The 10-day MBA by Steven Silbiger

In preparation for starting my executive MBA later this year, I thought it would be a good idea to get clued up on all the business theory and models since I last studied business in April.

The 10-day MBA, as the name suggests, allowed me to do just that.

In a concise and surprisingly (for an academic) jargon-free manner, Steven summarises all the modules that are studied in top business school MBAs.

From marketing, to operations, to human resources, to accounting – Steven captures every business concept and model in just 384 pages.

Although it is written from a US perspective, so too is most business literature used in Universities across the UK, so it serves as a perfect foundation for anyone entering this course of study in the near future – whether in the US or the UK.

Testimonials at the start of the book try to sell its value as a replacement for an actual MBA course. Whilst I disagree that you will attain the same level of insight and knowledge from this book as you would from studying an MBA at University (at least I hope not, otherwise I may have wasted a lot of money!), I do agree that it is a great read and a must –have for anyone interested in the academic side of business.

With social media playing such a huge role in modern business, we felt it appropriate to centre this blog on Twitter and the worldwide ‘micro-blogging’ phenomenon.

In particular, we’re going to look at how you, as an SME, have a distinct advantage in social media when compared to the big players in your industry.

Publications and communications consultancy Weber Shandwick recently revealed that Fortune 100 companies are not using social media to its full potential – if at all.

And when we look a little closer, it’s easy to see why.

These huge companies have shareholders, board members, and numerous other stakeholders that all equate to red tape, making it difficult to communicate anything in under 140 characters that doesn’t offend or disagree with at least one party.

Here are three ways to effectively use your SME status to your advantage against the ‘Big Boys’ in your industry via Twitter and social media:

Speed and agility

With fewer restrictions and no bureaucratic procedures holding you back, you can capitalise on topics and keywords that your larger competitors will try to avoid – therefore gaining more coverage and exposure in particular areas.

Not only this, but your personal relationship with followers (the people that actively want to hear from your organisation) can be enhanced by replying to Tweets and becoming more involved in conversation and trending topics.

More than just brand awareness

Another thing that Weber Shandwick found during their study was that Fortune 100 companies used their Twitter accounts mainly to deliver news and increase brand awareness. Only 9% used Twitter to actively communicate with followers on a two-way basis.

Although delivering news and increasing brand awareness is an important part of any social media campaign, the underlying premise of Twitter is to facilitate two-way (or more!) communication – so use this to your advantage. Listen to followers and respond to them on a personal level.

Develop a personality

Due to the carefully-crafted corporate branding of most large organisations, it’s hard for the person in control of their Twitter account to stray from this path without getting into trouble.

This restricts large organisations’ perceived personality on social media platforms (where, incidentally, personality plays a huge role in the success of your campaign).

Do your best to develop a personality through your Tweets and resist the temptation to conform to ‘dry’, unengaging, corporate language.

Implement these three tactics in your Twitter campaign and you will soon start to see why social media plays such a large role in modern business.

Never before have organisations had the opportunity to communicate with existing and potential customers in this capacity, so make the most of it!

Or better yet, let us handle your social media marketing for you, while you focus on what you do best.

We offer Twitter, blog, and article marketing management from just £77 per month.

For more information, give us a call on 07528 372619 or email gavin@midascopy.com.

 If you’re contemplating hiring a copywriter to work with you on your promotional and marketing material, you may be facing the dilemma of whether to use a freelance writer, or a copywriting agency.

Now, before we begin, I must confess something.

I’m the director of a small copywriting agency – so, as you might expect, I have a predisposition to favour copywriting agencies over freelance copywriters – but, I’m going to try my best to offer an un-biased rundown on the merits and disadvantages of each option.

The copywriting agency

Copywriting agencies are essentially a group of copywriters, headed by account managers.

The copywriters do the research, concept development, and the writing, while the account managers keep the clients happy, communicate the clients’ needs to the copywriters, and enforce quality-assurance.

From this description alone it is easy to imagine some of the benefits and disadvantages of using an agency, but let’s explore these a little further.

Advantages

-          Industry specialists: With an extensive bank of copywriters to hand, copywriting agencies can often locate a writer with specific industry experience and expertise, allowing you to work with someone who is familiar with your particular field of work.

