A Copywriting Perspective: If it Don’t Bring in the Bucks, Don’t Do It!
Are you still plunking down money on marketing that doesn’t, directly, put money in your pocket?
That won’t seem like a silly question to direct response copywriters and marketers, but it may feel a bit vague to some business owners. 
For those of us, who have discovered and highly believe in direct response — offline or online — we try to help our clients to always spend advertising and marketing dollars on the kinds of marketing you can truly measure.
If you just pay for a glitzy ad to be written and designed and then pay for the space in a spiffy publication, without making a direct offer to buy, you’re not doing direct response.
By its very name, it’s the kind of marketing/advertising that asks for the sale. So, you can judge the success or failure of it by how many orders you get, right?
This, IMO, is the only kind of marketing that makes any sense to any business, unless perhaps you’re Coke or Microsoft.
Why does anyone care about ‘image’ or ‘branding,’ anyway? Making profits is not about you, your business or your products. It’s only about your customers!
No one really cares about all the techno-babble about how your widget is built. All your prospective customers care about is, “What will this product do for me?”
So, in all of your marketing, tone down the features of your newest widget and focus on how it will alleviate the pain of your customers. Or how it’ll make their lives easier, sexier, faster or more fun.
You’ve probably all heard it before, but it’s still true. The only station a consumer is tuned to is: WIIFM.
Always do these Things in your Marketing …
1. Answer their question, “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM)
2. Tell them why they should believe you.
3. Tell them how much it costs.
4. Tell them how to order right now.
5. Tell them they only have a limited time to order.
6. Tell them you only have a limited quantity.
7. Then, tell them you’ll refund their money, if they don’t like it.
Tell them these things in everything you print or put online!
If it don’t bring in the bucks … don’t do it.
If you need a kickass copywriter and marketing strategist to help you out with these kinds of things that SELL … I know where you can find one.
Here’s to making the phone ring, the server crash and the cash register ka-ching!
Carolyn
http://www.kickasscopywriter.com
May 14th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Carolyn-
I absolutely appreciate your no-nonsense advice on Marketing. It has inspired me to rewrite the copy on my own web site. I knew there was something wrong with it!
I’ve always asked myself similar questions when I’m reading someone else’s advertisement or content; such as, how much does this cost? Its traditionally been perceived as taboo to post fees for big-ticket sales; however, there isn’t a soul alive who doesn’t want to know what it will cost them. Especially if you’ve done a thorough job with WIIFM!
Thank you for the tips…
Roxanne
May 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Hello Roxanne,
Thanks so much for your post!
My thoughts were more for marketing, rather than
a web site … but if it helps you with your site, I’m
very happy.
I’ll check out your site to see what all you do.
Thanks, again.
Carolyn