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Word of Mouth Marketing is Still a WOW!
Q: Who are the best customers?
A: Referrals.
Q: What’s the best form of marketing?
A: Word of Mouth. (WOM)
So, if everybody knows referrals make the best customers and the way to get referrals is through WOM marketing — what are you doing to generate more WOM?
Have you considered what you can do for your existing customers that would absolutely compel them to tell all their friends and family to buy from you? Something that’s so unique and memorable they’d just have to talk about it?
Consider Disneyland and Disney World. When first time visitors are asked what sticks in their minds most, they say it’s the parks’ cleanliness and the authentic environments.
As Dan Kennedy points out, the marketers know that ‘clean’ is not just about maintenance crews — it’s also about good marketing!
Your customers want to feel really GOOD about doing business with you, right? So, come up with something quirky or unusual to do for them … surprise them in some way they won’t expect.
Going the extra mile works for personal relationships and also for business relationships.
If you can’t think of something that feels right for your business, maybe you could hire a very savvy, creative marketing firm to help you. But just DO it.
Here’s to creating more WOM … and use the ‘WOW’ factor!
Carolyn
Master Artist of Genuine, Inspired Communications
Copywriting: Still Important in Recessionary Times?
In the June, 2008 issue of Direct Magazine, I read something pretty interesting about the way business is coping in the current recession.
It’s no secret to anyone, except the Feds, that the U.S. is in a recession. The economy is slowing, consumers are spending less and (as the article points out) firms are deliberating more over purchasing decisions.
What we’d expect to see happening in times like these is for direct marketers to focus on their existing customers, right? But they are, in fact, spending more on prospecting … according to Direct’s annual forecast survey.
They say consumer firms allocated 72% of 2008 direct mail (DM) budgets to acquisition. That, compared to 63% in 2007. The article said B2B marketers were holding steady at 58% of their budget being spent on acquiring new customers.
The survey showed that marketing dollars are allocated to search engine optimization and other online marketing … trying to build their in-house lists.
The article said that financial services are doing more with house files than in years past … meaning, they’re not renting new lists, but just mining the ones they have.
It seems that a lot less testing is going on, for print media anyway, with 1Q08 showing a 25% drop in catalog tests, 12% drop in testing for publishers and 10% drop for nonprofits.
More companies are using email marketing to both existing customers and to prospects in 2008 than last year. And SEO and SEM are also being used more than in 2007.
No matter what marketing method is employed, copywriting will always be vitally important. Whether a company markets offline or online, the message still has to be right on target.
One degree off in any direction — and missfire!
So, whether you need an online sales letter, email campaigns, PPC ads, landing pages, squeeze pages or even postcards … it needs to sizzle.
The copy sells the product. So, in these recessionary times, cut back on whatever you have to. But whatever you put out there, make sure the copy scorches!
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
Copywriting is “Thinking on Paper”
Copywriting has often been defined as “salesmanship in print.”
This is easy to comprehend in the direct response world — crafting a sales message designed to persuade the reader to whip out his/her credit card, right now.
But, as anyone knows, a good copywriter has to know how to think really well. Even if the writer isn’t trying to sell something immediately, they still have to think critically and analyze a lot of information.
It’s been said that the writer should have 7 times more intel than she’ll ever need. So, a good writer collects a ton of information about the company, product and the audience she’ll be writing to … waay before a single word is written.
Gary Bencivenga says, “Every situation is unique, especially when the product or market place is different from what’s gone before.”
I, personally, abhor the notion of using the same angle or style for one client that I used for another — just because it’d be easier. If I thought it was the best approach, perhaps I would, but only if it were in disparate industries.
I like to forge a new path, though, and create something totally unique for each and every client. As they say in fashion, you don’t want to meet yourself coming and going.
Who’d want to go to a party and see ‘their’ dress on someone else? Not I.
So, again, it’s critical to find a copywriter who can think on paper. One with sufficient grey matter to examine all the data and come up with a new idea, a BIG idea … something unique and fresh for your business.
There’s so much ’me too’ stuff going around … oy vey, don’t get me started!
Whether it’s good or not, successful or not, something gets out on the Internet (especially) — and before you know it, you see the same style or tactics being used everywhere!
Where’s the differentiator? How do you set yourself apart, when you look like everyone else? You don’t. You look like a carbon copy; not the genuine article. UG!
Thinking on paper …
Critical thinking is the key. It’s a lot like the attorney’s discovery, I think. Then, one must draw the right conclusions from the vast body of evidence and, hopefully, be able to make a viable case for whatever product or service we’re writing about.
The ability to think clearly and confidently is also key. I can’t think, with a lot of noise, for instance, so I have to have quiet. I also have to be comfortable and in pleasant surroundings, with lots of natural light.
Expect the BIG idea and the BEST way to present it to emerge from an all-knowing sub-conscious … and it does. Sleeping on it, after gathering so much information and immersing myself in it, is something I always do, as do so many other copywriters I know.
Often, I have so much information swirling around in my head, I feel I’ll never be able to rummage around and find just the right bits to use. But, when I trust my inner knowing … it never fails me.
Think. Think on paper. Hire a kickass copywriter, who knows how to do this. There are some exceptional ones out there.
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
Mind Viruses: Are You Infected?
I’ve just listened to and read something amazing … and I want to share it with you!
You’ll see a great video, with the ‘bad ass’ guy, from the movie, “The Matrix.” He’ll be talking about some scarry stuff, like the next Influenza Pandemic that most experts agree will happen.
We’re unprepared. There is no vaccine and no antibiotic to counteract the virus. Bad news for one and all.
The worst outbreak the world has seen was in 1918, when 40 million people died, globally.
Then, the report goes on to discuss ‘mental viruses’ and how they infect entrepreneurs. This is really good stuff! (Not the best written, but the content is so insightful.)
You can travel deeper down the rabbit hole, by taking the red pill. I suggest you absolutely take the pill.
Charge forward and take off your rose colored glasses, as you have the chance to really SEE what’s preventing us from becoming and achieving all we can be.
It’s a 14 page, NO B.S. report called: PANDEMIC – Bird Flu of the Mind: How Underground Mind Viruses are Relegating Millions to “Living Death” and What You Can Do to Protect Yourself and Your Family
If that title sounds serious, that’s because it is serious.
The fact is, Mind Viruses are destroying the lives and business dreams of thousands of entrepreneurs just like you.
You’ll find an amazing phrase used. Instead of ‘entrepreneur,’ they use the word ‘transfopreneur.’ Why? Because most entrepreneurs want to transform their world in some way …
* for themselves
* for their families
* for their communities
* for the world
Go ahead, be brave and check out the red pill. Your entrepreneural success may depend on it.
Go to: http://www.givemetheredpill.com/letter.htm
Here’s to a higher octave marketing!
Carolyn
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
A Copywriter’s View: Establish Preeiminence by Telling a Common Story
As a copywriter (translate marketer), one of the things I do is to present my clients and their products or services in the best light possible.
Sometimes, I must confess, I have to look pretty hard to find anything genuinely distinguishing about them. It’s sometimes a challenge to isolate one or two things that can provide something special — if not truly unique.
Many times, though, it’s only a matter of talking about an aspect of a product or service that’s not so unique, really. But, instead, we focus on something common among all the competition … but they’re not talking about it.
The copywriter and advertising pioneer, Claude Hopkins, told this great story about how to build preeminence in his book “My Life In Advertising”…
He said: Schlitz Beer was another advertising campaign which I handled for J.L.Stack. Schlitz was then in fifth place.
All brewers at that time were crying “Pure.” They put the word “Pure” in larger letters.
Their claim made about as much impression on people as water makes on a duck.
I went to brewing school to learn the science of brewing, but that helped not at all. Then I went to the brewery.
I saw plate-glass rooms where beer was dripping over pipes, and I asked the reason for them. They told me those rooms were filled with filtered air, so the beer could be cooled in purity.
I saw great filters filled with wood pulp. They explained how that filtered the beer.
They showed me how they cleaned every pump and pipe, twice daily, to avoid contaminations. How every bottle was cleaned four times by machinery.
They showed me artesian wells, where they went 4,000 feet deep for pure water, though their brewery was on Lake Michigan.
They showed me the vats where beer was aged for six months before it went out to the user.
They took me to their laboratory and showed me the original mother yeast cell. It had been developed by 1,200 experiments to bring out the utmost in flavor.
All of the yeast used in making Schlitz Beer was developed from that original cell.
I came back to the office amazed. I said: “Why don’t you tell people those things? Why do you merely try to cry louder than others that your beer is pure? Why don’t you tell the reasons?”
“Why,” they said, “the processes we use are just the same as others use. No one can make good beer without them.”
“But,” I replied, “others have never told the story. It amazes everyone who goes through your brewery. It will startle everyone in print.”
So I pictured in print those plate-glass rooms and every other factor in purity. I told a story common to all good brewers …
but a story which had never been told. I gave purity a meaning.
Schlitz jumped from fifth place to neck and neck with first place in a very few months.
That campaign remains to this day one of his greatest accomplishments. And it’s given many copywriters a very good model.
So, if your business has a product or service that isn’t really so different from others just like it … maybe you could simply tell a story about, precisely, how your product is made?
For service businesses, maybe telling your story about exactly how you do what you do would capture the essence of something or explains it in a slightly different way than your prospects will have thought about before.
By being the first to use this strategy in your industry — YOU will have done it. So, anyone who follows as a ‘me too’ will never be the first. You will!
And that’s preeiminence. :)
You can tell your story in print, on your site, or in your email campaigns. And if you need a savvy copywriter and marketing strategist … I just might know someone.
Establish preeiminence in your market …
Then, everyone will listen and reward you, by giving you their business … because you took the time to educate your audience in a way that made sense, while your competitors ‘assumed’ they already understood — or wouldn’t care.
Till next time,
Carolyn
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