-          Availability: When it comes to workload, freelance writers are, obviously, limited by their schedule, and given that they work alone, it doesn’t take much work for their schedule to become full. Copywriting agencies, on the other hand, generally have a much greater capacity in terms of workload and availability. So if you’ve got a rush job on, agencies are more likely to be available to deliver.

-          Quality assurance: I want to avoid the issue of ‘quality’ in this article. Quality is not determined by the fact that the writer is freelance or part of an agency. Quality is determined by the response rate that the writer can deliver for your campaign, and quality varies amongst freelancers and agencies alike.

BUT, a point I would like to get across is that in most agencies, the account managers proofread each document before it is sent off to the client. This helps to eliminate mistakes and maintain clarity and objectivity in the text.

Disadvantages

-          Price: Typically, copywriting agencies charge higher prices. This is simply down to maintaining a higher cost-base than freelancers. Freelance writers work from home; the only costs directly related to their business are perhaps a laptop, a notepad, and a pen. Copywriting agencies, on the other hand, have an office, numerous computers, staff wages, and insurance costs directly related to their business. These are often reflected in the price they charge.

-          Flexibility: Freelance writers don’t work set hours, agency writers do. So if you have a project that needs completing at an obscure time or over the weekend, a freelance writer is probably more likely to be your port-of-call than a copywriting agency.

The freelance writer

I could stretch this article out and go over the advantages and disadvantages of using a freelancer as opposed to using an agency, but to be honest it would be quite pointless given that the advantages and disadvantages are simply the flip-side of the ones mentioned above.

Freelance writers don’t have the same number of industry specialism’s, the availability, or the same quality assurance procedures as copywriting agencies. But they do tend to beat the agencies on price and flexibility.

The verdict

Your decision to work with a freelance writer or a copywriting agency should be based on your particular requirements for the project. If it requires particular industry expertise (i.e. finance, medical etc.) and needs to be completed quickly, a copywriting agency might be more appropriate. If budget is a major factor, using a freelancer would probably be a more feasible option.

At Midas Copy we work hard to offer the best of both worlds, offering a huge diversity of industry specialism’s, a large workload capacity, and solid quality-assurance practices whilst also offering prices that are competitive - even in the freelance domain, and keeping our doors open seven days a week.

So, whatever your project, whatever your requirements, we can deliver.

Get in touch today or visit our website for an instant quote.

To celebrate winning runner-up prize in this year’s Rotherham Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards, Midas Copy are rolling out three new, low-cost, online marketing service packages to help you and your business win more custom with very little investment.

Whether you’re already promoting your company online or not, we can help you to improve your online presence and win more business through the use of some of the most cost-effective advertising techniques available to modern business.

What’s more, we will take care of it all; from writing the online content through to submitting and publishing it to all the relevant sources in order to maximise exposure; all for a small monthly fee.

Check out the three marketing service packages below:

·        Twitter feed management

-          Establishment of Twitter account and profile (if you do not already have one)

-          Unique Twitter marketing plan, covering how Midas plan to increase your ‘following’ and maximise your exposure – only implemented when approved by you

-          Implementation of your unique plan

-          Three tweets/posts per day (these are used to update ‘followers’ i.e. potential customers on relevant topics related to your business and to provide backlinks to your site and/or blog)

Price: £77 per month

·        Blog management

-          Production of 2 search engine optimised blog posts of up to 500 words each, every month

-          Integration and update on existing blog facility (if you do not already have a blogging facility, Midas can arrange for one to be built for you, for an additional one-off fee)

Price: £97 per month

·        Article marketing

-          Production of 2 search engine optimised articles of up to 500 words each, every month

-          Submission to 100 high-pagerank article directories, per article

Price: £127 per month

·        Full online marketing package

-          All of the above packages

Price: £210 per month

Note: There are no minimum-term contracts on these packages, so if, at any point, you decide you no longer want Midas to handle your online promotion, it’s not a problem.

Take advantage of our extensive knowledge and experience of online, text-based promotion by getting in touch today. Give us a call on 07528 372619 or email us at gavin@midascopy.com for a no-obligation discussion.

 At a cost of just $25,000 and an ad placement in just two magazines and two newspapers, how did David Ogilvy create such prominent, worldwide recognition and consumer awareness for the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II?

