Setting up a direct mail campaign correctly is important. You’ll put hours of work into getting the copy written correctly, designing the layout, and making sure your call to action is clear. The finished product will hit the mail and you’ll sit back to – well – wait.

There are, of course, a few extra things you can do to enhance the effectiveness of your direct mail marketing campaign. Here are some to inspire you.

• Offer a free gift with your call to action. Set a time limit on it. Those who reply by a certain date will receive a free gift just for responding. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, or anything expensive, but the idea of getting something for free really motivates some people.
• Offer a free trial of your product. You don’t have to give those on a free trial 100% access to all of your services or product perks. They need to see just enough to get an idea of how your services really work. It’s no harm if they don’t purchase – and better for you if they do.
• Keep your copy short. You can include as much information as you want, but make sure it is broken down into digestible nuggets. The shorter your statements, the easier they are to read.
• Are you on a budget? Instead of designing a full-color advertisement, design a high quality black-and-white or greyscale advertisement and have it printed on colored paper. The color will draw attention to the advertisement and you’ll save money on printing.
• Always include a “PS” statement at the end of your copy. When scanning your document, readers will always look to see if there is some sort of “PS” and what it says.

Make your copy informative, easy to read, and inspiring. Before you know it, the responses will be rolling in.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

The truth? Radio advertising, especially today, can be expensive. On the other hand, radio advertisements have the ability to reach thousands upon thousands of people in one shot. The trick is to maximize the value of your radio advertising campaigns by making them as profitable as possible. Here are three things to keep in mind.

Know Your Audience

Before you purchase any type of advertising package you need to know two things. First, you need to know who your own target audience is. Second, you need to know what type of audience the radio station in question targets. Write down the age, gender, and important factors about the audience you’d like to target. Compare your information to the information the sales rep gives you when you inquire about advertising. If you don’t have similar goals, move on to another radio station.

Be Entertaining

The reality of the situation is that you are not the only advertisement someone sitting in his or her car is hearing. They hear one after the other and some people flip stations to find better entertainment during commercial breaks. This means your commercials themselves need to be entertaining in order to keep the attention of your audience. You may need to incorporate humor or an ongoing theme. If you’re not captivating, you’ll never earn the attention of the station’s listeners.

Take Advantage of Opportunity

A lot of radio stations like to run special promotions. Sometimes they cost a bit more but the cost is nothing compared to the added benefit. If you sponsor the weather report, for example, they’ll mention your name before the report and then your advertisement might be first after the report – meaning more people will hear it because they haven’t flipped stations yet. You might even find yourself mentioned at off-air events as well.

Radio advertising is costly but profitable – if you make it profitable. You can’t run out and buy an ad from the first station that gives you a deal. Make sure you remain focused and your ads will eventually begin to pay off!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

In the past we’ve spoken about copywriting and the art of developing great advertisement copy. Today, though, I’d like to take a few minutes to talk specifically about what you should be doing if you’re managing an online marketing campaign. The world of search engine optimization (SEO) is a completely different animal and you’ll need to keep that in mind as you develop web content – especially if you want to attract visitors and make sales.

Write Valuable Content

There’s really no other way of putting it. On the web, content is king – but only if you’re writing really valuable content. Don’t think you’re going to throw up a website with a few subpar articles stuffed inappropriately with keywords and still get results. Every single word you write needs to be valuable to your readers. It needs to be easy to understand and have a great, eye appealing format. If not, it’s pure garbage.

Use Extra Formatting

When writing for the web, the shorter your pieces of information the better. This means you shouldn’t write paragraphs that are a page long. That type of writing isn’t easy for the eye to scan and read. Use bold faced type, italics, bullet point lists, and short paragraphs so that your reader can scan for pieces of information and take it in small bits at a time.

Don’t Forget about Linking

On the web, writing an article is one thing but having it properly promoted is another. Internally, you’ll want to make sure you use your chosen keywords to link back to other informative pages on your own site. Externally, you’ll want to try to find some sites that are willing to link back to you and, at the same time, you’ll occasionally want to link back out to other valuable resources. You need both incoming and outgoing links for the search engines to take you seriously.

Use Formatting Tags

When writing for the web, use the H1 tag to highlight your titles as often as possible. We’re not sure why, but search engines take this type of title tag very seriously. Use your keywords in the title you’re highlighting and make sure those keywords or title words are elsewhere in the article as well. Use the H2 tag on subheadings (like the ones in this article) and Google will love you even more.

Don’t Stuff Keywords

The keywords you target in your writing are important – yes – but if you don’t use them naturally your content will sound spammy. Use your keywords in the beginning of your article, a few times throughout the body, and once at the end. Maintaining a natural keyword denisty won’t draw negative search engine attention and, in the end, your writing will be cleaner and easier to read.

Remember – writing for the web is a lot different than writing a book or print advertisement. Every word you write counts. The more focused you are, the more likely you are to get real results!

All the best,

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker – Sales Expert

Not too long ago I found myself doing some additional research about the benefits of social media and networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. I found some really interesting things about Twitter that I hadn’t realized before – things that could really have a huge impact on the way you market your business – especially if it is an online business. Today I’ll share two main points.

The first is that if you are a salesperson, especially a newer salesperson, your prospects may have the foresight to do a little bit of research about you individually before deciding to make a purchase. If you use your real name instead of a pseudonym when creating your Twitter account your prospects are even more likely to find you online. If you’re careful about what you post they’ll see how professional you are – and how knowledgeable you are about your product.

The second interesting fact is that Google views Twitter with high regard. They also view each individual Tweet as a separate web page when ranking them on Google. This means that ever Tweet your post is increasing the amount of content your prospects can find on the web. It works even better if you occasionally include a link back to your main company website.

The trick, of course, is making sure your Twitter account contains valuable information. If you’re spouting off random music lyrics or pieces of useless information no one will care about what you have to say. Guaranteed.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker