Merry Christmas! Advertising That Sells

My Christmas gift to you: a short course in advertising from David Ogilvy.

If you've never been exposed to Ogilvy, you're in for a treat! Especially if you have to feed your family with the ads you run for your business.

Ogilvy was the world's most-articulate proponent of direct-response advertising -- ads that ask directly for a response, in the form of an order or inquiry.

Yes, this video is probably older than you. But so is the Gettysburg Address.

If he were speaking today, Ogilvy would cajole you into tracking your web page ads, using free technology like Google Website Optimizer.

He would urge you to track your promotions on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media using coupon codes (a tactic dating back to Claude Hopkins in the early 1900s).

And Ogilvy would tell you to stop being "original" in your ads and start imitating what sells for other people. Heresy, you say? Take it to the bank, I say.

Watch, enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

The 39,900% ROI of a Simple "Thank You" - MPR Story

A client tipped me off to a story on MPR about a "new" marketing strategy to build your business.

First, read an interview with a small business owner ...

Brett Brohl: I've written, at least 2,000 thank yous just in the last 12 months.

Brett Brohl owns Scrubadoo.com. He sells medical scrubs. You know, those pastel-colored outfits, doctors and nurses wear. Brohl says he hand writes a thank you note for every single customer. Scrubadoo is a new company, and Brohl says there are a lot of websites out there selling the exact same products he does.

Brett Brohl: If you Google the word "scrubs," we're not on the front page, we're not on the second page. And just like every other industry right now, competition's tough and with less people buying, it's even tougher.

Brohl says, a new company like his can't afford major marketing like TV commercials. Instead, he says, he's counting on thank you notes to help Scrubadoo stand out.

Heh. Did you get that?

Google may rank your competitors higher than you, but one thing Google can't control is the personal touch. You can give out as much of that as you'd like. Free. Or, you can send a personal touch by mail, for the price of a stamp, in the form of a thank-you note.

You may know that I write regularly about the power of "thank you" in business. And with good reason ...

While writing and mailing thank-you notes is "no-tech" and slower than email, the ROI can be incredible. When I say incredible, how does a 39,900% ROI grab you? 

Read on to learn how ...

Sarah Siewert is 24, she lives in Chicago. A couple of months ago, she hit up a department store with her mom and her sister. They were shopping for purses.

Sarah Siewert: And as soon as we got there, into the purse section, one of the saleswomen immediately approached us and was really attentive, she pulled purses from the back, she went through different options, different colors

Typical shopping experience, right? As long as you get an attentive sales person, like Sarah did. She and her mom ended up buying a purse apiece. Then, a couple weeks later they both got letters in the mail from the saleswoman who'd helped them. They were thank you notes.

Siewert: It was a fully hand written note, referencing the exact bag we purchased. And on my note, she even had a nice reference to our alma mater.

Turns out they'd gone to the same school. And, I'll admit the purse Sarah bought wasn't exactly cheap. It was Marc Jacobs, about $400. [And] it worked. Siewert says she just bought another bag.

Let's do the math.

After getting a thank-you note in the mail, which cost about $1 to send -- including postage -- Siewer returned to buy another purse. If she spent another $400 on a similar bag, that's a return on investment of 39,900%.

You can thank me later. Right now, you've got some thank-you notes to mail ...

One more thing: I just created a new Cheat Sheet that reveals 4 ways to "force" Amazon to build your business, at NO cost. Click To Download Now

Kaizen Marketing

Last time, I wrote about innovation as being the first half of what you could call Drucker's Prime Directive: "The function of a business is to innovate and then market that innovation."

Simply keeping your eyes open for new ideas -- however small -- and putting those ideas into practice is innovation made simple.

To illustrate, we looked at business breakthroughs that ran the gamut from brandy and the Slinky to Post-It Notes and Viagra. All began as odd, little incidents that were nurtured into huge successes.

And that nurturing -- continuous, goal-driven action -- is an essential element in innovation.

As Harvard economist Theodore Levitt wrote, "Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things."

Doing is everything. Because the best idea in the world won’t earn you a penny until you nurture and bring it to market.

Which leads to the second half of Drucker's Prime Directive: marketing.

First, here are a few thoughts to get your brain humming on marketing ...

1. "Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large" - American Marketing Association's definition of marketing
   
   
2. "Marketing is finding, getting, and keeping customers" - Kevin Donlin
   
   
3. "The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous." - Peter Drucker
   
   
4. "A bad system will defeat a good person every time." - W. Edwards Deming

I love those last two insights from the "Killer Ds," Drucker and Deming.

You already know Peter Drucker as the father of modern management.

And you should know W. Edwards Deming as the father of modern quality.

A lot has been written about Drucker in business. So I won't add any more.

But what if you took the insights on systematic, continuous improvement from Deming -- insights which revolutionized Japanese industry -- and applied them to your marketing?

What would it mean for your business if your marketing not only made selling superfluous, but did so systematically?

Hint: It could mean everything.

Now. Continuous improvement is a polysyllabic mouthful. So let's use the shorter Japanese term for continuous improvement: Kaizen.

(Actually, the literal translation for "kaizen" is "change good" but forget that for now.)

This concept of "systematic, continuously improved marketing" -- or "Kaizen Marketing" -- is one I will develop and blog about extensively in the coming weeks.

For now, here's a preview of the principles underlying Kaizen Marketing ...

1. Big change is hard and rarely lasts (think: yo-yo dieting). Small change is easier and lasts longer (think: walking 30 seconds more per day for 30 days).
   
   
2. No marketing problem is too small to solve. Solving anything points you in the right direction. It gives you a push. And you may not stop at one problem ....
   
   
3. You can make 250 improvements to your marketing every year if you make just one per day, Mon.-Fri., over 50 weeks. More if you add Saturday mornings.

Does any of this sound trivial?

Good!

One of the main attractions of kaizen is that it uses small, trivial steps to produce big gains.

Besides, how many improvements did you make in your marketing last year? 25? 50? 250? And how do you know? Kaizen Marketing will give you a written record of your improvements. Because you can't improve what you don't measure.

Again, this is a sample of the principles behind "Kaizen Marketing." It's a flexible framework that pulls the best ideas from manufacturing, sales, leadership -- even sports -- into a powerful philosophy that drives your business forward, one small, inexorable step at a time.

Speaking of sports, I will close with a thought from one of America's greatest coaches, John Wooden:

When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens -- and when it happens, it lasts.

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.

Continuous Innovation and Drucker's Prime Directive

You’ve probably read this quote from Peter Drucker: "The function of a business is to innovate and then market that innovation."

I call it Drucker's Prime Directive.

It means that, if you’re in business, you essentially have two functions:

1. create new products and services
2. sell them

Because this blog is about marketing, I don’t usually devote too much space to topics like innovation.

Except for today ... to say that innovation can be about as complex or simple as you make it.

Innovation can be complex if you think of it as great leaps forward … the next big, BIG idea … or "Eureka!" moments that land you on the cover of Wired.

But, innovation can be simple. Accidental, even.

For example:

• Spencer Silver, a researcher at 3M, worked -- and failed -- to develop a strong adhesive in 1970. Four years later, Arthur Fry, another 3M employee, was annoyed by the bookmarks he placed in his church hymnal kept falling out. Recalling the work of his colleague Silver, he applied some of the weak adhesive to his bookmarks. The little "sticky notes" worked perfectly. In 1977, Post-It Notes were brought to market, quickly becoming as indispensable as staples and Scotch tape.
  
  
• Roy J Plunkett, a DuPont research chemist, was experimenting with a coolant called TRE (tetrafluoroethylene) to establish its use for refrigeration in 1938. A cylinder of the gas failed to discharge. Instead of throwing it out, Plunkett and his assistant cut it open to investigate. They found the gas had solidified into a slippery white powder. Tests showed it to be the slipperiest substance in existence! It was also inert, with an extremely high melting point. DuPont began marketing products coated with the miracle lubricant in 1946. Millions of frying pans later, Teflon is another innovation we can't live without.
  