The headline “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock” was coined by Ogilvy in what was to become the most famous automobile ad of all time.

But why was it such a huge success?

Well before we begin the analysis, it should be noted that Ogilvy wasn’t actually the first person to use this ‘clock comparison’ in the headline of an automobile advert.

In fact, the American vehicle manufacturer, Pierce-Arrows, ran the headline ‘The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrows is the ticking of the electric clock’ 25 years prior to Ogilvy’s advert.

Some might go as far as to say that Ogilvy stole the headline, or at the very least took inspiration from it. But if that was the case, why did the Pierce-Arrows ad not experience the same success as Ogilvy’s Rolls-Royce version?

First of all, Pierce-Arrows’ headline lacked specificity.

One of the golden rules of copywriting is to adopt the acronym SMART. For those of you that are unfamiliar with this, it means to keep your writing Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This helps to give the copy more realism.

With Ogilvy’s headline, the reader can quite easily, after reading it, close their eyes and imagine driving the Rolls-Royce at 60 miles an hour in almost complete, blissful silence with the exception of a quiet ticking from the electric clock.

Secondly, Ogilvy chooses his words carefully.

He has an appreciation of the unconscious, emotional connotations that people attach to certain words and he uses this to his advantage.

Replacing the word ‘sound’ with ‘noise’ for instance, is one example of this tactic. Sound is more often than not associated with positive things like music. Noise, on the other hand, has predominantly negative connotations.

Tell people they will be deprived of sound when they drive this car, and they won’t be too keen on the idea. Tell them that they will be sheltered from the unpleasant noises of the road, squeaky brakes, and a raspy exhaust, and they will show a lot more interest.

Thirdly, and finally, Ogilvy’s headline is more believable than Pierce-Arrows’ version.

Again the difference is only subtle, but it has a huge impact on the credibility of the claim that the electric clock is the loudest noise in the car.

Ogilvy cleverly used the words ‘loudest noise’ instead of ‘only noise’. Now, one can find it easy to imagine that, whilst driving, the electric clock is the loudest noise that can be heard against the soothing grumble of the V8 engine.

In the Pierce-Arrows ad however, it is hard to believe that the electric clock is the only sound that can be heard whilst driving.

It’s only one word. But that one word has a huge influence on how the advertisement, and the car being advertised, is perceived.

For help and guidance on maximising the effectiveness of your own ads, get in touch with one of our professional copywriters today on 07528372619 or email gavin@midascopy.com.

Charities, just like any other organisation, have to advertise and market themselves effectively in order to survive.

Their goal is to convince their target audience that the cause they support is worthy of a donation, or indeed, a number of regular donations.

This can be a tough challenge; especially when advertising budgets are tight.

We therefore thought it would be appropriate to produce a short piece of information to help small charities make the most of their limited funds when it comes to advertising and promotion.

Much of this information applies to charities and small businesses alike, so it’s worth a look even from the ‘for-profits’ amongst us.

Make use of the media

Although you enjoy less control over this medium of promotion than you do via conventional advertising channels, it’s free. So make the most of it.

Invite the local media to any events or special occasions, send out press releases with newsworthy stories about your charity, and keep an eye out for any new PR opportunities (maybe a local radio or TV station would like to hold a live interview on a subject related to your charity’s cause).

Sensitise your audience

It’s always a good idea to familiarise and ‘sensitise’ your target audience to your charity and its cause before pursuing more personal methods of solicitation. Doing so adds credibility to your charity and gives it some degree of recognition amongst the target audience, making them more receptive to requests for donations.

You might find it useful to combine press ads, posters and other non-direct methods with direct solicitation such as mailings, door-to-door campaigns, and public collection for maximum effect.

Be inventive

This one applies to all organisations. Be inventive, or be ignored.

In a society where people are becoming increasingly numb to advertising and promotion, it is paramount that you differentiate your communications in a way that demands attention.

To put this into perspective, there are over 169,000 registered charities in England and Wales. Many of which actively request donations from the public.

It is not feasibly possible for everyone to donate to each one of these charities, so they have to be selective and choose the ones that they feel are supporting the most important causes.

