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Need to
put more power in your ads? More bang for your ad buck?
These
principles are free. If youlike what you see, you can order the
whole booklet on the order page.
1. YOU. Get ‘I’, ‘us’ and ‘we’ OUT
OF YOUR VOCABULARY! By that I mean, no one CARES about you, your
company, your accomplishments or any thing else about YOU. When
you're writing an ad, you are talking one-on-one with a READER.
That person is the ONLY one you have to talk to, and he/she should
be addressed in the second person. Instead of “we offer two
kinds of accounts”, write “YOU will discover two kinds
of accounts designed specifically for YOUR convenience. ” Which
leads to my second point.
2. WIFT. Always think about WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM! Talk in
benefits, not ONLY features. To continue with the above example,
write: “One account is called the EZ interest account, where,
if you maintain a $1,000 balance, you pay NO interest, not a penny,
EVER!” It's called ‘selling the sizzle’.
And the sizzle is always written from the CUSTOMER’S point-of-
view. Everybody goes through life LOOKING IN A MIRROR, and
only those things that get past their ‘selective screen’
of
PERSONAL SELF- (yes, SELFISH) INTEREST. people always
have, always will, and we should stop pretending they don't or wishing
they didn't.
A
major cigarette company designed a cigarette that only smoked when
you did. In other words, while it was sitting in the ashtray, it
DID NOT SEND OFF SMOKE. They had designed a cigarette for NON-SMOKERS!
If you're a smoker, you know smokers could care LESS about how much
smoke non-smokers smoke. Result? TENS of millions of dollars later.
FAILURE! (Of course). Only talk about what will benefit the READER!
3. PERSONALITY. Your product must have a distinct PERSONALITY which
can be WELCOMED INTO people’s
homes or offices. One way of approaching this is to PICTURE SOME
FAMOUS PERSON that you admire, Get to know them well. Ben Franklin
is one of mine. I read biographies, “Poor Richard’s Almanac”
and everything else I could get my hands on. When I knew him well
enough, I asked: how would BEN FRANKLIN sell this? How would your
ads look, if BEN FRANKLIN wrote them? How would your offices look?
Ben Franklin is obviously very bright, with a wonderful sense of
humour and an inventive mind, who LOVES women. If you kept this
amazing character in you mind when doing promotion, your stuff would
very quickly develop a personality and look of its own, that would
be distinct from your competition. Ask: How would “?”
write this letter, design my office, teat these people. You’ll
be amazed at how it adds consistency to all of your efforts.
4. POSITIONING. Position your product in your prospect’s mind.
QUICK! How many TOOTHPASTES can you name? If you’re like most
people, you can quickly name three or four, before you hit the “UMMM”
point, the point at which you can't readily identify others. This
is called your “ladder of preference”.Everybody
has one, for every product or service that interest them. It has
three or four rungs: the product I buy most often, the product I
use when I can't get my favorite, the one I'm curious about and
ONE THAT STANDS OUT from the rest, which I might try if the INCENTIVE
is right.
You can see that if you’re not on one
of these first four rungs in anybody’s mind, you better be
satisfied with a beensy share of the market. We did an ad once for
a local computer company and our slogan was: ”The one across
the street from IBM”. Everybody knew where IBM was, and very
quickly, people knew where WE were. Inquiries about the company
went up over 1000%! POSITIONING!
5. VALUE. Build in intangible value to INCREASE YOUR PRICE. People
will pay ANYTHING for Hagen Das. It's not just ice cream. The socialist
premier of France once did a test. He was convinced that people
would respond RATIONALLY to an offer in the market. His capitalist
opponents knew that everybody
FALLS IN LOVE with a product FIRST, then tries to rationalize it
AFTERWARDS. We are EMOTIONAL ANIMALS! But the scientific socialists
went ahead. They put the same cheese at three different prices in
various stores. You guessed it, The expensive price sold out first,
the medium price second, the low price, they couldn't GIVE away!
Price is an indicator of VALUE, not reality, and if you build in
enough INTANGIBLE VALUE, you virtually have NO competition.
The French
learned their lesson. Look at how much people pay for Perrier, despite
thefact that It's WATER! Someone is now selling mountain air over
the internet, and making a healthy profit. People
don't buy drills, the old adage goes, they buy HOLES. And they buy
holes because they are building something that will result in ADMIRATION
and GRATITUDE from some other person, or for PRIDE in themselves.
Some people buy $12 hammers, but others buy chrome, leather-wrapped
“golfer’s” hammers for $89 or MORE! Why? To bang
in a nail? No. To feel like a PROFESSIONAL. You know how many of
your friends have hundreds of tools they NEVER use, but are proud
to show off at any opportunity!
6. APPEALS. Pride, profit, pleasure or pain. The four most dominant
reasons for buying something. Did you know that only 20% of the
population buys a product because they expect to GAIN something?
80% buy to AVOID PAIN! So your appeals and benefits should keep
this in mind. Appeals like AVOID
EMBARRASSMENT, PROTECT YOUR FAMILY, THE AGONYOF PSORIASIS double
and triple their power because of this fact. Michelin says A LOT’S
RIDING ON YOUR TIRES and they show pictures of cute little babies
( rather than OUR TIRES ARE SAFE.)
