by Robert W. Bly - CTC Publishing › CopywritingMasterTouch.pdf · 2014-10-14 · by Robert W....
Transcript of by Robert W. Bly - CTC Publishing › CopywritingMasterTouch.pdf · 2014-10-14 · by Robert W....
by Robert W. Bly
31 Cheyenne Drive. Montville, NJ 07045
(973) 263-0562, Fax (973) 263-0613
e-mail: [email protected], web: www.bly.com
Table of Contents
Section 1 What Works Best—a Letter, Self‐mailer, or Postcard?........................3
Section 2 Yours Free: 4 Steps to Selecting a Winning Premium.........................6
Section 3 Free Content from Uncle Sam Can Save Marketers Time
and Money ................................................................................................9
Section 4 Tips and Techniques for Increasing Your Renewal Rates ................12
Section 5 What’s Working in Business‐to‐Business E‐Mail
Marketing Today?..................................................................................17
Section 6 When is the Best Day—and Time—to Send Your Marketing
E‐Mails? ...................................................................................................20
Section 7 Optimizing Your Weekly E‐mail Schedule to Increase
Online Revenues ....................................................................................25
Section 8 In Copywriting, a Lot of Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing...........29
Section 9 The 4 Levels of Features and Benefits .................................................32
Section 10 In Marketing, Flattery Will Get You Everywhere—As Long As
It’s Sincere .............................................................................................35
Section 11 The Proof is in the Promotion—Or Should Be .................................38
Section 12 What Words Sell Best? .........................................................................41
Section 13 The Easiest Way Ever to Convince Skeptical Buyers to do
Business with You................................................................................44
Section 14 Increase Your Flow of Sales Leads with a “Bait Piece”...................46
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Section 15 Avoid This Common Mistake When Creating
Your Guarantee ....................................................................................48
Section 16 “Offer Magic“: How to Increase Response Up to 1,000%—Just
by Changing Your Offer! ....................................................................50
About the Author ......................................................................................................53
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Section 1
What Works Best—a Letter, Self‐mailer, or Postcard?
In his book Secrets of Successful Direct Mail (Bottom Line Books), the late
mail order consultant Dick Benson says: “Self‐mailers almost never work.”
“Testing has consistently proven a one‐page letter with a compelling offer
outperforms a glossy mailer [in business‐to‐business lead generation] by 100
percent,” says Liz Taylor of Liz Taylor Marketing.
And in a recent issue of his e‐newsletter, copywriter Alan Sharpe says, “In
business‐to‐business direct mail lead generation, letters invariably outpull self‐
mailers, including postcards.”
As a copywriter, I’ve always been prejudiced in favor of sales letters,
because it’s my favorite form to write.
But obviously, a sales letter is not always better than a postcard or other
self‐mailer—and in recent years, I’ve come to love postcards for the results they
can produce for marketers on a budget.
Consider subscription promotion for magazines, where double postcards
and vouchers routinely outperform traditional letter packages on an ROI basis.
For more than a decade, Medical Economics tested all sorts of letter
packages against a snap‐pack control for Physician’s Desk Reference. None of
them could beat the self‐mailer.
And look at the outrageous success of the magalog—a long‐copy self‐mailer
format—in selling nutritional supplements and consumer newsletters.
The copywriters I talked to were split. A few, like Ivan Levison and
Herschell Gordon Lewis, praised self‐mailers and said they can work well. Others,
such as Sharpe and Jeffrey Dobkin, are clearly fans of sales letters.
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“On a dollar‐for‐dollar basis, self‐mailers can outperform a closed‐face
envelope in B2B mailings,” says copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis.
“No, you can’t get mailed credit card information. But more and more,
when the pitch is for a phone call or online response, a quick look gets read where
a classic mailing seems ponderous.
“Closed‐face means either a two‐way match‐up or an unimprinted
response device, both of which kick costs upward. Windows scream, ‘This is a
bulk mailing.’”
“The great advantage of the self‐mailer is that it’s cheap,” says Ivan Levison,
a copywriter specializing in software. “It’s also easy for the prospect to unfold a
self‐mailer. There’s no envelope to tear open, so you know that you stand a good
chance of getting the reader into your message.
“The self‐mailer is a good choice for making noisy announcements, which
is why retailers use them at sales time. If you have a simple, clear story to tell, a
self‐mailer can make a great deal of sense.”
A lot of copywriters, ad agencies, and marketing consultants like packages
better than self‐mailers because they can charge the client more for them, and
because they find writing and designing letter packages more fun and rewarding
creatively. Not a good reason to use them, of course, as Jeffrey Dobkin admits.
“When clients ask me what is the most effective piece we can send I always
say a letter,” says Dobkin. “And it’s not just because letters are my specialty or
that I charge so much for them. I do think letters are the most effective you can be
with the understanding that this is in most instances. There are exceptions.
“A personal‐looking letter is almost always opened. I like the teaser ‘Gift
Certificate Enclosed’ on anything that looks commercial: the open rate is
exceptional.”
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“In certain situations, letters may outperform self‐mailers,” says copywriter
Joan Damico. “In business‐to‐business direct mail, getting through the corporate
mail room may be better served with a #10 letter package.
“It also depends on what stage in the buying cycle the prospect is receiving
the mailing. A prospect in the awareness phase may respond better to a colorful
self‐mailer, while a customer in the loyalty phase may respond better to a #10
letter package.”
Here are a few rules of thumb that can help you select the right format—
traditional letter package, self‐mailer, or postcard—for your next mailing:
• Postcards can work well when the primary response you seek is a visit
to a Web URL or a call to your toll‐free number.
• When your story is detailed and complex, a traditional letter package is
likely to work best.
• Study your market. See what formats are being used in your
competitors’ controls. Use the same formats for your mailings—at least
to begin with.
• When you are generating leads with a free bait piece offer—such as a
white paper, catalog, or brochure—use a one‐page letter in an envelope
with a business reply card.
Of course, the ultimate strategy for format selection is to split test—and let
consumers vote with their responses.
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Section 2
Yours Free: 4 Steps to Selecting a Winning Premium
If you’ve been in direct marketing for more than a few weeks, you know
that offering a premium can significantly increase response rates.
Well, in my opinion, the four most important factors to consider when
choosing a premium are: value, novelty, relevance, and desirability.
1. Perceived value. A good premium either (a) has a high perceived value
or (b) has a value that the reader cannot determine.
The worst premium is an item that the prospect sees as having a low value.
Example: a well‐known financial newsletter publisher did a series of
blanket renewals with each offering a different premium for early renewal.
One of the best‐performing premiums was a video of the editor giving
financial advice. The promotion positioned it as a free financial consultation with
the editor in the privacy of your own home.
One of the worst‐performing premiums was a pack of playing cards with
the editor’s picture on each card.
Why didn’t playing cards work well as a premium?
One reason is low perceived value.
You can buy a deck of playing cards in any drug store or stationery store
for a dollar or so.
Therefore, the perceived value of the playing card deck premium was about
a dollar.
The video, by comparison, has a much higher perceived value: videos can
sell for anywhere from $19 to $79 or even higher.
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And since the editor was a highly paid investment advisor, positioning the
video as a free one‐hour “consultation” with him boosted the perceived value
even higher.
Readers knew such a consultation would cost several thousand dollars, if
the editor would even agree to it.
2. Novelty. As a rule of thumb, unique premiums generally—but not
always—pull better than “me‐too” or commodity premiums.
Newsletter and magazine publishers know that an exclusive special report,
written by the editor on a topic of interest, is an effective premium because it is a
unique item: the reader can’t get it anywhere else.
On the other hand, offering best‐selling books as subscription premiums
has generally not worked well, because the item is so readily available: if the
premium is a best‐seller, there is an excellent chance the reader already has it—
and if not, he can just pop into a bookstore and pick one up, without subscribing
to your publication.
One subscription premium that did extremely well was a coffee mug for
Advertising Age. Of course, coffee mugs are about as ordinary an item as you can
get.
But here was the gimmick: the artwork on the mug looked like a faux front
page of Advertising Age. Each mug was laser‐imprinted with the subscriber’s
name incorporated into a headline, e.g., “Jane Smith wins Advertising Age’s
‘Advertising Genius’ award.”
3. Relevance. Many consumer marketers have found that premiums having
little or no relationship to the product have worked extremely well. Examples
include free telephones, tote bags, and solar calculators.
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On the other hand, many other consumer marketers, and a large number of
business‐to‐business marketers, have found that they get a better lead or customer
when they offer a premium that’s relevant to the product.
Years ago, Weka Publishing mailed a package offering a loose‐leaf service
on managing Novell networks. When they tested the control against a version
offering a disk with 5 free utility and shareware programs for Novell, orders
doubled.
