Are you trying to do too much with your advertising?  Lots of people I talk to want to take over the world with their new sales letter.   To them, it is perfectly logical to have a letter that finds prospective buyers, lets them to trust you, gives them every reason they need for buying, and gets them to pull out their credit card right now for this product, and for all future products they offer.

Yeah… sure. And I have a magic website that takes 4 minutes a month to run, and makes $14 billion a year in pure profits.  Not only that, it can be yours for just $997!

When you are putting together your marketing campaigns and sales letters… you need to do one thing at a time.

The first thing you need to do is FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE to sell to.  People that already have a problem that needs fixing… or some unspoken desire they want fulfilled.  You do not want to take some complete stranger and try to convince them your widget is perfect for them.

There must be something they will lose by not having your solution to their problem or desire.  They might lose status, money, time, an easier way of doing things, or the exclusivity of owning what you are selling.

Whatever it is that they will lose, you need to know it, and you need to address it in your copy.

Another thing you need to understand is who the 20% are in your target market.  You can write an advertisement that tries to sell to everyone… but why would you? Doesn’t it make more sense to go after the 20% of the market that will earn you 80% of your revenues and profits? Call out specifically to them in your
headline and offer, and you will quickly find your sales growing and your list of HIGHLY qualified buyers growing.

I highly recommend you use 2 step advertising, which means the first step in your sales campaigns is in the lead generation ads you run.  Offer them something for free (of course, it must be 100% in sync with what you ultimately want to sell them).  All they should have to do to claim your freebies is to visit a website or drop you a phone call and leave you their contact information. The follow up sales piece they see after getting your free offer is the sales letter to sell them on the actual product or service you want to sell them.  If you go straight for the sale… you will sell much less and have a much smaller database to follow up with.

Here is an advertisement I ran for 2 years untouched in a Canadian business paper.  Every time it ran (every 2 weeks), it generated me 50 high quality leads.  And those leads turned out to be my best customers as far as money spent, and quantity of products bought.

They filled out the form at the old URL I used, they received the package promise in the mail, and then I followed up with promotions over the following months and years.

And I HIGHLY recommend you use a formula just like this in your business.

Know exactly who you are selling to, design a lead generating ad just like this one that targets them, and follow up with the freebies and the promotional pieces selling your products and services.

It is a model that WILL work for you, as it does for me.

Note a few things about this lead generation advertisement: -  It uses a headline that calls out to business owners (I could have tested a more specific headline too that focused on an exact type of business as well – but my experience with business edge, the paperr I used for this ad showed a great quality lead as this ad was.  I did test numerous headlines, numerous offers, and a few different website domains.  Ultimately I found the perfect combination that got me the most leads… and it ran untouched for 2 years.

-  I mention right in the subhead that it is FREE… so they understand what I am asking of them will not cost them.  Plus, FREE is still one of the most powerful words in advertising (even better in a recession).

-   Specifics about what they get.  Include the names of what they will receive, and specifics of what it will teach them. Specifics sell!

-   I gave them a couple options – website or phone call.  I found that 20% of the respondants would phone, the rest would fill out the form on the site used (the site in this ad no longer offers the form, I just used it as an example).

-  Last (and MOST important)… I told them WHY I was doing this.

Just because it is free, doesn’t mean they will take action.

They needed to understand my motives behind this… so I told them.

Try this approach… it will work wonders for your lead generation and sales campaigns.  Let me know how it works for you!

Troy

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