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Great
ads don't say DON'T APPEAR FOOLISH, but they show incompetent people
screwing up all the time. Pleasure is actually the weakest of these,
because MOST PEOPLE don't THINK THEY ARE WORTHY! Yet SEX sells.
Because of the fantasy, not the reality. Most people are not great
at sex, but they make GREAT VOYEURS. Last year, 750,000,000 XXX
videos were rented. Profit speaks for itself, but only if It's
EFFORTLESS.
7. LAYOUT. It almost doesn't matter how your ad looks, if the message
is right. Test after test shows that 16-page letters out pull 12-page
ones, eight-page ones out pull four-page ones, and so on. AND THEY
ALL OUTPULL ADVERTISING.
this in an age when people are not supposed to like reading! The
point is, if your POINT is valid from the WIFT point-of-view, they
will read to the last period. eg. (Harry Potter!)
8. USP. Find a UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION that ONLY YOU CAN USE.
Again, NO competition. It’s
what YOU do that the others DON’T, something DIFFERENT and
IMPORTANT to your prospects and customers. Work out EXACTLY what
it is your targets want, then give it to them in the most appealing
way possible. Then tell them WHY it’s good for them. Nobody
else can say “with a name like Smuckers, it’ GOT to be
good.” or: “The loudest sound at 100 kph is the sound
of the electric clock.” Or, “British Airways wants to
be your favorite airline.” Even though any airline could SAY
it, no one else could USE it, after BA laid claim to it.
8. Headlines.Research shows that only FIVE PERCENT of your targets
will read past the headline, and those five are the ones that are
prepared to HANG IN until the end. But you can’t get to the
five unless your HEADLINE PULLS them in in the first place! Here’re
some tips for GREAT headlines: Long headlines outpull SHORT ones.
Well stated benefits outpull cute copy. Short words telegraph meaning
and help communication. Only the tenured like to sound like professors.
The rest of us like straight talk. Your WIFE is buying most consumer
products, so don’t insult her intelligence. More people can
identify with the Simpsons, than with the Clintons.
Notice how these headline examples touch something
human:
“It’s expensive but I’M WORTH IT!”
“Have a break today”
“Do
you make these mistakes in English?”
“What’s wrong with this picture?”
9. SELL UP. McDonalds makes an EXTRA $300,000,000 a year worldwide
with one simple question: “would you like FRIES with that?
(smile) TELL people what you want them to do in your ads and then
SHOW THEM HOW TO DO IT. ( Coupons in ads not only produce trial
and re-trial, but THEY INCREASE READERSHIP OF YOUR ADS BY 20%!
ASK for what you want them to DO! not once, but many times. Put
in a map (if your locations’s important), a phone number, a
toll-free number, a fax number, an e-mail number, AND YOUR WEBSITE,
on EVERYTHING YOU PLACE IN FRONT OF THE PUBLIC. The way to get in
touch with you is the WAY THEY WANT TO.
10. ACTION REQUIRED. What do you want people to take from your ad?
Do you want them to say: “that”s interesting.” or
“I never thought of it that way.” or “maybe I should
look into that.” or “I want that.” or “I PREFER
that.” or “What an incentive! I’ll TRY IT.”
or “i’ll try that TODAY!” Figure out what it is you
want them to do, then tell them how, and ASK, ASK, ASK for the business.
“Want him to be more of a man? Try being more of a woman. Here’s
how you can blow his mind, TONIGHT!”
10. INVOLVEMENT. “Do you make these mistakes in English?”
Hah! You looked! This ad ran for 60 years and has outpulled more
responses than ANY OTHER DIRECT MAIL AD. “They laughed when
I sat down at the piano, but when I started to PLAY!” is number
two. Why? INVOLVEMENT.
“Do you want to scream when you get headaches?”
“Is there anything worse than JOCK ITCH? Yeah, when you can’t
scratch.”
“Does your dog pass out when you take
off your shoes?”
11. Don’t underestimate the power of what YOU have to offer.
I was talking to a man I met on the plane the other day, and I asked
him what he did for a living. He said, “I make the best pumps
in the world and I charge ten times what my competition does.”
Wow! Did I listen to this guy, or what?
12. Stop saying “I never would…” What YOU think doesn’t
matter! You are not typical. To find out what your targets think,
ASK THEM! (The very fact you are reading Point 12, means you’re
not typical! Congratulations!) Just the fact that you are reading
point 12, means you WANT to succeed. Most people don’t. What
they want is instant gratification and the APPEARANCE OF SUCCESS.
Ask them (your targets) what THEY think of your stuff.
13. Magic. People
want to believe in it. They will gratefully embrace the benefits
of technology, but it’s not fun, or romantic, or mysterious.
Make you stuff mysterious. According to research, add action for
men, romance for women, power for businessmen, sensitivity for those
concerned about the envronment. Tell a story. Nothing educates and
enthralls people like a good story. And make your product the hero.
These are continued in the booklet in more detail. If you say the
word “Rumplestiltskin” on your order, I’ll give you
the booklet for twenty percent less just for getting this far.
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