4. Desirability. The more desirable the free gift, the greater the number of
prospects who will respond to your promotion to get it.
One of the best premiums I’ve ever seen was for the Sovereign Society, a
financial newsletter focusing on offshore asset protection.
The premium? If you subscribed to the newsletter, the publisher would
open a Swiss bank account for you!
Offering the Swiss bank account as a premium meets all four criteria with
flying colors:
• Perceived value. How much should it cost to open a Swiss bank account?
I have no idea, and probably, neither did the subscriber. But prospects
knew that Swiss bank accounts were something rich people generally
had—“NOT just for millionaires anymore” the headline exclaimed—
and so the perceived value by logical extension was probably high.
• Novelty. Most financial newsletters offer special reports as premiums.
The idea of offering a free Swiss bank account was clever and unique.
• Relevant. Offering a free Swiss bank account as the premium is directly
relevant to the newsletter’s core proposition of helping readers protect
their assets offshore.
• Desirability. High. Even if you don’t have a lot of assets you need to
hide offshore, it’s a status thing: casually mentioning your “Swiss bank
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account” to neighbors impresses the heck out of them—giving the
customer immense pleasure and satisfying the need for exclusivity.
Section 3
Free Content from Uncle Sam Can Save Marketers Time and Money
One of the most effective and popular marketing techniques being used
today, both online and offline, is the free content offer.
You know how it works: to generate a lead or an order, you offer the
prospect some valuable free content in exchange for an inquiry or a purchase.
The free content can take many different forms: booklets, special reports,
white papers, article reprints, manuals, even books. These items are called “bait
pieces,” because they are used to “bait the hook” when you go “fishing” for a lead
or sale.
The process of building marketing campaigns around free content offers is
called “educational marketing” or “edu‐marketing,” because it generates sales by
educating prospects about your product or service—or the problem it solves.
Today, the bait piece is often electronic, not print. For online marketing,
white papers and reports are offered as downloadable PDF documents. The
advantage is that the prospect gets instant delivery of the bait piece, which costs
you nothing in printing and postage.
Bait pieces don’t have to be documents. You can offer software, DVDs,
videos, or CDs. The advantage is that the prospect is forced to give you his snail
mail address, because otherwise, you can’t ship the physical item to him.
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I am constantly urging clients to use the bait piece strategy—free content
offers—to increase response rates to lead‐generating and one‐step promotions. But
to my dismay, many don’t follow my suggestion.
Why not? The three biggest objections these marketers have to the bait
piece strategy revolve around the creation of the bait piece itself. They are:
1. I can’t write.
2. I don’t have time to write it.
3. I don’t have the budget to hire a writer and designer to produce the bait
piece.
If any of these are stopping you from offering free content, I have some
good news for you: now you can get “ready‐made” bait pieces from Uncle Sam.
And most won’t cost you a nickel.
How? Many people don’t realize that the U.S. government printing office
(GPO) is one of the largest publishers in the country.
They also aren’t aware that many of the U.S. GPO publications are not
copyrighted—meaning they are yours to reprint, distribute, and use however you
want (the government does ask that you credit them as the source, as a courtesy).
Years ago, when radon was in the news, I responded to a newspaper ad for
a radon inspection service because they offered a free “consumer awareness guide
to radon.” When I got it, I realized they had taken a GPO publication and just
imprinted it with their name and address.
You can find a selection of GPO reports and booklets at the Federal Citizen
Information Center (FCIC). Before the Internet, FCIC used to advertise their free
publications catalog aggressively on TV—remember those commercials urging
you to call or write “Pueblo, Colorado”?
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Now, you can find the FCIC online at www.pueblo.gsa.gov, where you can
download and print dozens of publications for free. Or you can call them toll‐free
at 888‐878‐3256 for a free copy of their catalog of publications.
How might a marketer take advantage of this rich treasure trove of free
content from Uncle Sam?
Well, one of the publications I found on the site is “Stop, Think, Click: 7
Practices for Safer Computing.” This 12‐page report “helps protect your
information, your computer, even yourself…[against] online scammers, hackers,
and identity thieves.”
Could you imagine a high‐tech firm selling firewalls, anti‐virus software,
Internet monitoring programs, or content filters offering this as a free report in
their ads or online? Of course: it’s a natural fit. And they wouldn’t have to write a
word; they could just put their logo and contact information on the front and back
pages of the existing report.
Another report I downloaded for free at the FCIC Website was “Taking
Control of Your Finances.” This 12‐page document had sections on common
mistakes people make with money, how to protect yourself against financial fraud,
and five things you should know about credit cards. Any financial planner could
get more leads by offering this free bulletin to potential customers interested in
saving and making money.
The library of free content available at www.pueblo.gsa.gov is quality
material: the federal government pays writers and designers good money to
produce these publications, which are almost universally well written and
attractively designed.
So if you want to offer free content, but you don’t have the time, skill, or
resources to create your own bait pieces, that’s no longer a valid excuse for
ignoring the bait‐piece strategy. Your tax dollars have already been spent creating
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a wealth of content you can offer your prospects as a bait piece. And it’s yours free
for the taking.
One additional tip: another good source of content is books in the “public
domain”—that is, books on which copyright protection has expired. Most
nonfiction books published before 1923 fit into this category. Of course, the
drawback here is that much of this content is dated—but not all.
Note: I am not an attorney, so I can’t give you legal advice. Therefore, you
should check with your attorney before using previously published material from
any source, other than your own company, in your marketing programs.
Section 4
Tips and Techniques for Increasing Your Renewal Rates
I’m not a smart guy, but I know a lot of smart people.
So when I’m writing these articles for DM News, my research methodology
often consists of e‐mailing some of the folks in my address book who have
knowledge about the topic worth sharing—and asking them for a contribution.
In this week’s article, I’m going to share with you some renewal strategies
and tactics that have worked for others—and therefore, that might work for you
too.
I began by asking Doug Hill, marketing director at KCI, a publisher of
financial newsletters, to tell me about his best renewal mailing.
“Itʹs a renewal we call ‘Oops, we goofed,’” says Doug. “Back when I was
Personal Finance product manager, we were increasing the price. But before we
did so, we were allowing subscribers to renew at the current pricing.
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“In one of the efforts—there were two efforts initially, but it worked so well
we extended it to six—I said, ‘This offer is good until February 30.’ Yeah, I know.
It was a real oversight. But we got lots of mail about it. So I rolled out another
effort with the ‘Oops’ headline. It killed.”
Years ago, I wrote a blanket renewal—sometimes called an advance
renewal—for an investment newsletter. In this case, the newsletter was switching
from 8 to 12 pages, but the publisher was not increasing the price. I decided to
focus on that in my headline, which read something like: “We are increasing from
8 to 12 pages, which means our printing costs will go up 50 percent…but we won’t
charge you even one dime more!” I don’t have the numbers any more, but the
publisher told me it was an extremely successful mailing.
“In my 38 years of circulation experience, Renewal‐at‐Birth is one of my
favorites to write,” says circulation promotion expert Dr. Andrew Linick
(www.AndrewLinickDirectmarketing.com). Why? Because before the subscriber
gets that first magazine, you can mail out a renewal notice with toned down copy
for a very special, low‐keyed offer.
The perception of an excellent publication where the benefits outweigh the
price is the number one factor in making a renewal decision. While we’re talking
about response, realize that it’s easier to increase the average dollar amount of a
renewal than it is to increase the percent of response.
You are asking subs to renew when their emotions of excitement and
anticipation are at the highest—right after they’ve signed up for a new
subscription. You can ask them to renew for a specified period of time at the full
rate or at a discount, but you should offer a valuable premium tied into the theme
of the publication. If the premium offered outweighs the price of the renewal
you’ll increase your percentage of renewals substantially.
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By creating an irresistible up‐sell offer way in advance, you’ll save a ton of
money in later renewal effort costs. How you get the sub to take out a longer term
of service is key and requires creative brainstorming. The more options you can
offer on the renewal order form (e.g. 4 months, 7 months, 12 months, 2‐years, 3‐
years—the better the response you’ll get. If you tie in a good, better, best premium
(for the three year renewal) to each term and save the most expensive premium
you can afford for the 3‐year term, you’ll get more paid renewals at the longer
term.
This is one of the most difficult mailings to write. The tone of your copy is
key here. Serious mistakes can creep into your copy and turn off the subscriber if
you are too eager in asking for money again after she’s just paid for a new sub.
Your copy should suggest you are doing your subscriber a big favor by inviting
her to renew NOW. Plus by renewing NOW, she’ll be protected against future
subscription rate increases and won’t miss out on the bonus 450‐page double issue
listing the Who’s Who in her industry by state including e‐mail and Web
addresses. Or, if you must, go for a ‘best deal’ discount offer, i.e., save 71% off the
cover price and renew for two full years for only $28. (When printing on recycled
paper add a line that you printed on recycled paper—that’s a plus!)
For newsletters, you can increase renewal rates by offering a special
renewal premium. Heather Downey of The Oxford Club says, “I have seen a noted
increase in response when I offer a special premium with the auto‐renew offer.
These have been anything from a 40‐page booklet on investing in China to a 16‐
page premium with a single stock pick. Iʹve used these most effectively in e‐mail,
which allows me to make changes as needed.”
I have always shied away from giving merchandise premiums for renewals.
But a number of publishers report good results with them. Bill Dugan, general
manager of the Pohly Company, told me, “One of the best renewal promotions
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I’ve ever done was a blanket renewal offer offering an executive pen and letter
opener set—very profitable and easy to implement.”
Sometimes a lift in renewal rates can come not from a bribe or discount
offer, but from the messaging. Copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis says, “My
most successful strategy is ridiculing the idea that the subscriber wonʹt renew,
coupled with a timely, specific reminder of what outsiders will miss.”
Graphics and offer can also increase renewal rates. Copywriter Clayton
Makepeace reports success using simulated invoices, simulated final notices, and
sweepstakes.
Another way to lift response to your renewal series is to use more than one
medium. “When sending out your renewal letters, use more than one avenue to
reach your subscribers,” says Craig Simpson of Simpson Direct. “Send an e‐mail,
postcard, and if you really want to bump your renewal rates, give the subscriber a
call.”
According to Simpson, the most effective way to generate renewals is by
using an auto‐billing renewal system. This means that when you initially sell the
subscription, you let the subscriber know that they’ll automatically be renewed.
For example: “The cost for a quarterly subscription is $X per quarter and
will be conveniently billed to your credit card each quarter. You may cancel at any
time for a pro‐rated refund.” This type of auto‐billing offer generates an 80 to 93
percent renewal rate, says Simpson.
For advance renewals, always place the renewal effort within the issue
envelope, advises consultant Jeff Greenberg.
“Advance renewals more than double your regular renewal efforts,” says
Greenberg. “It also brings in tomorrowʹs cash today and dramatically increases
renewal rates. Donʹt worry about having renewal expires out a few years; these
subscribers are more likely to renew again before anyone else.”
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Circulation consultant Paul Goldberg says that a key to renewals is not to
make the offer more generous as the renewal series proceeds.
“Always give your renewal prospects the best offer on your first effort,”
says Goldberg. “For example, offer two extra issues or a premium for renewing on
the first effort.”
Adds Goldberg: “If you have e‐mail addresses, an e‐mail blast before the
first effort is usually very effective. If you are using the telephone, I find it more
effective in the middle of the renewal series rather than at the end, where most
publishers use it at a reduced rate.”
Also, be careful about stepping up your rates too quickly from introductory
prices on conversions, advises Goldberg: “A two‐step and sometimes a three‐step
route to full price is more desirable.”
Copywriter Mike Pavlish agrees that the offer should never be made more
generous in the later renewals than it is in the first effort. His renewal letters
typically state, “This is the lowest price you will ever be offered—guaranteed—so
make it easy and respond now while itʹs in front of you!”
“Whenever Iʹve tested this language against not having it in the renewal, it
has increased renewal rates significantly,” says Pavlish. “If you donʹt push this,
many people will wait, thinking they will be offered a lower price later.”
Not only should the later efforts in the renewal series not make a more
generous offer than the first effort, but the offer should gradually become less
desirable, i.e., discounts are lessened and some bonuses are removed.
“I like to make several efforts a ‘last chance’ to get something,” says
Marlene Jensen, CEO, Pricing Strategy Associates. “For example, ‘Last chance to
get this bonus,’ ‘Your subscription expires next issue,’ or ‘Last chance at this low
rate.’”
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“I find raising the price—actually, itʹs reducing the discount—works great
to pull in laggards, especially those that hold on to the notice just to see if I really
do raise it, then quickly send it in when they see the higher price,” says Jensen.
“And, I still get a number of subscribers later, with the higher price apparently no
problem. And the extra cash is just a nice little bonus from these obviously not‐
price‐sensitive subscribers.”
Section 5
What’s Working in Business‐to‐Business E‐Mail Marketing Today?
There’s no shortage of experts claiming they know precisely what works in
business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐mail marketing.
But I take what most of them say with a grain of salt.
From long experience, we know that in traditional direct mail, there simply
is no “silver bullet”—no magic rules that apply all of the time to virtually
guarantee a winner.
Logic follows that there are no silver bullets in any kind of marketing,
including TV commercials, print ads, and e‐mail marketing. But the gurus and
experts keep trying to formulate silver bullets—or at least, best practices—
nonetheless.
First up is the question: when is the best day of the week to send a B2B e‐
mail marketing message? According to a new survey by eROI, Inc., high‐level
executives read most of their e‐mail messages on Mondays and Tuesdays. And the
best time to send messages on those days is during the lunch hour.
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Next up, subject lines: a study from e‐mail services provider Silverpop
showed that B2B e‐mail open rates are 20% when the subject line does not mention
the brand, company, or product, and 32% when the brand or company name
appears in the subject line.
That’s a 60% lift in open rates just from adding either the brand or the
company name to the subject line. But beware of using both: the study found that
open rates fall to only 24% when both the company name and the product name
are in the same subject line.
The debate about which is better—text or HTML e‐mail—rages on in
business‐to‐consumer marketing. But overwhelmingly, the vast majority of B2B e‐
mail marketers send HTML messages—which, one would suppose, means HTML
works best. Or does it?
“The majority of e‐mail campaigns for our B2B clients are HTML,” says
freelance copywriter Alan Sharpe. “This is partly because of aesthetics and the
need to project and protect the brand, and partly because we can only measure
open rates when we design in HTML.”
But other marketers are defying the best practice of using HTML for B2B e‐
mail marketing with good results.
“For most of the B2B clients I have worked with recently, plain text—
formatted effectively—has worked better than HTML,” says copywriter Steve
Slaunwhite. “I suspect this is because of the many issues that plague HTML, such
as deliverability and blocked images.”
Adds Steve: “I think plain text works better in e‐mail because it looks like
personal communications. Think about it. When you send me an e‐mail, do you
dress it up with fancy formatting and graphics? Or do you just write a simple e‐
mail?
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Software copywriter Ed Gandia also finds that text can outperform HTML
in B2B e‐mail marketing.
“When a conversational tone and approach would work better, text seems
to be outpulling HTML,” says Ed. “Also, since most B2B marketers use HTML,
text e‐mails are different, stand out, and therefore get more attention and higher
click‐through rates.
So, if it’s not true that HTML is universally better than text for B2B e‐mail
marketing, are there any legitimate B2B e‐mail marketing best practices—rules
that stand up in the real world, and that you ignore at your peril?
I can only think of three. First, the most important part of the e‐mail
marketing message is the “from” line. If the e‐mail is from a source the reader
knows, such as a trusted vendor or an online newsletter he subscribes to, he’s
more likely to open it.
The second most important part of the message is the subject line. Even
though the subject line is only 40 characters or so of text, tests conclusively prove
that a simple change in subject line can increase click‐through rates by 25% to 50%
or more.
Third, in writing B2B e‐mail or any other marketing materials, avoid the
common copywriting mistake of focusing on the product instead of the prospect—
a sin committed perhaps more frequently in B2B than B2C.
Many B2B e‐mails I see start with the product. But the reader, your prospect,
doesn’t care about you, your company, your product, or your technology. The
reader cares, first and foremost, about himself—his needs, fears, concerns,
problems, challenges, and desires.
The more you answer the primary question readers ask when they see your
e‐mail—“What’s in it for me?”—the greater your click‐through and conversion
rates will be.
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Section 6
When is the Best Day—and Time—to Send Your Marketing E‐Mails?
The problem with attempting to define “best practices” in online marketing
is that different marketers often get wildly different results, making it difficult to
establish definitive rules.
For instance, I recently did an informal survey asking top e‐mail marketers
this simple question: what day of the week, and time of day, should we send e‐
mail marketing messages to our list to get the best click‐through and conversion
rates?
“Different people will give you different answers to this question,” says
online copywriter and site optimization specialist Nick Usborne. “But in truth,
there is no ‘best’ day of the week for e‐mailing. Itʹs something of an urban myth.
Individual e‐mailers need to find the answer by testing.”