Your job then, is to communicate your charity’s cause in such a compelling and engaging way that, after viewing, or listening to, your promotion, your target audience feels just as strongly about the cause as you do.

Take a look at ‘be a guerrilla marketer’ below for a few unconventional, attention-grabbing advertising ideas for your charity.

Be a guerrilla marketer

Take a leaf out of these charities’ books: http://bit.ly/107pfb

One word of warning, however, many guerrilla marketing techniques can have ethical, and indeed legal, implications. Make sure your campaign doesn’t end up like one of these: http://bit.ly/xguz6

If you would like a hand with getting your charity’s message across to your target audience effectively, we can help.

It’s no secret that, in the 21^st century, to be successful, companies need to think beyond the single transaction and focus more on the ‘lifetime value’ of each customer.

No longer can business owners rest on the assumption that customers who like a product or service will continue to buy.

Most markets are just too competitive and not maintaining contact with your customers can mean losing them forever, thus jeopardising the longevity of your business.

Existing customers are the most profitable source of income for any business. One, because winning this custom requires much lower (if any) advertising and promotional costs; and two, because this group have purchased from you before, they are more likely to have confidence in your product/service and make an even bigger order the next time round.

Arguably then, more time and attention should be devoted to retaining existing customers than is devoted to winning new ones.

Sadly (and rather disturbingly), this is not often the case.

It’s not a challenging task to employ a little relationship marketing in your business activities. Here are a few simple methods for maintaining contact with your customers in the interest of encouraging repeat purchases:

Send an email or letter out to your customer a couple of weeks after they made their purchase to see how they are getting on with the product/service and whether they need any help with anything.

Not only does this portray a caring attitude, it also serves as the perfect opportunity to collect a little market research on your customers’ preferences.

Send them a weekly/monthly/annual newsletter. During your dealings with the customer, kindly ask them if they would like to be part of your mailing list. Newsletters are a great way to show off your expertise in a particular field alongside keeping your brand fresh in the customer’s mind.

Send personalised messages on special occasions such as Christmas and Easter. If possible, you should try to capture each customer’s date of birth when they make their purchase, in order to send them personalised greetings on their birthdays.

Use social networking to maintain contact with your customers and keep them up to date on any developments in your company. Encourage customers to befriend or follow you on websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook etc. You could also encourage them to subscribe to your blog.

Present them with special offers and exclusive discounts. Remember, these people are familiar with your company and your brand so are much more receptive to communications and special offers than ‘cold’ prospects would be. Use this to your advantage.

By putting these simple tips into practice you should see a substantial increase in the amount of repeat business that you and your company receive.

 ‘Guerrilla Marketing’ by Jay Conrad Levinson

An updated and expanded version of the original 1983 publishing. In this edition, Levinson gives his readers an in-depth look at the possibilities of marketing and promotion in the twenty-first century.

This book is filled with leading-edge strategies for marketing on the internet, putting new technologies to work, targeting prospects, cultivating repeat and referral business, and managing in the age of telecommuting and freelance employees.

It is arguably an essential read for small business owners as it looks at how to utilise a shoestring budget to compete effectively with large competitors by using unorthodox marketing strategies and promotional techniques often overlooked or dismissed by big companies.

I’m really enjoying this book but I can’t help thinking that Levinson has attempted to write a 100 page book in 368 pages. The content appears quite diluted with Levinson talking around each subject before actually saying anything useful. Despite this, if you can sift through the ‘filler’ with which the book has been generously padded, you will find this an informative and interesting read.

‘Anyone can do it’ by Duncan Bannatyne

Yes! I too am a fan of the BBC’s Dragon’s Den so I decided to buy my favourite dragon’s autobiography.

Now, for me, autobiographies can be a bit hit and miss. In order to remain interested in an autobiography it has to inspire me. It has to fill me with enthusiasm and give me something that I can use to fulfil my own aspirations and ambitions. Suffice to say, this did exactly that!

The book takes you on a tour of Duncan’s life, allowing you to gain an insight into his ideas and thought process as he makes his journey from ice cream man to health club tycoon. And the book isn’t just concerned with the business side of his life; it touches on everything from seeing off extortion attempts to throwing his Navy commanding officer overboard. He truly has lived an eventful life.

