It's been said that the three most-important parts of any marketing promotion are, in order: List, Offer, Copy.
Think about it: When your child has to sell magazine subscriptions for school, whom do they turn to first? You, Grandma, and Uncle Bob -- the List.
Get the right list of prospects and you won't get a lot of push-back on your price or sales pitch. The selling is relatively easy.
Or, what do you do on the last day of a garage sale, when you've got a box of Harlequin Romance novels and 3 old hockey sticks that haven't sold yet? You lower the price or even give them away -- that's the Offer.
With the right offer, again, the selling is relatively easy.
Yet, most business owners spend days and weeks agonizing over the last of these three keys: the Copy -- they words they use to sell their products or services, whether on paper, by phone, or in person.
They spend precious little time choosing the right audience for their promotion (the List) or structuring the price, payment terms, guarantee, and other elements of what they're selling (the Offer).
Not only can you, as a business owner, improve your sales by spending more time on list selection and offer creation, but these elements are 100% under your control.
You get to decide whom to sell to (List) and what to sell (Offer), before worrying about how to sell it (Copy).
That line of thinking is part of what I call "Inside Marketing" -- improving your business from the inside.
(Kevin M. Donlin is author of the Special Report, Guaranteed Marketing for Service Business Owners.)
That's true. We should think about our List (target audience) and what Offer to provide them before creating Copy that sells.
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