According to the MarketingSherpa E‐mail Marketing Benchmark Guide
2007, the volume of daily e‐mail traffic, from busiest day of the week to least busy,
is as follows: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Monday, Sunday, and
Saturday. Stefan Tornquist of Marketing Sherpa adds, “When we periodically
check this, it’s usually a horserace for first between Tuesday and Wednesday, with
Thursday falling just behind them.”
“The most popular and busiest day of the week for e‐mail is Tuesday,” says
Nick. “But some argue that this is a bad day, simply because your e‐mail has so
much competition for attention from other e‐mailers.
“The least busy day is Saturday. So some would say itʹs a great day to send
your e‐mail. But itʹs the least busy day for a reason: millions of people are out
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shopping, spending time with their kids, enjoying life, and not checking their e‐
mail.
“As for best time of day, I have never come across any data on that. But
intuitively, I would start by sending B2B e‐mails at the beginning of the work day,
and B2C e‐mails when people have gotten home from work.
“But thatʹs just intuition. The only way to find out for a particular list is by
testing open rates and conversion rates at different times of day. Also, keep in
mind that when you e‐mail your list at 9am EST in New York City, itʹs 6am in Los
Angeles, and 2pm in London.”
“We have tested different days of the week and have found that Tuesday
performs best for us,” says Josef Katz of Trump University. “Weekends did not
perform well, though we thought they might.
“Thursdays are not bad either but Tuesday seems to work best for our
business. We try to get our e‐mail out early in the day but have not tested day
parts in our efforts. Naturally, we always have room to improve and test.”
Ivan Levison, a copywriter in the software industry, comments: “I donʹt
send marketing e‐mails out on Monday. People are back from the weekend and
getting back in gear. Iʹm not a fan of Friday either, because they are thinking about
wrapping up for the weekend, and I believe are less prone to take action or take
the decision to others.
His favorite days for sending marketing e‐mails: Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday. As for time of day, the California‐based Levison says, “Not first thing.
By 10:30am PST, every one on the West coast is in and has gone through their e‐
mail already, and on the East coast theyʹre just back from lunch. I think this makes
sense, though I have no test results to back this up.”
“We’ve found that the best schedule for us is to send stand‐alone efforts on
Tuesday mornings, and then a quick ‘in case you missed this’ kind of follow‐up
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note on Fridays at mid‐day,” says Katie Yeakle, director of the American Writers
and Artists, Inc.
“Our assumption is that Tuesdays are good, because Mondays are typically
such busy e‐mail days for most people. Fridays are good, because most of us like
to clear out our in‐boxes, and tie up loose ends, before the weekend starts.”
For Patrick Coffey at Early to Rise (ETR), Friday e‐mails actually
outperform Tuesday. Sales start to trend upward on Thursday and top with
Friday, then drop off on Sunday.
“In the past, we thought the best day for mailing to our list was Tuesday
mid‐morning,” says Patrick. “However, after reviewing our ad sales over the past
year, we discovered that Friday is actually our best day. This definitely shows you
why you need to be constantly evaluating and re‐evaluating.”
Here are ETR’s daily sales shown as a percentage of the total weekly
revenues:
• Monday—14.3%.
• Tuesday—13.2%.
• Wednesday—13.8%.
• Thursday—16.6%.
• Friday—23.1%.
• Saturday—13.6%.
• Sunday—5.4%.
“I do have some theories as to why this happens,” he says. “As we start to
approach the weekend, people become less focused at work and need a break. So
they’ll take the time to read a personal e‐mail or browse the Web.
“On the other hand Sunday is clearly our worst day. I believe this is caused
by Sunday being a day for people to spend time with their family and run
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errands. Another factor could be the fact that many of our Christian readers are
attending Mass when our message hits their inbox on Sunday mornings.”
“I typically send my e‐mails out at 2pm EST on Thursdays or Sundays,”
says Internet marketer Paul Hartunian. “My rationale is that if I send out at 2pm
on Thursday, people on the East coast get them at 2pm and on the West coast at
11am, both well within the work day. So the people are not inundated with early
morning e‐mail or wanting to wrap up the day and get out of the office. On
Sundays, the same applies, but people are more at leisure.”
Robert Skrob, director of membership services at the Information Marketing
Association (IMA), is an exception to the “no Mondays” rule.
“Our marketing e‐mails go out on Mondays,” he says. “If I get busy, I donʹt
mind sending them out on a Tuesday. However, I donʹt bother sending anything
on Thursdays and Fridays; my response is minimal on those days.”
These e‐mails are distributed in the afternoon—after 2pm EST and 11am PT.
“I hate having my messages lumped in with the overnight spam deluge,” he says.
“That way, everyone has an opportunity to get their e‐mail box cleaned out and
get into transactional mode. Our e‐mails arrive at a time when the recipient is
dealing with important issues of the day.”
One exception: when sending prospects to a landing page to hear an audio
presentation over the Internet, Skrob has found that Sunday mornings get a 3
times higher opt‐in rate. “Iʹm guessing my prospects have more leisure time to
review their e‐mail, and listening to my presentation is a nice diversion for their
day,” he notes. “The ratio of listeners to buyers stays consistent, so more opt‐ins
on Sundays has meant more sales.”
Bob Martel of JMB Marketing Group says: “I am sure that in some industries
minutes matter and timing is crucial. I manage several Constant Contact e-mail campaigns
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for clients and, in general, we schedule e-mails for Tuesday or Wednesday delivery, after
10am EST in most cases.
“Time limited, direct response special offers to a house list work at all hours any
day of the week. A lot depends on who you are trying to reach, consumers or people in the
workplace, and the overall purpose of the communication. Is there a time sensitive call to
action?”
Martel notes that the Internet is a 24/7 environment, even for the 9-5 employee. “I
find that while it used to be true that marketing-driven e-mails needed to be very carefully
timed, or so we thought, people are reading e-mails at all hours of the day and late into the
night,”he says.“Sunday nights are very active, as telecommuters clean the slate for the
upcoming work week.”
Michelle Feit of list broker ePost Direct says she focuses on the times within each
day when the marketer is most likely to find the executive receptive, uncluttered,
and at their desk. Her guidelines for B2B e‐mail distribution:
• Donʹt be in the inbox first thing in the morning or after lunch when most
of the e‐mail clutter exists.
• Stay away from major vacation weeks when people will most likely be
out of the office—Christmas week, July 4th week, etc.
• Fridayʹs are fine except afternoon in the summer.
• Avoid Monday mornings. People are trying to finish up last week’s
tasks, and weekends create the most e‐mail clutter.
“Best practices say to e-mail Tuesdays or Wednesdays, early in the morning, for
marketing messages,” says Dwain Jeworski, Marketing Director, Strategic Profits.
“But we send later in the day, and on any day, as our audience is worldwide.
“Saturdays have become a great day for us, as people have time on the weekend to
read what we are sending, and also because the e-mail market follows the best practice rule
of weekday mornings except Friday—leaving the weekend quiet for e-mail.”
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Conclusions: Best days for e‐mail marketing are Tuesday, Wednesday, and
Thursday, in that order. Time of day is not as critical as day of the week, especially
with an audience in multiple time zones. But e‐mailing around the lunch hour
East coast USA time seems safe.
When using e‐mail marketing to drive traffic to landing pages with long
audio or video messages, test e‐mailing on the weekend. Test alternate times and
days, weekends included, for your other e‐mail marketing campaigns as well.
Section 7
Optimizing Your Weekly E‐mail Schedule to Increase Online Revenues
A huge number of direct marketers who sell online have a regularly
published e‐newsletter they distribute to their e‐list.
But the most profitable e‐mails you can send are your solo e‐mails—
marketing messages promoting specific products.
Those of us who generate direct sales by sending e‐mail marketing
messages to our house file know that the more solo e‐mails we send, the more
money we make.
Then why don’t we send e‐mails all the time? Because too‐frequent e‐
mailing can produce a spike in our opt‐out rate—which in turn causes our most
valuable asset, our e‐list, to evaporate.
As a rule of thumb, the frequency of solo e‐mail marketing blasts to your e‐
list depends, to a large extent, on how often you distribute the e‐newsletter they
subscribed to.
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A marketer with a daily online newsletter can probably send a solo e‐mail
to his list at least daily.
But if a marketer with a quarterly e‐zine starts bombarding his list with
daily e‐mail sales pitches, they’ll jump ship fast.
The best way to find the optimal schedule of e‐newsletters and solo e‐mail
blasts, of course, is to test.
“There is a point of sending too much, yes, but it varies based on the niche,
the relationship, and the content of the dedicated mailings,” says online marketing
consultant Andrew Palmer. “If the offer is relevant to the list, and can be seen as
helpful, and a good relationship exists already with the subscribers, then you can
be more aggressive.
“But if the e‐newsletter is monthly, the relationship is not as strong. So
sending a solo sales e‐mail every day is out. Even once a week might be a bit too
aggressive. Twice a month is more reasonable.”
