You don't have to be a writer to write.

Before everyone out there spending their nights working on the Next Great American Novel goes up in arms, let me point out I said “effective copywriter”, not brilliant author who’s going to make millions the moment your manuscript goes to print. If you’re looking for someone to re-create a masterpiece and write a guidebook to the industry with your company’s name on it, you might want to call in a writer. On the other hand, if you’re working on creating a script for your direct marketing materials you’ve already got all the writing skills you need to make it work.

Here’s how:

1)      Identify your customers’ weak spots. What do you have that they don’t-but they ought to? Think of that “something” as the topic, and your assignment is to tell them why they want it and how you’re going to give it to them.

 2)      Prewrite. Seriously. It’s tempting to put your pen to paper and just let your thoughts come tumbling out, but you (and your accountant) will be a lot happier if you take the time to put those thoughts into some kind of order first. Make a bulleted list of points you want to talk about, then shift them around so you have a definitive outline to work from.

 3)      Write. Now that you have your outline, it’s time to write it all down. Explain each point carefully, and make sure your customers are both interested and entertained. Remember, if it makes sense, and they can relate it to their life, you’re in. If it sounds like a bunch of professional drivel, full of jargon and uninteresting points they don’t have a prayer of understanding, you just wasted your time.

 4)      Trim it down. Ask an author about the secrets of copywriting and the first thing they’ll tell you is to get rid of the parentheses and eliminate the word “and”. We always, always ramble when we first start copywriting on a project, because we have so much to say and so little time to say it. There’s a reason editing was invented! If they don’t need to know it, take it out. If it’s off-topic, take it out. If it doesn’t really fit, take it out. Ideally, you’ll have about one-half to two-thirds the amount of content you started with, and your content will be ready to roll!

A strong brand should be present both online and off.

What would you say if I told you having visually appealing emails is just as important as having visually appealing direct mailing materials if you want your customers to actually read what you’re trying to send? Surprise, surprise! Today we’ll take a look at successfully blending the design of your online and offline marketing materials to establish your brand, catch the eye of your clientele and get the best results possible for both. 

Breathe in. Now breathe out. You don’t have to be a graphic design whiz kid to design a good online email marketing campaign, especially if you’ve already got an offline direct mail marketing campaign in the works. Take a look at the direct mail marketing materials you’ve been sending out for the past 6 months. What’s consistent about them? Do they all have the same cover/header? Do they have a similar color scheme? Is your logo prominently featured? Do you start or end each one with your slogan? 

Take all of those design elements that tie your offline direct mail marketing materials together and put them into your email templates. This is called branding, and yes, it really is just that simple! You want your customers to associate all of your marketing materials with your company (and no one else) and using similar templates, headers, design formats, fonts, logos, copywriting trends and color schemes is the very best way to do that. 

Speaking of which… 

Tune in tomorrow to dig deeper into the ins, outs, ups and downs of copywriting for your email marketing campaign and your direct mail marketing campaign to cement your company’s image in the minds of your customers! 

*My apologies to everyone who tuned in yesterday, we’re still working out the technical details on some of our social media management tools. We’ll figure out eventually!*

Your mailing list should be labeled FOR YOUR EYES ONLY

I’m going to throw a question down here for you, and I’d like you to take some time to think about it. In fact, why don’t you shoot on down to the comments section and let us know about it? I’m talking about the reason you won’t give out your home address when someone asks if you’d like to join their direct mailing list. What holds you back? What is it you think they’re going to do with it once you give up your hard earned anonymity?

Actually, if you can move past your outrage over the fact that you’re a perfectly nice person, you run a legitimate business and you’re not actually out to rob them blind, it’s easy to understand why they’re dragging their feet. If you walked up to a random stranger on the street and said, “Hi, I’m Bob, I run a (fill in company description here). Give me your home address and I’ll send you a coupon” you’d better be prepared for them to whip out a phone and call the cops to report you
for stalking…or at least tell you to get lost.

If you have built a relationship with them and they still won’t give you their address, consider the fact that they don’t know (for sure) who you intend to give it to. If you gave your best friend your phone number and they gave it to a random wino on the street, would you be happy? Of course not. You’d never give that friend any of your personal information again.

There’s good money in selling addresses for marketing campaigns. Sad, but true. That’s why so many companies go out of their way to include a disclaimer that they are going to give your address to their partners-they get paid for each address they hand over. Your customers aren’t usually willing to hand out their personal information to someone who’s going to help load their mailbox and email Inbox with junk mail.

