Can anyone write great copy? I get asked that all the time. I tell them all the same thing: You already know how to do it! Because you already know how to tell stories. I just have to teach you the proper structure, and UNTEACH you all the stuff your elementary and high school teachers taught you.
If you ever made up a story for your children, you’re a copywriter. If you’ve ever gathered with friends as a teenager and told ghost stories, you can write copy. Great copywriters simply paint visual pictures of events. Events that happened in the past, events that may happen in the future, or events that won’t ever happen, unless you buy their product. You either paint the picture of the joy the prospect will get using your product, or you paint the picture of the hardship he will continue to endure without it. Why?
When one of my clients says to me, “Ford… I’m not sure what to write about. Aren’t press releases just for big news?” I tell them that kind of assumption just isn’t true. You can create press releases for a wide variety of topics, as long as you keep a few key elements in mind.
One of the most important ones to always follow is to adapt your “story”(or theme) to a favorite media topic in the news. That will make it more interesting to your media contact, as well as to their readers. To help you get started, here are my TOP 5 topics that I use to increase the chances of getting publicity through traditional sources like newspapers, magazines, and newsletters.
HEALTH is one of the most popular topics covered in the media. Can you find a way to tie your product, service, or media promotion to a current, health-related topic? One of my clients runs a successful pilates studio and even though it’s a local studio, her press releases and articles have been published in several national publications and on tons of sites.
This blog is devoted to design elements you can use in your e-mail mailings to grow your list quickly. Here are the remaining five tips I promised you last time. Hope they get you thinking about growing your own e-mail list.
Secret #6: ADVERTISE your site and electronic newsletter in other publications or use web banners and traditional advertising mediums, such as print, TV and radio. Encourage e-mail subscriptions on all print ads. This secret may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised by how often it is overlooked. Depending on your type of business and industry, this can be an effective method to grow your list.
Secret #7: Use PAY-PER-CLICK Advertising to send targeted traffic to your mini-site or main site through Pay-Per-Click search engines. Pay-Per-Click advertisements show up alongside the natural site listings on the search results pages (SRPs). You go to your favorite search engines and set up an account and bid on the keywords terms related to your target market. By using PPC advertising you get you in front of your target market almost instantly. More traffic means more subscribers. But before you rush off and open a PPC account, keep in mind that you need to know the “value” of each subscriber, as well as your break-even cost of acquiring a lead and customer. If you haphazardly set up PPC and start bidding on keywords without understanding what you’re doing, you could easily waste thousands of dollars. If you can’t devote the time and energy to do it right, or can’t hire an expert certified in Pay-Per-Click advertising (like me!), skip this secret for now! I guarantee you that if you implement the other secrets I’ve offered you, you’ll still have more than enough to keep you and your marketing team busy for quite a while.
Wichita, KS—Regardless of whether you’re the CEO or an entrepreneur, a sales manager, marketing director or business owner—your business can’t grow without adding value and making a profit.
[EVENT SOLD OUT. SUBSCRIBE TO MY EZINE TO BE NOTIFIED OF FUTURE MARKETING AND BUSINESS EVENTS WITH FORD SAEKS]
If you’ve ever imagined what it would be like to have an insider’s peek at the secrets of increasing your sales as much as 500% or more, stop dreaming—your opportunity has arrived.
Expert marketing guru Ford Saeks has announced that he will be conducting the “The Profit-Rich Marketing Mastery Event” in Orlando, Florida on April 4-6, 2008.
“I’m going to reveal to a select group of individuals who want to join me for a weekend event that will transform the way they brand, market and promote their products and services,” Saeks said during the announcement of the event in December.
“I’ll show you how to create, improve, and implement proven strategies to increase your sales and give you a competitive edge… regardless of your products, services, prices, or industries,” he continued. “If you need to launch a new product, develop a publicity campaign, get higher rankings in the search-engines, use your website and the Internet more effectively—then you need to be there.”
Unlike any workshop, seminar, or Boot Camp you may have attended in the past, Saeks promises this event will be the most comprehensive, relentlessly detailed, hands-on training ever conducted on how to grow your business through Direct and Internet Marketing tactics.
Attendees will discover how to:
Improve results from their marketing efforts.
Re-ignite creativity to come up with new ideas “on demand.”
Design the best product pipeline and business model.
Package and price products and services for optimum sales.
Harness the power of publicity for new leads and to dominate the competition.
Market products through dealers, affiliates, and JV partners.
Make small databases outperform much larger lists.
Develop a stream of prospects to fill your online and offline databases.
Create ongoing cash flow as well as periodic HUGE paydays that suck in more money than most earn in a decade.
Discover and evaluate potential niche markets.
Know what kind of websites you need to sell different products and services.
Find programmers and explain how to build these sites to produce the most sales at minimal cost.
Work the search engines, pay-per-click sites, Yahoo, and Google AdWords programs to affordably bring more traffic to your site.
Write emotionally charged, attention-grabbing, sales-generating copy for your marketing materials.
Effectively sell products and services through direct-response marketing strategies to increase sales and profits!
Saeks added that at this unique hands-on marketing event participants will also learn to sell even better by “remote control,” both online and offline through:
Innovative Marketing Campaigns.
Websites (yours and others!).
Free publicity.
E-mail newsletters (E-zines).
Catalogs and “magalogs.”
Content-rich blogs.
Display advertising.
Classified ads.
Direct-mail campaigns.
Tele-seminars and webinars.
Public seminars and workshops.
Infomercials.
Online e-courses.
Consulting services.
This three-day marketing mastery event is designed for fast, in-depth training for marketing professionals of all levels of experience. According to Saeks, the event is perfect for:
Business owners and leaders who want to dominate the competition.
Professional speakers stuck in the broken business model of chasing after a different audience for speeches every week.
Writers who finally realized that giving away all their information in $20 books is keeping them broke.
Computer “geeks” who want to make serious money with their skills.
Consultants caught in the “trading-hours-for-money” trap.
Anyone involved and interested in finding, attracting, and keeping their customers.
“This is not one of those ‘talking head’ seminars that leave you in a coma by the time it’s over!” Saeks said. “This is a powerful, hands-on, interactive event with real Hot Seats, case studies, and exercises that will have participants working on their own projects while they’re there! It’s interactive and experiential, so you learn by actually DOING!”
Any participant is eligible to be selected for a free “Hot Seat,” where their project or concept is expertly analyzed and evaluated by Saeks. There will be “Hot Seat” critiques for marketing materials, publicity campaigns, product development, packaging and pricing, website critiques, and more.
Saeks added that no one need worry about “memory overload,” because attendees will create a blueprint for where they want to go, and take away a specific Action Step list to follow the second they get back to their offices.
Benefits of Attending.
According to Saeks, there is no substitute to attending this one-of-a-kind “live” training program. The chance to be able to ask questions in person and sort things out cannot be taken lightly. And prospects should not discount the added learning opportunities that come from actually being in the room as marketing campaigns are created right in front of them. If you are one of the fortunate few to be selected for a Hot Seat, the value to you is incalculable!
Attendees will also discover the secrets of writing “cash copy” such as:
Power words that instantly increase response.
How to write headlines which seize the prospect’s attention.
Pulling readers through copy with “bucket brigade” devices.
How to sell more through an “internal” message.
Weaving in testimonials effectively.
How to highlight client benefits.
Structuring compelling offers.
Writing at the prospect’s emotional and comprehension level so they buy!
Participants will complete creative copywriting exercises, and unlock the secrets of taking features about your products and services and presenting them as benefits to your prospects. You’ll learn how to decipher the emotion of each situation, and convey it in a compelling way that gets the prospect to act. According to Saeks, even attendees who have never been able to write in their lives, you will leave this program knowing how to write compelling copy.
Saeks explained that a professional sound crew will be on-site throughout the entire program to record the event. Everyone who registers early will receive this library of the event on audio CDs, with selected segments on video so afterward they can go back and review applicable sessions and start implementing steps. This valuable resource (and a work-along binder) will keep participants on track, on purpose.
The Profit-Rich Marketing Mastery Event is a three-day program starting on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. and continues to at least 7:00 p.m. Friday night. Saturday starts again at 9:00 a.m. and continues until 9:00 p.m. that evening. Sunday starts at 9:00 a.m. and ends promptly at noon.
As an added bonus, Saeks said that the first 50 people to register will also receive a full-year membership to his Profit-Rich Marketing website—an added value of $547—for FREE.
No-Risk Guarantee: Ford Saeks invites serious participants to this three-day marketing mastery event and experience it all day Friday through noon on Saturday; if they don’t see how what they’ve learned in just that time can make them AT LEAST an extra $250,000—return all of the materials and he will refund their entire registration investment. There’s no conditions; no fine print. If anyone is not satisfied, for any reason, just go home and pay nothing.
Media Relations:
Prime concepts Group, Inc.
1807 S. Eisenhower St.
Wichita, KS 67209
1-800-946-7804
In my last blog I told you about ways to increase your e-mail list by improving the content of your e-mail offers.
This time I thought I’d offer you a few “secrets” I’ve found that can help grow your list fast. These 10 list-building tips may sound obvious, but too often they are overlooked by novice Internet marketers. In part 1 of this blog, I’ll give you the first five, and then in my next blog, I’ll reveal the remaining five.
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10 Tips to Transform Your Marketing
One of the most important ones to always follow is to adapt your “story”(or theme) to a favorite media topic in the news. That will make it more interesting to your media contact, as well as to their readers. To help you get started, here are my TOP 5 topics that I use to increase the chances of getting publicity through traditional sources like newspapers, magazines, and newsletters.
In my last blog I told you about ways to increase your e-mail list by improving the content of your e-mail offers.