To create more slots for solo e‐mails each month, Andrew advises clients to
publish their e‐newsletter weekly rather than monthly.
E‐newsletter frequency, of course, depends on two factors. First, can you do
it? Do you have the time and resources to write two, four, or more issues per
month instead of the single issue you do now?
Second, does your topic merit increased frequency? A daily e‐newsletter on
precious metals prices makes sense. But do you really want daily e‐mails on
leadership or time management?
“You can e‐mail information in the form of a newsletter every day, as long
as the content can support this frequency,” says Dwayne Jewarski of Strategic
Profits. He notes that for a monthly online newsletter, not e‐mailing to the list for a
few days prior to distribution increases readership.
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Jewarski lets opt‐out rates tell him whether he is e‐mailing too frequently. If
the opt‐out rate spikes above 30 unsubscribe requests per thousand, he knows he’s
e‐mailing too much.
“There should always be a call to action, or a reward for receiving the e‐
mail,” he adds. “The recipient should always see value in the message, and every
message should have a purpose.”
Michelle Feit of e‐list broker ePost Direct says that you can e‐mail your list
daily if you can provide them with must‐have information. If your purpose is to
maintain contact or generate sales, then five to six times a month is plenty.
“The monthly newsletters I manage vary from 800 to 4,600 opt‐in
subscribers,” says Bob Martel of JMB Marketing Group. “We usually send private‐
offer, limited‐time solo e‐mails for various products or services, with some
seasonal, some inventory sales, and some cross‐selling efforts.”
Adds Martel: “You have to poke at it to find the point of annoyance and
ineffectiveness, then back off a few turns. If it’s an opt‐in e‐list, and the solo piece
has a high perceived value, as evidenced by the subject line and the history of past
value‐building solo e‐mails, then I think there is a higher tolerance.”
“Frequency of e‐mail marketing messages is the million‐dollar question,”
says Katie Yeakle of the American Writers and Artists, Inc. She notes that some
subscribers would prefer that you never e‐mail them sales messages, while others
appreciate you more for keeping them informed about things that are of interest to
them.
“The more offers we send out, the more profitable we are. We haven’t
crossed the line…and we keep testing to see where that line is.”
Copywriter and site optimization expert Nick Usborne says, “I think that if
your e‐list is accustomed to receiving a newsletter once a month, it is hard to
suddenly start e‐mailing them a few times a week. You’d get a lot of unsubscribe
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requests.”
He suggests that if you want to maximize frequency of e‐mail sales
messages, clearly state up front, when the user first subscribes, how many e‐mail
messages he can expect each week or month.
Here are a few rules of thumb that can help you optimize e‐newsletter and
e‐mail marketing distribution schedules for maximum revenues:
• If you have a monthly e‐newsletter, you can send a solo e‐mail
marketing message once a week. If people complain and unsubscribe,
cut back to every other week. If they seem receptive, you might consider
testing twice weekly.
• If you have a weekly e‐newsletter, you can safely send a second, sales‐
oriented e‐mail, in addition to the newsletter, to your subscribers each
week.
• If you have a daily e‐newsletter, you can send subscribers at least two e‐
mails every day: the e‐newsletter plus a second e‐mail with a marketing
message.
Another strategy that works: say you want to increase e‐mail revenues, but
your e‐list complains when you increase the frequency of sales messages.
Solution: alternate your straight e‐mail sales messages with “editorial” e‐
mails. These are e‐mails that ostensibly contain content. But here the content in the
e‐mail relates to, and leads to the sale of, a specific product.
Example: you write an opinion piece on how many entrepreneurs waste
time, and give them a few time management tips. At the close of the e‐mail, you
mention your new time management seminar on DVD, and place a link to the
product page.
You can, in your subject line, position the editorial e‐mail as a
“supplement” to the subscriber’s regular e‐zine subscription. The regular issues
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look and read like a content‐driven e‐newsletter, with articles. The editorial
supplement can read more like a personal communication from the editor to his
reader.
This works especially well if the regular e‐zine issues focus on your regular
content, such as news, tips, and advice, with the editorial supplement being more
in the nature of personal opinion and advice from the guru to the subscriber.
Section 8
In Copywriting, a Lot of Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing
Years ago, I hired a gray‐haired tile guy to tile our bathroom.
My wife—a lover of home improvement projects—objected.
“I can do it myself,” she volunteered—knowing I had neither the time nor
inclination to do the project with her.
I hired the tile guy.
As she watched him work, she became distressed.
Apparently she did not think he was using proper technique.
When she told him how she thought it ought to be done, he asked: “Who
told you that?”
“I saw it done on This Old House,” she told him.
He stopped working, sighed, turned, looked her in the eye, and said: “Miss,
a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
But in my profession, copywriting, the opposite can also hold true—and a
lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
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This is especially true when selling a technical or complicated product to a
lay audience.
Say you are marketing a course “Getting Started in Options Trading” to
people who have never traded options before.
You are a copywriter. You know financial products. But you are not an
options trader.
Your client is an experienced options trader. He has been trading options
for over a decade, and he wrote the course you are selling. Therefore, he has a
better understanding of how to sell his course, right?
Not necessarily.
Product knowledge is important. Copywriters probably spend up to half
their time on a project doing research. The client already has more product
knowledge than the copywriter ever will.
But more important than product knowledge is prospect knowledge:
understanding the potential buyers for the product: their worries, concerns, fears,
problems, desires, hopes, and dreams.
In the case of our options course, the market is people who have never
traded options before.
The course author, an experienced trader, is not a member of the target
audience. He is a veteran trader. As such, he knows a lot about options trading.
But the copywriter is a member of the target audience. He is an average
investor who might consider options trading, tempted by the promise of big
profits, but hesitant because he perceives options trading to be difficult and risky.
The client possesses a lot of knowledge about options trading, but in a
promotion aimed at newbie traders, that can be a dangerous thing, creating an
inability to relate to the mindset of a rank novice.
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The copywriter has the advantage of being in the same boat as the prospect:
perhaps learning about how to trade options according to the client’s system for
the first time—and therefore better able to address concerns and questions in his
copy.
My colleague Don Hauptman says the key to copywriting is to start with
the prospect, not the product. Therefore, while product and prospect knowledge
are both important, understanding the prospect is the more important of the two.
But what if you are not a member of the target market? Just as you research
product facts, there are shortcuts you can take to get up to speed on the beliefs,
desires, and emotions of your buyers.
1. In business‐to‐business marketing, subscribe to the one or two top trade
journals serving your target market. You don’t have to read every article.
The most useful feature to read: letters to the editor. These letters show you
what people in the industry care about; what the hot buttons are.
2. In consumer marketing, order a product or two from each of the major
direct marketers in that niche. Doing so will get your name on every list,
and you will begin to receive a huge volume of promotions. Save the most
interesting promotions in a swipe file, and mark those you receive multiple
times. You know that the ones mailed repeatedly are strong controls. There
is no better way of understanding what’s working in a particular market
than to study the controls.
3. Attend trade shows and consumer expos that prospects in your target
market attend. You can see first‐hand how they react to different products,
and hear the way they talk about their business or passion, whether it’s
information technology or gardening.
4. When writing direct mail, study the data cards for the lists your package is
being mailed to. Pay particular attention to the average order size. If the
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average order size is $100 and your product costs $50, you know you are in
a price range comfortable for your prospects. On the other hand, if the
average order is $100, and you are selling a $500 offer, you must work hard
to overcome price resistance. Two ways to do it: write powerful copy
showing why the price is a drop in the bucket compared to the value the
product delivers, and stress your unconditional money‐back guarantee.
Section 9
The 4 Levels of Features and Benefits
You’ve heard it before: when advertising your product, stress features
instead of benefits.
But it’s a little more complicated than that.
To be accurate, product facts aren’t just divided into one of two
categories—features or benefits.
Experienced marketers know that there are four levels of production
description.
These are features, advantages, benefits, and ultimate benefits.
The more you understand and use all four levels—and not just benefits—in
your advertising, the more effective your advertising will be.
Let’s look at these four levels….
The lowest level is features.
A “feature” is what a product is or has—the literal physical description of
the product.
For instance, a feature of a tire is that it is steel‐belted. Another might be
that it is double ply.
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Often, despite what experts tell you about “stress benefits, not features,” a
feature can be a selling point…even if the prospect doesn’t know what it is!
For instance, when I was a kid, brochures for the new car models coming
out would boast about “rack and pinion” steering.
The car makers hyped it so much, everyone asked dealers, “Does the car
have rack and pinion steering?
Yet I bet not one buyer in a hundred really knew what rack and pinion
steering was.