That’s why security disclaimers are so important. Right now, I want you to commit to promising yourself and your customers that you’ll never give in to the temptation to sell their address. If later on you take on a marketing partner you can handle that on a case-by-case basis, giving your customers the option to receive their mailings or not. When you ask for their personal information, however, and you should since there’s so much you can’t do through email advertising (Yes, I know, it’s blasphemy), make sure they know exactly what you’re going to do with their address and never deviate from that.

Keeping their personal information personal, private and for your eyes only is the cornerstone of building the trust you need to make your direct mail marketing list grow.

Bonus Question: Can you guess whose eyes are hiding behind the glasses in the photo above? Post your comments below!

Is it possible that Twitter is actually the key to unlocking top-notch copywriting skills for our direct mail marketing campaigns?

Think about all of the people you know. Who talks the most? (You can say it. They won’t hear it from us.) When they speak, do they tend to be straightforward and concise, getting directly to the point and moving on to another topic as soon as they’re done?

Of course not. Most of us don’t. When we talk we give our listeners piles upon piles of background information, then mention our point, then worry at that point like a dog with a bone. We feel that we have to keep repeating ourselves and fill in all the gaps on all sides of the issue before it’s safe to let it go. It’s as if we believe that by consistently hammering at the information we can bring others over to our side, and we have to keep going at it until we’re sure they’re on our side.

Did you see what I just did there? I just spent 1…2…3…4…5…6 sentences saying most people don’t know how to get to the point. We have all this empty airspace and we fill it with words, whether we need to or not. That’s a habit that translates over into our writing.

Far too many copywriters don’t know how to get to the point. By the time they do, they’ve already lost their readers’ attention-and the sale along with it. Are your direct mail marketing materials short and to the point, or did you write the way you speak?

 Take a lesson from Twitter.

When you tweet on Twitter, you have 140 characters or less to get your point across. That means there’s no room for fluff. You can’t dance around the point. You have to give them the information they know and nothing else. Oh sure, you can tack a link on the end for them to visit for the whole story, but Twitter shrieks out the headlines, then moves on.

Is the copywriting on your direct mail marketing materials screaming out the headlines, then giving them a link to you to get the whole story? Or are you spending so much time lost in the quagmire of extraneous information your readers toss their mail in the trash before they hear what you’re trying to say?

For years, companies have been using pretty pictures to market their goods.

Is there anything that direct mail marketing can do email marketing can’t? Absolutely! Have you ever tried to add visual appeal to the headline of your emails? It can’t be done. Visually attractive ads are what encourage us to pay attention to the marketing materials that land in our mailbox, which means if you’ve got a savvy designer your direct mail campaign can reach customers that your email campaign can’t.

The question is, with so many people clinging desperately to their anonymity and a huge percentage of customers dragging their feet at the mere mention of the possibility of giving out their personal information, how do you grow an extensive mailing list? By using your email list, of course!

Here’s how it works. If you’re a smart marketer you know that most people aren’t going to want to be on both mailing lists, nor are they going to refer their friends to your direct mailing list, if you don’t have something new, fun and unique to offer. So the key is to add value to your direct mail campaign that you don’t have in your email campaign, then advertise it to your email list. Profusely.

What kind of added value are we talking about? How about product samples? Free in-home consultations? Offline gift cards? Think out of the box, then spread the word. You’d be amazed at how many people will jump at the chance to give you their home address if they know they’re going to get something out of it in return.

Why are so many people hesitant to pass out their home address these days? How can you instill confidence in your customers? Join us tomorrow as we take a look at how your customers think you’re using their personal information and what you can do to tell them otherwise.

Your email marketing campaign is the pefect foundation to turn your direct mail marketing campaign into a real crowd pleaser.

You already have an email marketing campaign going, and if you don’t, you should. Let me ask you this. When you first sat down to write those emails for that campaign, what did you see? The first picture in your mind had to have been the value your company could offer all the people on your mailing list. After all, they took the time to come see you. They volunteered to read whatever you wanted to send them.

At the very least, they agreed to let you send it to them without complaining they were being SPAMMED.

Since they were being so very, very considerate, you want to repay the favor by giving them the most value you can cram into each email. You don’t want to be repetitive or boring, or to talk about completely useless stuff that nobody really cares about, or they’re going to unsubscribe. You also want to make sure they’re getting plenty of information, deals and other things they really want to hear about, or they’re going to unsubscribe.

That’s exactly the principle you want to cling to when you start sending out your direct mailing campaign. After all, if you’re boring or repetitive, or you don’t offer them anything in your mailings that’s going to inspire them to come back for more, your users are going to toss your expensive, carefully crafted direct mail marketing materials are going to go directly in the trash. Somehow, that’s worse than watching them unsubscribe from a digital mailing list that didn’t cost you a thing.