Whilst I disagree with Duncan’s claim that ‘anyone can do it’, I think the book serves as inspiration for anyone who already holds the mentality and personal attributes to ‘do it’. A great book and a great entrepreneur, essential reading for those aspiring for success in business.

One of my favourite pastimes is mountain biking and when I’m not scribbling away at the office I like to don my cycling jersey and hit the rough terrain for some invigorating exercise.

What I love about mountain biking is that it’s simple good fun. You equip yourself with a bike. Helmet. Clothing. Maybe a few accessories and you’re on your way.  

Or not.

Last month I bought myself a set of high-strength, cross-country wheels after becoming increasingly frustrated with the amount of money I was spending on repairing and replacing buckled wheels.

When they arrived they were encased in a fancy cobalt blue box boasting improved radial and lateral strength, highly efficient seals that minimise chain slackening, and superior rigidity. I tore the box open to be greeted with 2 gleaming, brand-new, top-of-the-range, twin-spoked wheels. 

At this point, as you can probably imagine, I was delighted with my purchase . . . despite costing me over £500!

I fitted them to my bike that evening and I was off to test them out. After less than 2 hours on the trail my rear wheel was buckled.

To the manufacturer’s credit they repaired it under warranty in super-quick time. But after hitting the rough stuff for a second time, one of the wheels buckled again. At this point I began to feel very disappointed with my purchase. In fact, I can safely say that I will not purchase any equipment from that manufacturer again.

I have experienced ‘post-purchase dissonance’.

The reason for this story?

You can wax lyrical about your product or service in your promotion and sell something that does not fulfil these claims . . . but a consumer can only be fooled once.

In order to achieve any degree of longevity in your sales performance, you must ensure that your promotional claims and activities are appropriately suited to your product or service.

If you’re selling an apple, promote an apple, not a pear. If you are selling a mid to lower-range wheel set, promote a mid to lower-range wheel set, not a high-range set.

Be honest with your advertising and promotion, it will pay dividends in the long term.

I received an atrocious direct mail piece the other day from a print rental company and thought it appropriate to use as an example of how NOT to write a good sales letter. Here it is (please be reminded that neither myself nor my employees have anything to do with this sales letter, it was received by our office as a direct mail piece from a print company).

High inflation

High interest rates

The credit crunch is defiantly here!

If all this sounds all familiar you are probably aware of all the gimmick calls suggesting

“saving you money on click charges and consumable costs”

“Free Digital Printing Machines if you sign your life, house and porches to us”

Small print suggests you commit to a million prints month at a rate Bill Clinton would struggle to keep up with.

Are we ready for a change? . . . . . .

Change is revolutionary, change is a fresh approach whether its small work group printers for proofing, or full critical COLOUR! Digital devices to suite your Individual needs. We supply and specialise in the sales and after care of Olivetti & Oki equipment for the office and studio.

Our dedicated sales team will be in touch shortly on how we can help your business reach its goals.

You can fax back or e-mail your request and we shall try our best to help.

(Email address  and website given)

Kind regards

Marketing Department

Now, if you can see past the terrible grammar and spelling and the fact that they clearly do not understand what a credit crunch involves, refer to Bill Clinton as a print-fanatic and confuse Porsches with porches, there are more serious issues. Most importantly, what is the point of the mailing? There is very little, if any, call to action. So, essentially they are giving us the ‘heads up’ that their sales team will be in touch shortly. What a waste of paper!

 It wouldn’t be as bad if the copy itself actually portrayed some of the benefits their service has to offer, at least then it would allow us to decide whether or not we would like to listen to their sales team when they get in touch, but it doesn’t. I am none the wiser of what their service offers now than before I read the letter.

When you receive a birthday card from your parents does it say ‘Happy Birthday Darling. Lots of Love, The Parenting Team’? Or when you receive an email invitation from your friends to attend a birthday party, is it signed ‘See you there, The Best Mate Team’? Of course not! Why then do companies feel the need to end their sales letters with things like the ‘marketing department’ or the ‘marketing team’?

Departments and teams are impersonal. Departments and teams can’t form meaningful relationships or rapport with customers. People don’t like receiving anonymous letters, they like receiving letters from other people. Individual people.

There are no offers i.e. discounts to entice the reader to act quickly and they offer no keepsake or free gift e.g. business card, promotional pen etc. with the mailing for the reader to save and refer to at a later date.

Ultimately, this is a very dull, uninteresting mailing and I can truly say that this is one of, if not the worst direct mailing I have ever encountered. To top it all off, the web address given in the faint call to action is so complex I would be surprised if anyone could type it into their browser without having to take a second or third look.

I think it would be appropriate to say that this company needs our services more than we need theirs.

This is the point where you need to push your reader off of the fence one way or another.

Whether you are looking for a subscription, a sale, or simply some form of contact from your reader, you must tell them what you want them to do.

Let’s give a little analogy just to emphasize this point.

You need to borrow some money from a friend. They may lend it, they may not. But do you think that they will lend you the money if you do not ask them for it?

Of course not.

You MUST make clear the actual goal of your sales copy and make explicit what the reader must do to receive the benefits that you have previously mentioned.

The call to action represents the final letter of the AIDCA acronym and is essentially the ‘make-or-break’ point with regards to getting the reader to make the desired action.

You already have their attention and interest, you have developed their desire for your product, you have convinced them, and now all that remains to be done is to tell the reader what to do.

You can even sprinkle calls to action throughout your copy to allow your (easier convinced) readers to stop reading and take action.

Whether you choose to use numerous calls to action, or just one, you must ALWAYS make it an order, not a request.

Don’t ask the reader if they would like to place an order, tell them to ‘order here’.

It may seem a little brusque to write in this manner, but take it from us, it is much more effective than making a feeble request.

After your call to action, if you are writing your copy in a letter format, it is often a prudent strategy to summarize the major benefits of your product in a PS and PSS to catch the people that are still unsure about making a purchase.

You might also like to add a few more testimonials here to inject a little more conviction.

By now you should have a well written, focused, effective sales letter ready to put in front of your prospective customers.

Being interested in a product is one thing, but having a desire to buy a product and the conviction to go ahead with the purchase is completely different.

This is the job of your body copy; to create the desire and conviction for your reader to purchase.

Whatever your product is, your body copy must make the reader feel as though they not only want the product, but that they need it.

The length of body copy is a much debated subject. Should it be long and drawn-out or short and straight to the point?

The truth is . . . it depends.

It depends on your product. It depends on your reader.

If you’re selling a technically intricate product, for instance a Patek Philippe wrist watch, then the body copy will naturally be lengthier given the extra benefits and features that you must talk about. If you’re selling a pencil, on the other hand, your copy will be considerably shorter.

Similarly, if you are selling to a ‘time-poor’ market, such as executives or young professionals, your copy needs to be short and straight to the point. Any longer and they will not have the time (nor, I suspect, the patience) to read your copy.

If you are selling to pensioners however, you have a little more freedom to give a further detailed account of your product and its benefits.

Generally, long sales copy outperforms short sales copy BUT only if it is long, interesting copy not long, boring copy. If you find yourself repeating points that represent little or no benefit you will lose the reader’s interest and not make the sale.

Now you have an idea of how long your copy should ideally be you can begin writing the body of your sales piece.

To work on building your reader’s desire you need to bring your copy to life whilst remaining focused on benefits throughout your writing.

Invite the reader to play the lead role in a story all about themselves and their wonderful life with your product. Pack your copy generously with the ‘power’ words mentioned earlier for even more emotional kick.

Use teasers at paragraph ends to keep the reader thirsty for more. If you need to break your copy with testimonial boxes or other graphics, do it mid-sentence. Play on the human need for completion to keep your reader hooked.

Keep your copy personal as if you were talking to the reader in person. In fact, this can often be a good way to see how your copy reads. Imagine that you are telling your reader what you are telling them, face-to-face.

This stops the urge for you to produce showy, complex copy.

Would you say . . .

“The most superior quality stainless steel food excavation and incising facilitation set in the world”

. . . to promote a high-quality cutlery set? I think not.

Okay, so that example was a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Keep it simple.

To keep your copy even simpler and more digestible for your reader, use plenty of sub-headings to break things up a little and highlight the major benefits of your product.

By now you should have covered most of the benefits that your product has to offer. You have the reader on the brink of purchase. But you can’t stop here.

You must now convince your reader and help them to overcome their reluctance to buy. This is the “C” in the AIDCA formula.

