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Use Two-Step Direct Response Advertising and Stop Wasting Your Ad Money
| Guest post by: Liz Walker |
Article Overview: Have you wondered why some companies continually advertise? It's because they know how to develop direct response advertising. This article will show you how to do it.
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Free Download - What are you really good at? By Liz Walker |
Use Two-Step Direct Response Advertising and Stop Wasting Your Ad Money
Many business owners we talk to say things like, “We seldom advertise because it doesn’t give us any results —it’s a waste of our money.”
And you know what—for these people this is probably true. The ads they are running are not designed to produce tangible results.
Most advertising does nothing to motivate a prospect to act—it’s simply “image” or “awareness” advertising. If your marketing budget is on par with that of Coke or Nike that’s fine, but the rest of us expect a return on those ad dollars.
What you need to do is turn all of your ads into “direct response”. These are ads that are designed to generate a very specific response or action. You can apply this approach to any ad, in any kind of media, whether newspaper, magazine, TV or radio.
The purpose of these ads is not so much to “sell” but to generate a list of qualified leads—people who may be inclined to do business with you in future and, most importantly, have given you permission to market to them.
Step one is to create one or more valuable reports, workshops, evaluations, trial products, checklists, newsletters, courses or tip sheets. You know, something like, “How To Tell If Your Roofing Contractor Is Lying To You” or “What Every Senior Must Know About the Canada Pension Plan” or “101 More Things You Can Do With Your iPod.”
Now that you have your value packed written report or audio CD, every bit of your advertising – that’s Yellow Pages, direct mail, back of your business card, letterhead, email signature, web site – should focus on getting people to pick up, request or download that report.
Don’t try to do anything else with your advertising, let the report sell you.
Step two is: Send the report or sample to all who respond and then begin marketing to them like crazy!
Why is this approach so much more effective?
Now you can demonstrate your expertise in a non-threatening way, on the prospect’s own terms, even if all you can afford is a small ad.
Nobody likes to be sold to, but if they take the time to read your report, understand that what you do that has value, and have an 8-10 page conversation with you, the relationship and trust have begun.
People who have requested your free information are officially a hot lead. They are raising their hand and identifying themselves as someone who is very interested in what you do. Half of your sales job is done!
And now you can measure the response to your advertising! If one offer falls short of your expectations, change something the next time you run the ad and see if the results improve—you are now in control.
Meanwhile you will be building a database of people who you can market to—so send them a newsletter. Invite them to sale events. Offer them incentives. Put your advertising dollars to work and check the results
What Is The Point Of Advertising?
Tips for a Successful Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaign
PR ROI: What is PR Worth to Your Company?
Rule 19 Watch What DirectResponse Advertisers Are Doing and Plagiarize
3 Steps to Designing a Direct Response Marketing Strategy
Referred by: http://www.makingprofitspour.com
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About the Author: Liz Walker RSS for Liz's articles - Visit Liz's website Click here to visit Liz's website   Writing a Successful Sales Letter A Marketing Tool that Works Day and Night 247 There are millions and millions of web sites How is anybody ever going to find yours The NeverFail Recipe for Ads That Work Like Crazy How to Create Magnificent Marketing Materials |
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Top 19 Copywriting books
- 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley.
2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner.
3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill.
4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall.
6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin.
7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books.
9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall.
10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association.
11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books.
12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books.
13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books.
15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books.
16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books.
17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall.
18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop.
19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley.
This should keep you busy for at least a year.
Enjoy!
Re: What newsletter program to use?
- Like GT and David I use Get Response and have not had any problems with them other than when they were converting to their upgrade. So as long as they continue to give me the service I will stick with them. I know that most people recommend Aweber.
MichelleJ
Your Intial Mistakes Business
- Hi,
When I started my business I had made a lot of mistakes initially. These helped me in learning the art of the trade and today when I look back, I feel that these mistakes were quite silly. I had made my learnings then and those
learnings have helped me time and again.
Some of the mistakes I made were -
i. Wrong Time Management
ii. Wasting money on glossy Brochures and Business cards
iii. Believing what they taught me at school was 100% correct
iv. Giving too much when it was not required......
I would like to find out what have been your faltering moments in Business when you had started and what/how did they help you grow.
Regards
Re: Which would you start: a Blog or Online Community?
- It is a difficult decision to make.
Lets start it this way - What are you more interested in? Money? or Friends? or Both?
If its purely Money, then Blog might be an appropriate answer. But consider this - It will be people (visitors) that will bring traffic to your blog and then Money will follow. This will be possible after a time and during this time it will be your friends who will be the starters.
If you are looking for friends only, then its true that not many will be interested in knowing how you have beaten them in the game or the other way round. So it will be preferable to have a Forum where they can share ideas with you and others.
But you can share your insider knowledge with them and invite comments from your Blog. You can also put up information on what others (including your friends) don't know about Tennis. The blog you create can provide News, Inside Information and also Techniques that can be used by the new entrants in the world of Tennis.
Making Money in 2011
- Hello forum members! As we draw closer to the new year I thought it would be appropriate to change the title of our forum category "Making Money in 2010" to "Making Money in 2011" - I'm looking forward to some interesting discussions and wish everyone a prosperous New Year!
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