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Dec
15

Mountain Woven Money Making Ads

By | Direct Marketing, Main Content, Marketing Plan, Wacky marketing ideas

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Fellow business builder,

You may have heard of an ad that ran 65 years ago with the headline:

“Hand Woven by The Mountain People of New Mexico”

New Christmas Patterns in these unique ties. Wearers say an exceptional value.* Sold only direct from weavers to you.

It was a one-page ad that ran in the November 1940 edition of Life.  Simple – copy intensive – with a picture of the ties.

Fantastic example of copy-driven theme marketing (click the image to see a full size)

 

Get this: that ONE AD SOLD 26,000 TIES!

An amazing success story. And an amazing ad (written by James W Young).

What is most evident about the ad is the unique ways they use a number of great advertising techniques – ones that STILL work today just as well.

 

Think about this:

1) A unique headline – “mountain people” conjures up pictures with those two words.  “Hand woven” portrays the quality that they put into the ties.  Combined, this is a very intriguing headline.

2) In the subhead, this statement is interesting – “Wearers say an exceptional value.*” Note that the * references a footnote at the bottom of the ad that is actually a testimonial of a happy buyer.=]

George W Engelmann, well known Chicago business man, writes:

“Enclosed is my order for some of your ties. I would like to

take this opportunity to tell you how well I like your ties.

When I wear them they never fail to attract favorable

comment. They are also the most durable ties and best value

I have ever seen”

 

NOTE: a testimonial in a clothing advertisement! How often do you see that? 65 years later and few people are using this simple strategy.  The footnote is a nice touch – very interesting way to get people involved in the ad.

Also note how the testimonial is written. Chances are the adman wrote the testimonial and had the client approve of it.  In your business you should do the same. Your clients will provide glowing testimonials but (typically) have a tough time saying the best things about your business and how those things affect other potential buyers.

This testimonial touches on “here is another order” “they attract favorable attention” “durable” “best value” “well know business man” All of that in a couple short sentences!

3) The ad starts out with a very compelling story:

“For over 200 years the Spanish people who settled New

Mexico have been raising sheep and weaving wool. Their

looks have been handed down from father to son…..”

 

and on it goes into the story of where they live, the types  of fabric they make, the colors, the make of the tie, intriguing features like “invisible silk”, how they wear, wrinkle free, the textures, cleaning… and so on.

It literally forces you to read the entire story!

Then it goes into “My Christmas Offer” showing that they obtained a fantastic deal ($1 per tie) – makes the perfect gift – guaranteed.

How to order details are very intricate – making sure people know exactly what must be done to get a part of this special offer.  It is even discussed how they will be  packaged so the customer knows what to expect in their mailbox.

Last, the true  kicker: why they MUST order now – “before the Spanish go on their El Natividad” and why you must make a decision now before Christmas gets here and your gift is late.

What an amazing ad.

And, there is absolutely no reason you can’t use a concept like this in October and November for your year end specials.  Either you sell products or services that make a good gift – or it is the perfect time in the new year to order a new model.

Find a way to use these ideas:

- intriguing headline – make it a visual one

- testimonials – lots of them – or your best quality ones at minimum

- a great story about you – your employees – your spouse –  your kids – your pets – whatever, just make it interesting

- descriptives on what they get and why it matters

- a very special offer that WILL NOT be repeated

- make it descriptive on how to order (and give them options)

- the big reason why they MUST order now!

- tie it in to a holiday or special theme

Not rocket science – but if they can sell 26,000 neck ties with an ad like this – don’t you think you could find a way to sell more of your products and services using similar techniques?

You could if you try!

To your success,

Your 2012 Marketing Plan and Calendar (complete with thousands of marketing ideas, blog post ideas, promotional campaigns, etc)

Troy

PS: The 2012 Cash Flow Calendar is ready to roll… http://www.cashflowcalendars.com
…done-for-you, copy and paste marketing campaigns that make 2012 your best year yet!

 

If you need help with your marketing and promotional plan for the next 12 months…

…this is an exceptional way to plan out all your campaigns, with simple formulas and copy/paste templates.

 

We executed the _________ promotion and received over
$1000.00 worth of sales from it in one day! 
Fabulous I say.” – Fran Agar – Ballymoon Beauty

Aug
22

Marketing stickiness

By | advertising, Copywriting, Direct Mail, Entrepreneur, Marketing on the web, Neighborhood Marketing

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marketing-clutter

Does your marketing look like it's buried in the clutter?

11  important rules you need to stick to if you want to succeed in your marketing:

1)      The purpose of your marketing is NOT to showcase your brand, your logo, (it does not need

to be for them to buy something, as it can be for them to take some kind of action like visiting a web page to get something for free)

2)      You MUST learn how to create compelling offers that get them to take those actions.

3)      Each of the marketing campaigns you launch will consist of a minimum of 3 steps.  In other words, when communicating with your clients and prospects, you must send at least 3 different pieces to them in order to call it a properly designed campaign (and one that will actually work and help you achieve goal #1 from above)

4)      No more cutesy sayings and vague one-liners that say and do nothing that take you closer to goal #1. Again, a cute radio ad is useless if it doesn’t generate you leads or make you money.

5)      You will learn how to become a more natural writer, and use those skills to further build on goal #1

6)      Your personality in your marketing is your greatest asset. Don’t hide the fact that you are a real live person, like most business owners do. They try and mask the size of their company… pretending to be a big company.  Putting your face and personality front and center in all your marketing will do more for your sales than anything else you do.

7) Effective advertising rarely looks like advertising.

8)      Effective advertising stops your ideal customer in their tracks and literally forces them to start reading your ad.

9)      Effective advertising always has some form of tracking mechanism in place so you know exactly if it is working, or not.

My first few years into copywriting, I had logged 2,000 hours of writing and studying from the masters (I tracked my hours).

Since discovering this thing called copywriting, I have a whole new world in front of me.  I see why most businesses struggle.  I see why people think marketing doesn’t work. I see why most people think advertising is a waste of money. And I see why some companies go on and accomplish amazing things in record time.

I have had the privilege to work with some incredible people, from all over the world. Movie stars. Bestselling authors. Public speakers. Inventors.  Real estate investors and developers.  Information publishers.  All said and done, there are probably 35+ industries I have helped now.  And have made them millions and millions of dollars in short periods of time.

 

Why do I share this with you? Because just 7 years ago I had no idea what marketing was or how it worked.  Today, I am an internationally-known entrepreneur who has helped thousands of people turn their businesses around.  Every week, my articles go out to thousands of entrepreneurs and small business owners spanning the globe.  And I absolutely love seeing the look in a client’s eye when they hit their first grand slam in marketing. The pay doesn’t hurt either.

If I can do it, so can you.  I failed English in high school and university.  But I quickly discovered that real marketing doesn’t care about proper grammar.  As you will see in this article, real marketing breaks many of the rules of proper English.

Yet it works… and the results speak for themselves.

 

 

I LOVE your comments… good and bad.  Let me know what I can do to help you grow your business faster and more profitably.

Troy

 

Jan
07

Quick and Dirty Marketing Checklist

By | advertising, Copywriting, Entrepreneur, Marketing on the web, Success

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Think about the following checklist and how your business is situated. There are 15 different areas of your marketing you can improve here – take one to start with and you will see a big difference in how people respond to your offers.

• Are you running a headline in all of your marketing?

• Is it targeted specifically at your target customers?

• Is your biggest benefit in the headline (or sub and pre-heads)?

• Do you talk about their needs – and forget your own company’s accomplishments?

• Are you specific in your claims? None of the “best in the world” type of claims – no one believes them anyhow.

• Does your marketing material answer the question – “would this help our field sales people close the deal, or pre-qualify the prospects?

• Is every piece of your marketing containing some form of measurement device?

• Does your marketing and advertising materials explain what it is you want them to do?

• Does it ask them to take action by phone, mail, email, web form, or fax?

• Does it answer all the questions your typical prospects ask your sales people?

• Can you specifically tell me who your ideal client is (age, sex, income, demographics)?

• Is the most common word in all your marketing “You”? If not – get rid of all the “I”, “We”, “Us” etc – they do not care about you! All they care about is what you can do for them.

• Do you have testimonials in everything that your prospects and customers see?

• Do you follow up with your prospects and clients at least once a month? Remember that there are totally different messages you want to send to your prospects and to your existing clients.

• Do you apply any form of psychology in your marketing? Making sure you address the most common psychological reasons that people buy (sex, money, greed, health, envy etc.)

• Does your marketing tell a story?

Remember, one at a time is all that’s required. Pick one and start putting it into action in your business.

One step at a time is all that is needed. Guaranteed.

To your success,

Troy White

Nov
03

How many times would you invest $1 to get $18 back?

By | advertising, Autoresponders, Copywriting, Email Marketing, Story Selling

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…as many times as humanly possible I would hope!

That is what business and marketing is ALL about.

Finding proven methods to consistently grow your revenues with minimal investment.

Which is why Seth Green is so happy…

“Troy’s story selling works! In just a few short calls Troy as able to
uncover great story ideas that I didn’t even realize I had. I’ve been sitting on a
gold mine!

Thanks to Troy we did our first Halloween promotion ever, and had a
18 to 1 Return on our investment! We are already working on our next two
campaigns.

Can’t wait to see what you come up with next! Thanks again!”

~~~~ Seth Greene

Julie Freedman Smith is also experiencing the power of stories in her marketing mix and is selling a bunch of new memberships to her Parenting Power Club (2 more today).


…so… how many times would you invest $1 if you could get $18 back?

Right… which is exactly the reason you need to join us in the upcoming Story Selling Coaching Club which starts November 23rd. There are only 20 entrepreneurs allowed – with a few spots remaining.

http://www.storysellingtips.com

Join us and I will also give you the 31k club training system as well. Each day for the next 31 days I will show you which stories to write about, and how to turn them into revenues for your business.

The perfect combination.

Hope you can join us and hope YOU are the next one that turns $1 into $18 every time you want.

To your story selling success,

Troy

http://www.storysellingtips.com

Sep
30

Most amazing advertising campaign ever… or not

By | advertising, Entrepreneur, Main Content, Wacky marketing ideas

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Advertising Agencies at Their Finest – is this where YOUR money is going?

Jul
28

Facebook advertising

By | advertising, Copywriting, Leads Generation, Marketing on the web, Neighborhood Marketing, Social Networking

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We all know the numbers…

500 MILLION users.

Nothing else you need to know.

If you want to tap into a VERY powerful database, Facebook is something you should be researching.

Are your ideal clients on Facebook?

With half a BILLION users, don’t jump to conclusions until you actually do your research.

2 years ago (wayyyy before all the ‘gurus’ started hyping their wares on Facebook advertising), I saw great success with Facebook ads.

From a $15 ad investment, I was able to sell $2,500 in seminar seats.

Not a bad return!

Things are much more competitive now, but the size of Facebook is growing by the second. If the founder doesn’t mess it all up, it will be one of the MOST powerful marketing databases in the world.

I recently interview Brian Bagnall on the power of Facebook advertising and how anyone can start using it today.

Here is the mp3 recording of that call.

Enjoy – and see you on Facebook!

Troy

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