  
• Richard James, an engineer, was intrigued by the spring that fell off his desk in 1940 -- it seemed to walk across the floor before coming to rest. After a few modifications and some creative selling to toy executives, the Slinky was introduced in 1948. More than 250 million have been sold worldwide.

What’s the common factor in these “accidental” innovations? They were fully exploited and brought to market by people who were paying attention.

Lesson: To innovate in business, you need an open mind AND open eyes.

Start by looking at every “Hmm, that’s odd!” moment as a potential innovation. One that you could profit enormously from.

Examples of small, odd moments that can lead to big breakthroughs for your business:

• The customer who uses your product in a unplanned way -- and gets unexpectedly pleasant results. (Like the sailor who drank boiled down, “condensed” wine before it could be reconstituted with added water. Thus was born brandy.)
  
  
• The product that failed but has parts worth salvaging. (Like the online game that failed to take off, but included a tool that enabled photo sharing. The developers scrapped the game and relaunched the web site as Flickr.)
  
  
• The customers who want faster, slower, cheaper, more expensive, bigger, or smaller versions of your product. (Like the little girl who pestered her father, Edwin Land, for an instant copy of the picture he had just snapped of her in 1944. Land went on to develop the instant camera.)
  
  
• The product that produces an unplanned result that's worth selling. (Like the drug that was initially used to treat high blood pressure and angina, but unexpectedly caused other results to pop up. The developers re-purposed the drug as Viagra.)

This -- keeping your eyes open for new ideas, however small or odd -- is innovation made simple.

It's the first half of Drucker's Prime Directive: "The function of a business is to innovate and then market that innovation."

Next time, I’ll discuss the second half: How to continuously improve your marketing of those products or services you innovate.

(More ideas like these in my Free Report, Guaranteed Marketing for Service Business Owners.)

How to Plan Your Next Event Using Social Media -- Notes from #SMBMSP 32

Just returned to the office after attending this morning's Social Media Breakfast Minneapolis/Saint Paul (SMBMSP) seminar, "Events: Management, Planning & More."

It was billed as "a roundtable discussion with folks responsible for events of all sizes to talk with us about how they use social media, the tips and pitfalls they’ve found, and how it may relate to YOUR business."

If you missed it, you missed out.

Or did you?

I took notes furiously throughout the two-hour event, so you might benefit from my unedited observations, below. Or not ...

Overview: Three Twin Cities social media experts shared their best practices and ideas on event planning and promotion, in a panel discussion that included questions from the 100 or so attendees.

Presenters:

• Jennifer Kane, social media marketing and PR strategist, consultant, trainer, and writer for Kane Consulting. 
• Mykl Roventine a designer of web sites, WordPress blogs and social media strategies.
• Brienna Schuette, Marketing & Communications Manager for the Minnesota State Fair.

Here's a quick collection of ideas that I took away ...

• Key: Think of your attendees as a virtual programming committee. Get their input ahead of time via social media. They will be more likely to attend an event they helped design, tell their friends about it, and stay with you for the long term.
  
  
• Your ability to collect real-time information from attendees via Twitter can head off problems during your event! Example: when numerous people tweeted that it was cold, Jen Kane showed their comments to on-site staff, who QUICKLY turned up the heat.
  
  
• Which social media tools work best for which uses? Twitter is best for crowdsourcing (gaining feedback pre-event); Facebook can get large numbers of signups for your event (but actual attendance will be lower); Linkedin generates fewer signups than Facebook, but they are more likely to attend.
  
  
• Be proactive on Twitter -- create a clever hashtag for your event and promote it ahead of time, so you can corral tweets and have ownership over them.
  
  
• When promoting your event, the earlier you start, the better. You need to give promotions time to filter through all social media channels.
  
  
• Old School Tip: Don't forget email! Not only can you target your audience with timely promotions, but people still forward emails to others, which generates more attendance.
  
  
• Older School Tip: Don't forget snail mail! A clever postcard or well-written sales letter has more heft than an ephemeral email or tweet.
  
