Let us create a 3d Digital eBook for you! DigyCat.com
|
||
|
||
|
Sales Information | Let us create a 3d Digital eBook for you! DigyCat.com |
|
|
|
8 Part Strategy For Constructing Your Advertising Message
Strategies to help produce your brochure, advertisment or direct mail. And make it achieve more sales. 1. Attract & keep the customer's eye Your customer must be kept glued to your words. They may leave at any point of your copy so keep it attractive and relevant to their needs, right through to their decision to purchase. Words, pictures and the customer: Don't go overboard with pictures, its words that sell. You'll need your product photo of course but its the caption or headline that will make the difference. And the headline will be a benefit. People buy products for what it will do for them, not what it looks like. Quite often, you'll see products like printers with features listed below an image. Here the advertiser has assumed that everyone knows the benefits of their printer and just need to know the specific features. However a lot of people don't respond to pictures and lists of features, but they may respond to a photo of the product in use. For example you could show a child sat using a computer. But that's not enough. Add a headline such as...'Now YOUR child can obtain higher grades' and that should get parents interested. You get the idea. The body text would describe how the computer helps children to learn. Be very wary about using an agency to produce your copy writing. They may not know the principles involved in successful selling. The only way you can be sure is to have control over the production..usually unlikely when dealing with agencies... or produce the content yourself. 2. Content strategies a) Descriptions: A lot of promtional documents leave the customer to guess at the benefits of the product or service advertised. They just describe it and their company. This is not good. Don't do it this way. b) Comparisons: Here you could compare your product/service with your competitor's and specify how much better your's is. You could get in trouble if you name the other company and/or can't back up your claims with evidence. Works best by you having a major provable advantage over your competitors..and not naming them. c) Storyline: A favorite with lots of folk. Tell a story involving the person the customer will relate to in a situation that shows the benefits your product/service gives that person. Use a 'before using the product' and 'after using the product' strategy. At the end the person will summarise how much better their situation is nw after using your product. And you tell your readers how it will help them as well. The hard bit is writing a true story. It's less effective than a made up one. d) The most effective strategy is to use the well-known AIDCA formula..see section 8 further down. 3. Inspiration My answer is to go for a walk in the countryside. There are two halves to our brains; the left being for logical functions and the right half for creative thinking. Apparently few logical people are able to take advanatage of the creative side at will. You have to relax and trick the brain into releasing your ideas. Walking and daydreaming are a couple of techniques to employ. 4. Ideas for copy You need to saturate your brain with all the elements about your product or service. Study what your product is made of, how strong it is and how it is put together. Consider the manufacturing process and the care taken throughout the production. Write down all these details with the angle of 'how much better than our competitors is our product' and 'in what ways?' Write down your conclusions. Do the same for your service. Take your service apart and study it as individual steps. Do your customers know about these steps? What benefits do these steps have for your customers? Maybe your competitors don't mention theirs and you could take advantage of this. Your customer needs to be in the fore-front of your mind. Particularly your main customer group, the ones who share a common need. Don't forget, you'll want to aim separate message if you have more than one target customer group. 5. Producing your copy Don't overdo it when you first start to put your ideas down on paper. Go over your notes and details about your product or service a few times and have a break from that particular subject for a day or too if necessary. I'm not saying take it to easy but don't try to force yourself, it won't work. During this initial period you may well be getting flashes of inspiration and ideas ay odd moments. Write them down. I would advise always carrying a notebook or maybe a voice recorder to ensure all your creativity is not lost. When you have decided to formally put everything down, find yourself a quiet room and ideally use a large A2 pad (which can be found in art stores) to record your information. Remember, you are writing down what it is you want to say to your customers to make them buy. Write down the most important 'buying factor' on the pad. Then continue to put down all the others related to customer needs and buying factors. Forget any logical order, put them down as they come to you, adding detail as necessary. Keep relaxed and don't censor any ideas you have (unless they are too far removed from your area). You could intoruce others into this exercise and in effect hold a group brainstorming session. You should end up with several pages of ideas. 6. Compiling messages needed to sell You will see many ideas that you are familiar with but there may be some that you are not. Do some research on these. Your competitors may not have bothered and there could be some gold here. Next you need to group together related ideas with colored pens. You'll find some remaining that don't fit in a group, but keep these. They may come to life later. Now you need to structure your results so that you can develop your 'story' to relay to your customer. Put the group headings around a circle and then like the legs of a spider put the related ideas along them in order of sequence, importance or whatever criteria you have decided. As you do all this your creative side will flag up more ideas to add to the pool. Now you can get some feedback from colleagues or even customers on what you have produced. This will optimise your results even further. 7. Producing your copy framework You have two choice here. Hand your work over to a copywriter or carry on yourself. If you are carrying on yourself you need to decide on the most appropriate approach as defined in section 2 above; descriptions, comparative, situation or benefits. Your message will be built around the AIDCA structure. Attention: You must get the readers attention within seconds using your headline. Interest: Get your prospect interested in your product. Desire: This is where you detail how their needs can be fulfilled. Conviction: Provide proof that this is the product that they need. Action: Here you tell them what they must do to get it. 8. Using the AIDCA formula Attention seeking headlines: Often the headline is left till last as it is the most difficult part of the message. And you may find it in the main copy itself. Short headlines rarely work. Remember, if you are using a picture its the wqords that will matter. The picture is a supporting element. 