Selling in Print

Advertising and marketing are selling in print. There should be no difference between the message in your adverts, brochures, website, newsletters, press releases and what you tell your customers face to face.

If you're going to successfully sell in print, the process you should use is response accountable direct marketing. A business using direct marketing essentialy sells without sales people. Direct marketing means you can prove what results you get for marketing dollars spent. Most businesses cannot prove that their marketing works at all, and are lost... honestly, they know they need to advertise so they throw their dollars at the yellow pages rep, the local newspaper rep, the local radio rep and they dont measure results so they have absolutely no idea of the advertising ROI (return on investment). It's crazy...

Response accountable direct marketing is used to successfully sell almost every conceivable kind of product, from industrial parts to lawnmowers to electronic components to cars and the high tech gadgets. When I say "direct marketing" I'm not talking about how the product is physically delivered to the customer. Direct Marketing means communicating to the customer in a personal way and asking them to do something. It's always measurable, and good operators should always measure it. It's really the only kind of marketing that's rigorous and scientific. It truly separates the men from the boys or the ladies from the girls.

True response based marketing is based on a formula and is not overly creative! It just works!!

So when you see an ad or billboard with some bizarre picture, a weird slogan or catchy jingle don't be fooled into thinking that advertising works, because it may not work at all. This type of branding is for the big budget organisations and they don't care about the ROI on each ad or billboard... they look at the overall picture, for them image is king. They are in another league different to yours. Every marketing dollar you spend should bring back at least 2.

Don't you love the the advertising rep that tells the client "Advertising can't be measured. You can't quantify this or count how many leads come in. You just have to get your name out there so people have heard of you when you call them." And the customer doesn't have a clue whether the ad really works or if it's just burning their $$$. Let me give you a tip, the customer doesn't care if you've got your name out there, they couldn't care less about your fancy logo and ad that says how good your business is. It may stroke your ego but wont get the customer to buy. Because your name is out there will not get them in the door. It is not about "image" or "branding." It is about telling your own unique sales story in a way that matches the wants, needs, loves, hates and fears of YOUR customers.

Effective advertising nearly always follows time-tested formulas that work again and again and again. It's very systematic and easily learned by people who have technical and business backgrounds. Creating a marketing message that is well understood, and getting that message to cut through the clutter and noise of the marketplace is a lot less mystical than you may think. Once you understand the formulas, most of which have been used by very successful companies for a century or more, and once you understand why those formulas continue to work, you will have mastered the most difficult elements of the sales process.

You can use well-proven methods to design a marketing system that works for you by making sure that your sales process works the same way in print as it would work live in person. Your website, sales letter, or brochure has to interact with the customer's emotional hot buttons and inner motivations and persuade him or her to take action.

Most WA Real Estate Agents have got it Wrong

Why does a high profile Real Estate Agent franchise still train their reps to go out and knock on doors, telemarket to people, send bland flyers in the mail and advertise in the paper with a photo and 2 lines of text?? No wonder people don't like Real Estate agents. But you have to feel for these poor reps as they usually have no prior selling experience and are paid on commission only. The franchise is setting up 98% of their reps to fail... it is only the other 2% that realise there is a better way or a better life and do something about it.

I had the pleasure of working for this franchise for nearly 3 months and have never been so depressed in a job as this one, I think it may have been this particular office though. Not only were you equipped with antiquated marketing techniques but there was absolutely no support, as the owners where competing against you to save paying the commission!! Fortunately I saw the light and moved on. Since then I have been coached by Mal Emery, joined Dan Kennedy's program and am one of Yanik Silver's underground secret society members. With this I have learned how to market correctly, using techniques that cost a fraction of the old techniques cost but produce more than 10 times the results.

In my previous business, Telephones Unlimited, the first direct mail letter campaign we ever put into place cost a total of $200. The first order that came in was for an $11 420 system with a net profit of $3 180. That's a whopping 1 490% return on our investment. The feedback from the client was that he opened our letter because it was bulky therefore it was put on the top of the pile and opened first. When he read the contents they were friendly and in a language he could understand. We made sure that this campaign was repeated every month and the results continued to get better as we found certain hot buttons and got better at writing copy.

Learn the modern marketing techniques, give cold calling the flick and enjoy the extra profits and time...

Welcome

Hi and welcome to the new blog for Profitfitness. At this blog we will be posting anything about marketing that works.