I still don’t, to this day.
Next, there are advantages.
An “advantage” is a feature that your product has that competitive
products don’t have.
You know that to get consumers interested in your product, you must show
how your product is different than competing products.
The advantage is that point of differentiation….
For our tire example, that might be that our tire is the only steel‐belted
radial tire that also has double ply.
Moving up the hierarchy, the next level of product description is benefits.
A “benefit” is what the product does…and how the consumer comes out
ahead as a result of this capability.
Going back to our tire example, again, the benefit of a steel‐belted double
ply radial might be that the tire grips the road tighter and increases safety while
driving.
Or that it can drive for another 100 miles even after being punctured before
you have to change it.
At the top of the product description hierarchy is what I call ultimate
benefits.
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An “ultimate benefit” is “the benefit of the benefit”…the most important
way in which the product improves the user’s life.
Ultimate benefits include saving money…saving time…making
money…success…self‐esteem…security…safety…joy…pleasure…happiness.
Remember the TV commercial for the tire showing a baby sitting in the
middle of a tire?
That’s an example of showing the ultimate benefit…which simply put is, “If
you buy our tires, you won’t kill your baby.”
In business‐to‐business marketing, a benefit might be “reduces energy
costs.”
The ultimate benefit is often “makes you a hero within your company”…
Meaning if you achieve the benefit by purchasing the product, senior
management will look upon you favorably.
To make your copy richer, deeper, and more credible, don’t just talk about
benefits.
Instead, use all four levels of product description: features, advantages,
benefits, and ultimate benefits.
For instance, ultimate benefits are powerful, they are too generic…not
specific enough.
To give your advertising specificity, state the specific benefit (e.g., “reduces
energy costs 50%”) that delivers the ultimate benefit (“you’ll be the hero of your
company”).
To differentiate your product from others that deliver a similar benefit, you
need to explain the advantages—how your product is different from or better than
the competition.
Finally, there are the features….
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Lots of marketing seminars urge you to stress benefits instead of
features…but you should use both.
Why?
People are skeptical that your product can deliver the benefits you
promise…because everyone is promising those same benefits.
When you show how a particular feature delivers the benefit, it becomes
more believable to the prospect.
For instance, if you tell the buyer your computer system never loses data,
he thinks, “How can that be?”
But when you describe the feature—that there is a built‐in tape drive…and
that the system automatically backs up to that tape drive daily—then your claim
becomes more believable.
Believe it or not.
Section 10
In Marketing, Flattery Will Get You Everywhere—As Long As It’s Sincere
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” prospects who want to appear strong‐
willed say, with pride, to marketers who would stroke their egos for profit.
But actually, flattery can get you almost anywhere.
The reason: people want to feel good about themselves…and if you give
them a legitimate way to do it, you get their attention and cause them to be
receptive to your communication.
Of course, flattery has to be legitimate and sincere.
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You wouldn’t start a sales letter targeted to zip codes of people living in
trailer parks with, “You’ve finally made it!”…because they know (and you know)
they haven’t made it.
Such a tactic would be insincere, generating negative feelings in the
prospects about themselves and about you. Neither is conducive to selling.
So “flattery marketing” generally works best with audiences known to have
healthy egos…high opinions of themselves.
Examples include millionaires…business owners…doctors, lawyers, and
other self‐employed professionals…senior corporate executives…middle
managers earning six figures or close to it…scientists, systems analysts, or others
with in‐demand technical skills.
The key tactic in “flattery marketing” is a letter that speaks directly to the
reader and begins by acknowledging the reasons why they feel good about
themselves.
For instance, The Director’s Report is an expensive subscription publication
aimed at people who sit on corporate boards.
You and I can only imagine being asked to sit on a corporate board…but
we can easily imagine what a heady feeling such an invitation must generate.
The promotion letter selling The Director’s Report to board members is
built around that ego‐satisfying emotion:
A SPECIAL INVITATION TO THE LEADER OF CORPORATE AMERICA…
Dear Director:
You’re it. A genuine leader of American business.
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Someone so accomplished . . . and so successful . . . that
important companies have sought you out to join their board
of directors.
You enjoy your board member status. And you should. Being a
director wins instant respect from your friends and
colleagues. And the perks aren’t bad, either. Etc.
To write a “flattery letter,” you simply focus—at least in the lead—on the
prospect, and all but forget about the product.
The trick is to get inside the head of the prospect, figure out the legitimate
reason why they’re proud and happy to be where they are today….
And feed it back to them in sincere language that acknowledges their
success—and their right to feel good about it—without going overboard.
Of course, you then have to tie in that feeling—or whatever makes them
special—with the product you are selling.
In the Director’s Report letter, the next sentence does that job:
But watch out. Being a board member may have become more
dangerous than ever.
We then learn what those dangers are (fallout from Enron and other
scandals resulting in stricter corporate governance)—and how the publication can
help the reader navigate them.
The rest of the letter sells the product, but don’t forget to come back to the
core emotion—the pride and ego—a couple of times in the body and again in the
close to tie it all together.
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The Director’s Report letter closes:
You take pride in being a director. Now Director’s Alert can
help you be the best director you can be.
You know from personal experience that a huge percentage of the
population is openly egotistical. I suspect the rest of the population is too, but
simply less vocal about it.
Tap into that ego, fuel it appropriately, and you can get people figuratively
eating out of the palm of your hand…or at least putting a check into your reply
envelope.
Section 11
The Proof is in the Promotion—Or Should Be
Nowhere do some marketers think less like consumers than when it comes
to proving the claims they make in their promotions.
And there is nothing that sticks out like a sore thumb more to the reader
than an outrageous claim that is not backed by one single iota of proof.
For instance, I was writing a sales letter to sell subscriptions to a magazine
covering the defense industry.
When I asked the subscription manager what made their product different
she said:
“We aren’t usually the first to report on a story…TV, newspapers, and the
Internet all beat us to the punch, since we are a monthly…but we analyze and
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interpret the news so our readers can make better decisions based on what the
facts really mean.”
“That’s fascinating,” I replied, scribbling eagerly. “Can you give me an
example?”
Her reply: dead silence.
Imagine: the USP (unique selling proposition) was that this publication
analyzed military events more accurately and in depth so military people could
make better strategic decisions based on this analysis.
And no one at the publication could give me a single example to prove it!
Finally, we did get a story…just one story…and it was a beauty.
One of their editors analyzed a photo from a battle that had been published
in the newspapers, and was able to correctly identify the model of tank in the
picture—something the newspapers had gotten wrong.
Why did this matter? Turns out, it was an inferior model of tank. The editor
explained: “By knowing that a ‘cheap’ tank had been deployed, we knew the
enemy did not consider this a strategically important area…or else he would have
deployed premium tanks there. The enemy’s strategy was revealed, and our
readers could plan accordingly.”
Can you imagine claiming that you could help a general plan victory in
battle…or help people get better jobs…or help companies reduce their insurance
costs…without producing even one good story or example to prove it?
Sounds absurd, but dozens of promotions I see do just that!
Often, these promotions have no proof for their major claim because the
marketer has never bothered to collect it.
And if you’re going to aggressively market your product through the mail
or online, collecting such proof from satisfied customers should be your #1
priority.
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It’s easy to do:
First, figure out the claim you want to prove or demonstrate, e.g., “XYZ is
the only product that does [Benefit] for [Audience] by [Method].”
Then, send a simple letter or form to your customers. Ask them:
“Has our product [XYZ] ever helped you achieve [Benefit] by
[Method]? We are looking for success stories from customers
like you. If you have a success story to share with us,
please summarize it below and send this form back to us. If
we use your story in our marketing, you will receive a free
[NAME OF GIFT].”
Offer a nice gift in the $50 to $100 price range to anyone whose story you
use. This will be sufficient to motivate people to take the time to think about your
product and relay the story of how it helped them.
Do this until you have, ideally, 12 really good stories you can use. Then use
them as follows:
1. In an ad, lead‐generating letter, or e‐mail, you can build your copy
around a single compelling story.
2. In a traditional direct mail package with a multi‐page letter, pack
your letter with proof. Tell three of the stories in detail, and 3 to 6
more in summary.
3. Reprint them as a group of testimonials on a single printed sheet
you mail in your sales literature or post on your Website.
The bottom line: the more thoroughly you demonstrate how your product
delivers a particular benefit in a unique fashion, and prove it has done so through
user success stories, the more effective your marketing will be.
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Section 12
What Words Sell Best?
For several years, car manufacturers have been proactively marketing sales
of used vehicles with ads touting “certified pre‐owned vehicles.”
These are used cars that have been thoroughly inspected and come with a
warranty equivalent (or close to it) to that of a new car.
A few weeks ago, I heard a radio commercial for Toyota, who has jumped
into this market.
But instead of calling their used car a “pre‐owned vehicle”…they call it a
“used car”!
Now I admire plain‐speaking people and honest, forthright language…and
“used car” fits that bill better than “pre‐owned vehicle.”
On the other hand, there’s a reason Mont Blanc sells “writing
instruments”—and the reason is, no one wants to pay $100 for a “pen.”
So what do you think?
Will Toyota’s honesty be rewarded by consumers with more sales?
Or are they shooting themselves in the foot by not advertising “pre‐owned
vehicles”?
I don’t know the answer…no one knows the answer to any marketing
question until they test it…but there’s one thing I do know….
The words you choose for your copy can make a big difference in how well
it performs.
Or to put it another way: semantics sell.
Here’s a great example….
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A number of years ago, when Clinton was still in office, I was driving in the
DC area, where I almost always get lost.
As I desperately tried to find K Street, I heard a radio commercial for
American Spectator, the conservative magazine.
The commercial said that if you called a toll‐free number to subscribe, you
would get a free premium—a “Special Report” titled “Inside the Clinton White
House.”
I didn’t call, but I am pretty sure that American Spectator, as is typical of
magazines, put together this special report by assembling reprints of a few articles
they’d done on Clinton during the year into a booklet.
Listen to the words, “Special Report.” Sounds important and
exclusive…like something you’d want to have. And the title—“Inside the Clinton
White House”—sounds juicy.
On the other hand, what if the radio commercial had closed with, “So call
toll‐free today to subscribe…and we’ll give you a bunch of past articles ripped out
of old issues of the magazine and stapled together.”
I can’t imagine the phone ringing off the hook for that one.
Another example of the power of words in marketing is the old comic book
ad with the headline, “Enter the wonderful world of amazing live sea
monkeys…open a bowl full of happiness—instant pets!”
The ad pictured a happy underwater family of cute, friendly creatures—a
mom, dad, and kids—living outside the family castle…presumably in a fish
bowl…as the human youngster and his human parents who purchased the sea
monkeys look down in delight.
Well, if you ever took the bait and mailed the coupon with your money,
what you got was a plastic vial full of dried brine shrimp eggs…with instructions
to hatch them in warm, salty water.
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When mine hatched, they looked nothing like the handsome Sea Monkey
family in the ad…they were basically little dots moving around in a bowl of water.
Yes, words have power, and the words you choose decide a lot about what
people think of you, your company, your product, and your offer…especially
whether they want to buy or try it.
No one wants brine shrimp eggs. But “instant pets” and “amazing live sea
monkeys”? I’m in!
One last example….
My colleague Gary Hennerberg was called on by a company in Texas that
sold mail order fruitcakes.
Fruitcakes weren’t selling like hot cakes (big surprise)…and they needed to
boost orders.
Gary asked the bakery what ingredients were used, and to his surprise, he
found that these Fruitcakes contained pecans.
Not only that, but they were grown locally in Texas, on the banks of a river,
where the moisture made them particularly flavorful.
Gary told the company to test a mailing calling the product “native Texas
pecan cakes” instead of “Fruitcakes.”
They followed his advice…and fruitcake sales soared by 60%.
Semantics, I guess. Go figure.
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Section 13
The Easiest Way Ever to Convince Skeptical Buyers to do Business with You
Using testimonials—quotations from satisfied customers and clients—is
one of the simplest and easiest ways to add instant credibility to your promotions.
Always use real testimonials instead of made‐up ones. Even the most
skilled copywriter can rarely make up a testimonial that can match the sincerity
and credibility of genuine words of praise from a real customer or client.
Prefer specific, detailed testimonials to general or superlative testimonials.
Upon receiving a letter of praise from a customer, our initial reaction is to read the
letter and find the single sentence that directly praises our company or our
product. With a blue pencil, we extract the words we think are kindest about us,
producing a bland bit of puffery such as:
“We are very pleased with your product.”
Actually, most testimonials would be stronger if we included more of the
specific, detailed comments our client has made about how our product or service
helped him. After all, the prospects we are trying to sell to may have problems
similar to the one our current customer solved using our product. If we let Mr.
Customer tell Mr. Prospect how our company came to his rescue, he’ll be helping
us make the sale.
Don’t try to polish the customer’s words so it sounds like professional ad
copy. Testimonials are usually much more convincing when they are not edited
for style.
Use full attribution. We’ve all opened direct mail packages that contained
testimonials from “J.B. in Arizona” or “Jim S., Self‐Made Millionaire.”
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To increase the believability for your testimonials, attribute each quotation.
Include the person’s name, city and state, and (if a business customer) their job
title and company.
There are two basic ways to present testimonials: You can group them
together in one area of your brochure or ad, or you can scatter them throughout
the copy. A third alternative is to combine the two techniques, having many
testimonials in a box or buck slip and a smattering of other testimonials
throughout the rest of your copy.
I’ve seen both approaches work well, and the success of the presentation
depends, in part, on the skill of the writer and the specific nature of the piece. But,
all else being equal, I prefer the first approach: to group all your testimonials and
present them as a single block of copy. This can be done in a box, on a separate
page or on a separate sheet.
My feeling is that when the prospect reads a half dozen or so testimonials,
one right after another, they have more impact and power than when the
testimonials are separated and scattered throughout the piece.
Finally, get the customer’s permission to reprint his words before including
his testimonial in your marketing campaign. Send a letter quoting the lines you
want to reprint. Ask permission to include them in ads, direct mail, brochures, and
other materials used to promote your firm. This way, you can use the testimonials
again and again.
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Section 14
Increase Your Flow of Sales Leads with a “Bait Piece”
Never do a lead‐generating promotion—a postcard, ad, banner ad, e‐mail,
direct mail package—without a “bait piece.”
The “bait piece” is an informative booklet, white paper, or special report
addressing some aspect of the problem your product or service helps the reader
solve. You offer a free copy of your booklet or report to any prospect who inquires
about your product or service.
Example: Fala Direct Marketing, a letter shop specializing in producing
personalized direct mailings, offers a free booklet, “Should I Personalize?” It helps
clients decide whether and how to personalize their mailings. Studebaker‐
Worthington, a company that provides financing services for computer resellers,
offers a free sales training video that shows resellers how to close more sales by
giving their customers the option to lease instead of buy.
You will greatly increase response to your direct mail and other promotions
with the offer of a strong bait piece, e.g., “Call or write us today for a copy of our
FREE booklet, ‘7 Ways to Reduce Energy Costs.’”
Conversely, not having a bait piece will significantly lower the response
rate to lead‐generating direct response promotions, whether business or consumer.
To avoid only attracting people who want free booklets, have both a “hard”
and “soft” offer in every lead generation promotion.
The soft offer is the offer of the free bait piece, e.g., “Click on this link to
download a copy of our free White Paper on Internet Security.”
The hard offer is: “Call us now to arrange an appointment so we can
discuss your Internet security needs in detail.”
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Prospects with an immediate need will take you up on the hard offer, while
those who don’t have an immediate need but might require your help in the
future will respond to the soft offer.
Years ago I used direct mail to generate leads for business writing seminars
I marketed to corporations. The main offer was “mail this card for more
information on my seminar, Effective Technical Writing.”
Then I got smart and added a P.S. that said, “Be sure to ask for our FREE tip
sheet, ‘10 Ways to Improve Your Business Writing’”—which was a reprint of an
article I published in a trade magazine. As soon as I added this soft offer, response
rates doubled, and so did sales.
FIND OUT IF A MAILING LIST IS WORKING *BEFORE* YOU USE IT
When evaluating list recommendations, there is one important piece of
information you should ask the list manager or broker that is not on the data card
(a “data card” is a fact sheet about the list). This key piece of information is “test
and continuations.” Ask who tested the mailing list (any of your competitors?)
and which of these marketers “rolled out” (rented additional names on the list)
after the test. A high number of continuations (i.e., 7 out of 10 or better) means the
list is working—otherwise, why would these companies continue to mail to it?
THE SECRET TO SELLING THROUGH CLASSIFIED ADS
Don’t try to sell your product directly from your classified ad: it almost
never works. Instead, use the classic two‐step approach. In the ad, invite the
reader to send for more information (e.g., offer “free details”). Then, follow‐up
with a strong package of promotional material that converts the lead into a sale.
CAN ALL PRODUCTS BE SOLD VIA MAIL ORDER?
No. Because of the high cost of marketing, you need at least a 4‐to‐1 mark‐
up on any product you intend to sell through mail order. Otherwise, your profit
margin will not be high enough and you will not make money. If you sell through
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dealers, they want to buy from you wholesale at 50% off retail price, and with a 4‐
to‐1 markup, you make a 100% profit even if you give dealers their wholesale
discount (e.g., product costs you $10, list price is $40, dealers pay $20).