It’s not that they do not want to buy your product, they do. People just exercise a degree of natural caution when making their purchase decisions.

Your job now is to convince the reader that the risks of not buying your product far exceed the risks of buying your product.

A great way of doing this is to induce ‘envy’ in your reader, one of the 7 deadly sins that we mentioned earlier.

Use testimonials to show the reader how other people have benefited from buying your product. Make them feel as though they are the only person in the world not benefiting from using your product.

Other useful tools that you can use to convince your reader include:

• A free sample or trial
• Statistics
• Money-back guarantees
• Third party endorsements

• Press coverage

• Online security certification (MacAfee site advisor, SSL certification etc.)

Free samples and free trials are particularly effective. Think back to when you bought your car. Would you have made the purchase if you couldn’t first take the vehicle for a test drive? The chances are, you wouldn’t.

Not only would it arouse your suspicion, given the commonality of test-drives, that you are refused one. But given the size of the expense for such a good, you would want re-assurance that what you are about to buy delivers exactly what it promises.

Now you should be ready to push your reader towards making the purchase.

Your opening paragraph should follow on seamlessly from your headline, developing your reader’s attention into a real ‘interest’ in your product.

Once you have written your opening paragraph, read back over it in role-play through the eyes of a member of your target audience to see how it reads from their perspective.

The headline is probably the most difficult (and the most important) part of your sales copy.

It’s time to sieve through your product to find the true benefits that will be of real interest to your target market profile.

Without good research forming the foundations of your copy, you are doomed to fail. We cannot stress how important it is, before pen touches paper (or finger touches keyboard), that you completely and fully understand your target market and their needs, motivations, and desires.

Writing sales copy without first understanding who you are writing to is tantamount to selling a luxury sports car to multi-millionaires on the merit that it will get them from point A to point B.

You will fail to hit the true selling point of your product and fail to communicate it to your target audience in a way that convinces and compels them to purchase.

What’s more, we would like to take this opportunity to dispel the rumour that good sales copy can sell anything. It can’t.

You must ensure that your product offers ‘real’ value to your target market before you move any further. If it does? Great, let’s move on. If it doesn’t? Go back to the drawing board. Don’t waste your time trying to sell a product with no real value.

For your research, you might like to ask yourself the following questions about your target market:

· What sex are they?

· What age are they?

· How do they see themselves?

· How do others perceive them?

· Where are they at in their life right now?

· Where would they rather be right now?

· What do they want more of (or less of) in their lives?

· What are their values?

· Are they ‘head or heart’ people?

To answer these questions you may want to look for information in:

· Database reports

· Market research surveys

· Focus group results and evaluations and

· Other secondary research sources

Or even better, perform some of your own primary research.

If you’re selling an e-book on how to build muscle and lose fat, visit your local gym or leisure centre. Ask people what motivates them to aspire to a more muscular physique. Is it to attract the opposite sex? Is it to gain a better sense of well-being? Is it to gain a feeling of power and superiority?

Nail their true motivations and you nail the reader.

For instance, if you find that the predominant reason for men working towards a more defined, muscular physique is to attract women, you can centre your copy on the fact that your e-book will help them to achieve this.

In this case, sell them the ability to attract women, not the ability to build muscle.

You should now have a profile of your average target customer. Draw a picture of how you perceive him or her to look like if it helps you to further develop your mental impression of this person. Pin it up on the wall as you start to write your copy.

Do whatever you like. Just keep them in mind at all times throughout writing your sales copy.

This is the sort of person that is going to be buying your product, understand them inside-out.

Now that you have a clear idea about your target market, it’s time to turn to your product and its features and benefits.

For more advice and information on how to write your own compelling sales copy, visit www.midascopy.com/tutorial.pdf

‘Direct mail is ineffective’. It’s 15 times more expensive than e-mail marketing and response rates are negligible. This is a claim that is all too often echoed within companies in the UK.

You have an attention grabbing, response provoking poster. What next?

SPAM filters, the real-time nature of Email and the ruthless tendency of recipients to delete your message without giving it a second glance all pose serious threats to the effectiveness of your campaign.

It is generally accepted that the true value of a copywriter is determined by virtue of the results that they produce for their clients.