When you’re looking for a place to start when you’re planning your direct mail campaign, take a look at the statistics on your emails. (If you’re not tracking your email marketing campaign, you should. Aweber.com has some great tools that can help.) Which emails generated the most response from your readers? What did you say or do that made them want to come find out more?

Now that you know what your customers want, transfer that information over into your direct mailing campaign.

Tune in tomorrow to hear us wax poetic about website subscriptions, mailing lists and how to convince your customers they really do want to give you their home address!

Stay tuned!

It's time to get excited about your marketing campaign!

To get you started, let’s take a look at why integrating your online and offline marketing campaigns matter. One of the most popular steps schools, businesses and non-profit organizations are taking in today’s Web 2.0 world is outsourcing their online and email marketing campaigns to companies that specialize in “that sort of thing” while they keep their offline marketing strategies firmly in their pocket.

That might be great from a personnel point of view, but what do you do when the individuals that take over your online and email marketing campaign don’t have the same vision you do? Or the same experience with your target market? You’re going to end up with two very different sets of customers courtesy of two very different marketing campaigns, and while sometimes it all works out for the best what usually happens is that you end up losing any chance you had of firmly establishing your brand, fragmenting your niche and making it much more difficult to gain a foothold in a market that already has too much competition.

We’re going to show you how to keep that from happening. Tune in tomorrow to find out how to turn your email marketing campaign into a direct mail marketing promo that brings customers flocking to your door!

Before you give in and snarl at the next person who asks you for a price check, or starts nitpicking at a project you laid out weeks ago, remember-90% of customers say the reason they stopped doing business with a particular company was because their customer service stank. Blunt, but true. For some unfathomable reason, giving in to the urge to scream the 500^th time a customer asks you the exact same question doesn’t inspire them to come back!

Statistically speaking, 85% of your business will (eventually) be due to repeat customers. You really don’t want to bring that kind of customer influx, positive reputation and word-of-mouth marketing to a brutal and abrupt end just because the weekend isn’t coming fast enough. So grit your teeth and smile, even when it hurts. It’ll all be worth it in the end.

“More than half of us say we won’t go back to a place where the service is bad, no matter how good the food is. Meanwhile, thirty percent of us say that we would return to a place where the service was good, even if the food was not.”

San Francisco Magazine Opentable Pool — August, 2002

It’s not hard to dismiss the importance of business cards, especially when you’re not going to be wining and dining clients (and, by default, not necessarily going to be passing your business card out to every Tom, Dick and Harry that happens to come your way). An online business is firmly rooted out in cyberspace, and many online business owners who are just starting out don’t feel the overwhelming need to tie their web-based business to an offline marketing effort that’s going to eat up their money-especially when 90% of those business cards are going to be left to sit, unused, for who knows how long.

Now, if you’ll note, I said that only new online business owners don’t put thought into business cards. Why? Because as any savvy business owner can tell you, any business is good business. When you hand a business card for your online business to someone you’re talking to, what do you think is the first thing they’re going to do? They’re going to go home and look you up online. If they like what they see, they’re going to refer you to their friends, their family, their buddies online and anyone else they think might benefit from your services.

Why sacrifice that kind of networking ability when it’s sitting at your fingertips?

Let’s face it, we live in an online society. Husbands and wives “chat” with each other across the room instead of actually turning around to speak. With the online and offline worlds blended that smoothly, picking up business cards for your online business is really just good sense.

The answer is-yes.

Image is an ephemeral concept that’s going to prove to be very, very important to your business. Why? Because the way you’re viewed in the business world is the heart and soul of your company’s future. A trendy, upbeat image will attract customers and clients looking for a company that’s “in the now”. A conservative, traditional image will draw customers to you that are looking for the solidarity of an established institution.

It’s going to be up to you, as a business owner, to choose an image for your company. Do you want to be seen as a contemporary swinger? Or the personification of “old-school values”? Perhaps a combination of the two? Who is it you’re trying to reach?

Ahhh…who are you trying to reach? That’s the core of any successful company business. Everything about your company, from the

Are you looking for a metro image for your company, or something more "down home"?

design of your logos to the colors in your lobby and the presentation of your posters, should be built around the people you want to attract. For example, a company looking for a hip, metro image would work primarily with blacks and reds, opting for a stylish, smooth design. On the other hand, a children’s toy store would use lots of bright, primary colors, utilize cartoon characters and appeal to their consumers on a family oriented level.

What’s your image saying about you?