GET THROUGH TO THE DECISION‐MAKER ON THE PHONE
When selling to business buyers, here’s a trick that works: Call early in the
morning and leave a voice mail message saying, “Mr. Smith, I will call you
tomorrow at 11am.” The next day, call as promised. When Mr. Smith’s assistant
asks, “Is he expecting your call?”, you can honestly answer “yes”—which
increases your chances of being put through.
Section 15
Avoid This Common Mistake When Creating Your Guarantee
We all know that a strong money‐back guarantee is a powerful weapon for
overcoming buyer resistance and boosting your sales.
But you can run into problems when your guarantee has flaws.
The best guarantees are:
• Fair.
• Generous.
• Long‐term.
• Unconditional.
When any of these four elements is missing, sales are likely to suffer as a
result.
For example, many of my clients are newsletter and magazine publishers.
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A number of these publishers offer lifetime guarantees. They permit the
subscriber to cancel at any time and receive a prorated refund on “unmailed
issues.”
But if you offer both a bill‐me option as well as payment with order—as I
often come across—such a lifetime guarantee actually gives the customer an
incentive NOT to pay up front.
Think about it.
Say the customer checks the “bill‐me” option for a monthly magazine, gets
his first issue, and then writes “cancel” on his invoice.
The publisher doesn’t send him a bill for one issue, nor does the publisher
ask for the magazine back. So the customer gets a free issue.
But if the customer pays in advance, then cancels after the first issue, he
gets a refund for 11/12th of the subscription price (the 11 unmailed issues) and
therefore ends up paying for the issue received.
Why should the bill‐me customer get a free issue, but not the payment‐
with‐order customer? It isn’t fair and doesn’t make sense, considering a cash‐with‐
order customer is more desirable than a bill‐me order.
Solution: Offer a full money back guarantee within the first 30 days, then
prorated refund thereafter.
Another frequent guarantee problem is wording that says you will get your
money back “if you return the product in saleable condition.”
Well, the customer doesn’t have any control over the UPS man who brings
the box to your door.
Your guarantee implies that if the product is damaged in transit on its way
from the customer to you, the buyer doesn’t get a refund. That would make me
hesitate to order from you.
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I was in a video game store where a clerk refused to refund a woman’s
money because she was returning a game her son had gotten as a gift one day
after the 30‐day guarantee period expired.
I interfered, and explained to the clerk what he was doing wrong. The
woman got her money back, and I got a dirty look from the clerk.
Remember, you benefit enormously from offering a guarantee, because it
gets more people to trust you and buy from you.
But the customer benefits too: He gets a chance to try the product risk‐free.
Most people won’t take advantage of your guarantee. If you sell a quality
product, accurately described in your marketing, at a price that’s fair in
relationship to its value, your return rate will be low—probably less than 5 percent.
That still means one of 20 will ask for a refund. Give them back their money
promptly and with good cheer. Few things will cause more customer
dissatisfaction and ruin your reputation faster than being difficult, adversarial,
and uncooperative when people believe what you said in your guarantee and take
you up on it.
Don’t get angry with these folks. Returning the product is their right—and
part of your cost of doing business.
Section 16
“Offer Magic“: How to Increase Response Up to 1,000%—Just by Changing Your Offer!
Experienced direct marketers know this. Businesspeople who are not direct
marketers find it hard to believe.
But it’s true.
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Your offer—what people get when they respond to your promotion, and
what they have to do to get it—can make an enormous difference in response,
even if all other factors—product, copy, graphics, list—stay the same.
In fact, I have seen a simple change in offer increase response to a mailing
10%…25%…100%…and a few times as much as 1,000%! (Though that’s rare.)
Years ago I had a client who sold utility software for IBM mainframe
computers.
He would send out a letter with a technical description of the software and
its function, and offer to send the software on magnetic tape for a “free 30‐day
trial,” which was (and still is) an industry‐standard offer.
One day he changed one word in his offer, and response to all his mailings
increased 15%.
Can you guess what word he changed? He changed “trial” to “use,” so
instead of a free 30‐day trial, he said, “use this software free for 30 days.”
He was amazed that such a trivial difference could boost his response. He
asked his customers why the difference would matter.
The IT (Information Technology) professionals who were his buyers
explained to him that the word “trial” had a negative connotation. It meant
coming in late at night, taking systems offline, interrupting service, extra work,
and possibly losing files. So “trial” was, for some, a turn‐off.
But everyone who buys a product wants to use it, so “free use” was
immensely appealing to this audience. That’s why it increased response.
Armed with this knowledge, my client made “use it free for 30 days” his
standard offer in all promotions.
But then he changed yet another word, and again saw response lift, this
time about 10%.
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Do you know what word he changed this time? He changed “30” to “60,”
doubling the length of the free use period.
Again he asked IT professionals why this made a difference to them.
“The typical 30‐day trial is not enough time,” they told him. What
happened was this: it would take a week for the software to get from the
mailroom to their desk. It would sit in the pile in their in‐box for another week.
Then they would open the package, be intimidated by the manual, and put
it aside for another week. By the time they were finally ready to try the software,
only a week was left in the 30‐day trial period.
Fearing they would miss the deadline and be billed for software they didn’t
want, they would return it immediately rather than risk being late, and therefore
never try it or buy it.
By changing the trial period from 30 to 60 days, a margin of an extra month
was built in. The prospects had plenty of time to try the software, decide whether
they liked it, and if so, buy it. Response rates and sales increased significantly.
What can we conclude from this story?
1. Offers make a difference. The offer is important—not a trivial after‐thought.
2. You never know which offer will pull best—or why.
3. Therefore, you should test different offers to find the one that will
maximize your response.
By the way, although changes in offer increased response in this instance by
about 25% total, I have seen cases where response has increased up to 1,000%.
In one such example, a car rental company tested two different offers. The first
offer was a free upgrade, e.g., you would get a midsize car for the price of a
compact.
The second offer was a discount on rental costs if you prepurchased your car
rental in advance.
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I told the auto company that the prepurchase offer would bomb (who rents
cars in advance?) and the upgrade (a tested and proven offer) would win.
But I was wrong: the prepurchase offer generated 10 times the revenue of the
upgrade offer—an increase of 900%!
About the Author
BOB BLY is an independent copywriter and consultant with more than 20
years of experience in business‐to‐business, high tech, industrial, and direct
marketing.
Bob has written copy for over 100 clients including Network Solutions, ITT
Fluid Technology, Medical Economics, Intuit, Business & Legal Reports, and
Brooklyn Union Gas. Awards include a Gold Echo from the Direct Marketing
Association, an IMMY from the Information Industry Association, two Southstar
Awards, an American Corporate Identity Award of Excellence, and the Standard
of Excellence award from the Web Marketing Association.
He is the author of more than 50 books including The Complete Idiotʹs
Guide To Direct Marketing (Alpha Books) and The Copywriterʹs Handbook
(Henry Holt & Co.). His articles have appeared in numerous publications such as
DM News, Writerʹs Digest, Amtrak Express, Cosmopolitan, Inside Direct Mail,
and Bits & Pieces for Salespeople.
Bob has presented marketing, sales, and writing seminars for such groups
as the U.S. Army, Independent Laboratory Distributors Association, American
Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the American Marketing Association. He
also taught business‐to‐business copywriting and technical writing at New
York University.
Bob writes sales letters, direct mail packages, ads, e‐mail marketing
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campaigns, brochures, articles, press releases, white papers, Websites,
newsletters, scripts, and other marketing materials clients need to sell their
products and services to businesses. He also consults with clients on marketing
strategy, mail order selling, and lead generation programs.
Prior to becoming an independent copywriter and consultant, Bob was
advertising manager for Koch Engineering, a manufacturer of process equipment.
He has also worked as a marketing communications writer for Westinghouse
Defense. Bob Bly holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of
Rochester and has been trained as a Certified Novell Administrator (CNA). He is a
member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Business
Marketing Association.
Bob has appeared as a guest on dozens of TV and radio shows including
MoneyTalk 1350, The Advertising Show, Bernard Meltzer, Bill Bresnan, CNBC,
Winning in Business, The Small Business Advocate and CBS Hard Copy. He has
been featured in major media ranging from the LA Times and Nation’s Business to
the New York Post and the National Enquirer.
For a FREE Copywriting Information Kit, or a free, no‐obligation cost
estimate on copywriting for your next project, contact:
Bob Bly, Copywriter
31 Cheyenne Drive, Montville, NJ 07045
Phone (973) 263-0562, Fax (973) 263-0613
e‐mail: [email protected]
Web: www.bly.com