As Ogilvy famously said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.” John Caples wrote, “If the headline is poor, the copy will not be...
Ah, the age-old whine of the failing salesperson: The leads are WEAK! Some people would automatically dismiss this as a lazy salesperson’s excuse (which often IS the case) – but thinking that ALL leads are good is just as foolish. There ARE times, when leads generated, are NOT...
Did you know IT services firms lose THOUSANDS of dollars every year due to very poor or non-existent follow up on the leads they generate? Recently we’ve been getting a LOT of questions from members wanting clarification on how to properly classify and qualify inbound leads to maximize...
Years ago, I was exposed to this marketing example, written by the late Gary Halbert, as an example of brilliant direct response marketing copy AND strategy. It’s a personals ad he wrote that led him to find his then-wife. He also used it as an example of how...
EVERY salesperson has gotten the dreaded “I want to think it over” response. Problem is, how do you respond politely and without annoying the prospect to the point of them telling you to go to hell? Most salespeople just roll over and say, “Okay! Call me if you...
Any ideas on what it is? Hint: It’s the thing that got you to read this article – the headline. The headline is “the ad for the ad.” It’s the device that, if well-written, will stop the right reader-prospect in their tracks and get them involved in reading...
If I hear someone say their hope for marketing is “brand awareness” or to “get my name out there” one more time I’m gonna start a protest against slovenly, wasteful marketing. At least then I wouldn’t get my events shut down, but I digress… To my point: Let’s...
To the right is a favorite “article” from the Weekly World News (the only RELIABLE news outlet these days) that I keep in my files as inspiration for a marketing campaign somewhere in the future. I DO think an ad run like this around Halloween with an offer...
I have an important point to clarify. While I’m 100% bought into the idea of creating systems and processes in a business and advocate it constantly, there is one HUGE inherent flaw in that thinking: assuming that systems run themselves. Any time you have a human being involved...
In one of my favorite books, Harry Beckwith’s What Clients Love, is this story: NICE IS NOWHERE. You do NOT want everyone to like what you do. Ian Schrager created a revolutionary chain of elite hotels. His properties are to hotels what Salvador Dali paintings are to art...
