a plane or any other device shoved in my face without meaning.

You spend money to bother me and all I get to see is crap.

Do you know why you bug me? Because you don’t spit out anything I care about. I have posted in my blogs many times about not generalizing and realizing what your service is not what I want to buy, the result is.

Do you listen? Why do I still get business owners who read this still sending me scratchy toilet paper? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

(deep breath) It’s okay, you can still change your blasted ways quite easily. I will take you by the hand and walk you through a basic concept.

Let’s say I hire you to do whatever it is you do. You show up and do it very well. Now tell me what the customer is seeing/thinking/feeling after your gone.

Have you ever really thought about what happens once you are out of the picture? There is no doubt you focus on things like doing a great job or having integrity and pride with what you left behind… that is not what they are feeling. They likely are not thinking about you at all if you did well.

They are in the moment. They are enjoying the fact that their carpets don’t smell like dog. They feel more comfortable financially after meeting with an adviser. They love that their lawn is plush and greener than their neighbors.

They are not thinking about you, but that is good. What they will do is connect that plethora of positive emotion to what you did for them. Those are what you use in your ads. Take the focus completely off of your company.

I am not saying don’t mention any specifics about your company but you need to get them emotionally involved with your ad first. Get them to want to know who you are.

When your ad shows up NOBODY wants it. They were not getting ready to contact someone offering your service on the way to the mailbox. Simply announcing you and your service will waste massive amounts of possible revenue over time.

You know the processes of your business very well and that is why you normally focus your ads on that. Nobody cares at first about how you do whatever you do, they care about what they get from what you do.

You need to convey that IMMEDIATELY. 80% of people read the top of an ad without reading the rest. If that headline, caption or image does not connect, they are gone.

If you are not quite sure how people feel about what you do, find out! ASK THEM. I know it is a strange concept but if we don’t take in new information we don’t learn.

Simply ask your customer/client what they liked about your service. Try to get as many as possible and then start creating your ads using those insights as the theme.

Keep in mind if you are using images that they convey the same emotional connection as the rest of the ad. If you do a home service don’t plaster a picture of a home as that is meaningless. If they feel it is meaningless what happens? Yep, they’re gone.

Once you start to know your customers this process becomes easy and you make more money.

Here is a final mental image I wish to leave you with-

You are asleep in your coffin in cold dark cellar. You wake to hear creaking boards but know that no one dare challenge you. The creaking stops and total silence once again puts you at peace.

WHOOSH! the casket flings open to see me standing over you. You mutter “Paul Van Helsing!” and I yell “TO HELL WITH YOU IRRITATING DEVIL! I’LL FINALLY BE RID OF YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!”

Before you can react my stake centers over your heart, with a massive smash of my mallet I drive the stake into you.

Go get some

Paul

I think there is an overwhelming dangerous way of attributing success or failure to our advertising attempts.

Most of us take in account what the ad costs. Most of us measure that against the end result. which is profit after cost.

Almost nobody sees the big picture

While we can call an ad successful if it makes money (or creates more customers at break even), we may be missing out on $1000′s. Let me explain-

Let’s say you do a very affordable ad in the form of a flyer. Maybe you spend a couple hundred bucks and write the ad and create the visuals. Now you distribute those and make a couple thousand dollars.

Now unless the cost of the product or manpower is very high, or your price-point is too low you should make a nice little profit.

Rarely do people think about what might have been. What if your same ad was written and presented very well and doubled the response?

Maybe you generate $4000 in sales without spending much more  if anymore money.

What is written in your presentation is sink or swim, do or die. Your product or service will not sell nearly as much if presented as just a product or service. You could sell to those that happen to be in need, but far more are in need of their money.

Words need to fill your ad that invoke emotions. I see more ads focused on a price point or coupon more than what they are really tring to sell.

Far too many times people say to me “I sell lawn care dude, not message therapy”. That is where you lose big money! You communicate to yourself it is just _________. Who wants “just”?

By not digging into what people will feel once having their carpets cleaned or their house painted leaves a lot of money on the table.

When your ad finds it’s way to a consumer, they most likely do not want to see it (unless they found it by searching for it). If I am not thinking about getting my windows cleaned and an ad arrives that says-

Spit Shine Window Cleaning- Minneapolis’s #1 Choice

That ad is dead immediatley to those not already in a buying state for that service. It will go unread straight to the trash, no matter how great the offer. Most do not realize the importance of the first few lines and most lose out on LOTS of money and new customers.

There are a million ways to make the beginning of your ad more enticing without mentioning what you are selling. The key is hitting a button to get them to read more-

What Are People Saying About Your Home?

You do not need to go into a negative tirade about how bad something looks, in fact you don’t want to say that at all. You want them to think about it.

This headline could work for any home service. Since we are hitting a nerve with people and their pride and insecurity we have begun their journey into the rest of the ad.

I would likely use a curiosity type of first sentence-

“When looking around your greatest investment, do you notice this?”

Not positive or negative, be interesting. Most will wonder what you are getting at and keep reading. I would finish the paragraph with talking about the problems of have dirty windows/carpets, a brown lawn or paint color that is dating their home. They already notice this stuff, but sometimes mentally block it out.

Your goal in an ad is to create interest in what you are selling- nothing more. If you start to get into explaining out the features in a benefit driven manner, you will maintain their interest.

“With our Deep Clean Method we are able to extract dirt and bacteria festering in your carpets”

Most would simply say- “Truck mounted unit for deep cleaning”

Notice a difference? Now if I happen to get a flyer and I am not thinking about getting my carpets cleaned, which version do you think would make me stop and think?

How many of those people are you missing with every ad?

Here is the beauty of working harder and smarter on the ad (or hiring someone to do it right). You will get all of the customers your normal ads would get PLUS all the customers you are not getting.

In this economy I don’t know how anyone can afford to do it differently.

Go get some!

Paul