  
• Eventbrite is an excellent tool for backend logistics -- ticket sales, social media promotions, generating name tags, etc. (My own addition: as a direct-response copywriter, I track customer response religiously to know what works. Eventbrite lets you use Coupon Codes so you can track where attendees found you online. Example: Use code "FACE" in your Facebook ad, "LINK" in your Linkedin Group announcements, etc. Very cool.)
  
  
• Never abandon attendees after the event. Treat them as members of your community. Stay in touch with them and give them another reason to connect with you. The cycle can and should last a lifetime.

If you were there and have more notes or ideas to add, please comment below.

For more ideas like these, download Guaranteed Marketing for Service Business Owners.

How to Get More Callbacks from Your Prospects

If you own or market a business, you have to sell to survive.

That often means chasing prospects, by email and voicemail, to schedule a sales call.

And how fun is that? Not very.

But what if you could reduce the number of contacts it took to schedule sales calls? You could sell to more prospects in less time. You could make more sales. Fun.

After seeing sales expert Jill Konrath speak on Monday and reading her book, SNAP Selling, I made a few changes to my follow-up emails that paid off quickly -- a sales call with a prospect I had been chasing for days.

The solution can be summed up in two words: Piquing curiosity.

Normally, I can do this pretty well. You've read this far, haven't you? You can thank the headline of this blog post for reeling you in -- "How to" is a curiosity "piquer-upper."

But, for some reason, I couldn't get one prospect to schedule a call with me, following his initial inquiry about my copywriting services.

So, after reviewing my notes of Konrath's talk and reading pages 96-97 of her book, I sent the following email to Mr. Hard-to-Reach Prospect:

Thanks again for your copywriting inquiry yesterday; did you get my voicemail?

My schedule is now full today, but if you have 20-30 minutes tomorrow, Wed., I can call you between 3:00 and 4:30 pm ET to discuss your needs.

Please reply to let me know the best time/number to call.

Be sure to ask about the 50% off makeover that would apply to your project before Dec. 31. Also, Sam Smith said something on your Linkedin profile that could be very helpful to you.

His email response came within the hour:

Wednesday @ 3:00 would be best.  I have a 1/2 hour window.

Paydirt!

Check out the last sentence of my email: "Also, Sam Smith said something on your Linkedin profile that could be very helpful to you." 

His curiosity was piqued. And he scheduled a call with me to find out what the heck I was talking about.

As Konrath suggests in her book:

After reviewing what you know about your targeted company and what's important to your prospective customer, determine what would pique their curiosity the most.

Try it and see. As David Ogilvy said, "You can't bore your customers into buying."

Bio: Kevin Donlin can help you grow your business and enjoy the breakthrough results your hard work deserves. If you're interested in boosting your revenues and profits, please click here.

If You Sell a Service, You Don't Sell a Service

"If you're selling a service, you're selling a relationship," wrote Harry Beckwith in Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing.

He's right, of course:

Most companies in expert services -- such as lawyers, doctors, and accountants -- think that their clients are buying expertise. But most prospects for these complex services cannot evaluate expertise; they cannot tell a really good tax return, a clever motion, or a perceptive diagnosis. But they can tell if the relationship is good and if phone calls are returned. Clients are experts at knowing if they feel valued.

 In most professional services, you are not really selling expertise -- because your expertise is assumed .... Instead, you are selling a relationship. And in most cases, that is where you need the most work.

Where do you need the most work in selling your relationship -- to prospects and clients?

Would it help you to:

• Change your voicemail greeting to something warm and personal, instead of cold and corporate?
• Return phone calls within 90 minutes ... and even say so on your voicemail greeting? (I did it for years and won at least one new sale every year from someone who actually timed my callbacks.)
• Learn one interesting, personal fact about your prospect and bring it up on your next call? The answers are out there. (I always try to remark about a person's college degree, hobbies, associations or other data on their LinkedIn profiles. It breaks the ice -- every time.)
• Make your intangible service tangible ... by meeting for coffee this week, mailing a thank-you note, or introducing your client to a prospect (or vice-versa)?