'Benefit' type headlines are best (even better if they are tiny storylines) with 'News' type second best. Generally you should include your product and the main benefit. Length is less important. Brochures, mailshots and magazine adverts tend to have longer headlines than straightforward advertisements. Interest to be aroused: This is where you tell your main story using one of the strategies described earlier; description, comparative, situation or benefits. Concentrate on how your product or service fulfils primary and secondary needs. Relate how it satisfies the customers buying factors and success factors that you have defined in your marketing assessment. Desire to be created: You need to be enthusiastic here in describing what the product or service can do for the customer. Convince them that they will really benefit from your product. Expand on the detail. For example if your car is economical to run then write about how much money they will save and then buy a holiday with it. Conviction needed: Here you need to prove to the reader that your claims about your product are true. Assume that they will disbelieve your cliams. If you have statistics use them. Show graphs. Show testimonials or endorsements from satisfied customers. Don't make them up. How could you prove they were real? Action: It is imperative that you tell your readers what action you want them to take. And include a benefit along with it. For example; "Send for our full color catalogue. Its FREE, there is no obligation to buy." There you have it! An 8 part strategy to help compile your advertising message and get you more sales. ----------------- This article may be reproduced in its entirety provided the resource paragraph above is included and all urls kept active. A courtesy copy of your publication or web page URL would be appreciated. 1537 words
MORE RESOURCES: Sales - Google News What Nintendo's 2011 sales mean for Wii U, third parties - Gamasutra
Orchids Paper Products Company Reports Record Quarterly Converted Product ... - Sacramento Bee
Apotex pays Bristol, Sanofi damages over Plavix - Wall Street Journal
Beer sales could be boon for Arizona's universities - AZ Central.com
Fed Sells $6.2 Billion of Bonds From AIG Rescue to Goldman - San Francisco Chronicle
iPhone on Sprint: Great for sales, terrible for profits - Christian Science Monitor
Wells Fargo's Carroll eyes cross-selling by brokers - Reuters
Las Vegas Still Selling More Homes in January, Yet Prices Still Declining - World Property Channel
Newsstand Report: Sales Down Across the Board, Elle Plumets 18%, and ... - Fashionista
Average Salespeople “Fly By The Seat Of Their Pants” - Utah Pulse
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
The Prejudging Predicament There's a direct correlation between sales experience and prejudging. The more sales and marketing experience you have the greater the tendency to prejudge your customers and prospects. Selling Commodities "How do you create a perceived value to differentiate yourself from the competition, when you are both selling a commodity?" That's a question I'm often asked in my seminars. It uncovers a problem that is spreading to almost every industry. Schedule Telemarketing Time For More Success Telephone canvassing, or cold calling, is the practice of sitting down with a long list of potential prospects you've never met and telephoning them, one at a time, to learn which of them needs what you sell and then arranging to sell it to them.Believe me, nobody likes telephone cold calling. 7 Ways to Stop Selling & Start Building Relationships Sometimes we can all use a friendly reminder to keep us from backsliding into old ways of thinking about selling that lead us down the wrong path with potential clients.I was inspired to write this article after a few coaching sessions with a client named Michael, who sells a technology solution. Unique Selling Propositions If you have competitors, then you should have at least one Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The more REAL ones you have, the better - for your Branding, your business recognition, and your sales!We all have competitors, and the more you have, the more important it is that you have a Unique Selling Proposition (at least one). The Wall of Defensiveness: 7 Ways to Tear It Down Have you ever gotten frustrated when you realize that your prospects keep stereotyping you as a "salesperson"? And because of that, they don't give you the trust and openness that you deserve, and that are essential if you're going to help them solve their problems?That's what's been happening to Michael, who calls companies to set appointments with decisionmakers. "I have a great product that I'm passionate about," he told me, "but when I call prospects, they immediately start treating me as just another salesperson who's trying to sell them the same type of product that others have tried to sell to them in the past. The Damaging Admission - A Persuasive Technique We would all like to think that our product or service is flawless. More importantly, we would like for others to believe that as well. Top 10 Ways to Sell your Product or Service While you Sleep - Part 1 Have you wasted valuable time and money on promotion that doesn't work? Have your announcements and news releases been ignored? Have you been too quiet about getting the word out how your product or service will help solve people's problems? Most of us are passionate about our work. We put a lot into coaching training; we know that we want to help others to create a better life or business. Talking To A Prospect As If To A Friend While working with a new coaching client, I asked to hear her sound bite. Everyone needs a good sound bite. 6 Ways To Get More From Your Promotions 1. Settle On The Right Way ForwardThe purpose of your promotions is to get more sales, not to soley enhance the image of you or your company. 15 Ways To Get Really Motivated First, recognize that motivation is an inside job. The word motivate means to impel, inspire, hope, stimulate, incite, propel, spur, goad, move, induce, prompt, instigate, fire, provoke, actuate, cause, egg on, drive, excite, and to trigger. Open Source Selling? The Next Evolution? The Next Revolution "Open-source" is typically found in the Information Technology area as a way to provide an open standard and framework for building software projects. The major benefit of "open source" to software programmers has been dramatic. 8 Part Strategy For Constructing Your Advertising Message Strategies to help produce your brochure, advertisment or direct mail. And make it achieve more sales. How to Leverage Your Influence Why do we get into sales? Typically it is two reasons for most people. One is to make money, and the other is often that we like working with other people. Don't Waste My Time! Many participants in my programs ask how to deal with people who appear to be seeking information and nothing more. In many environments these individual's are called time wasters. Three Big Ol Tips for Better Sales Letters Growing up in the South, I used the phrase "big ol'" a lot. Big ol' truck. How to Build Sales With Extended Benefits An area that can become profitable for many businesses in building the offer within sales copy is selling (or "upselling" customers with) extended services, products or packages, also often called the "extended warranty."Extended warranties are subtle forms of insurance policies that guarantee a product or service's performance, especially after an initial period of time. The Email Blow-Off This week's article is my response to a question by Lisa Boudreau of ePresence. "I cold call into Fortune 1000 companies, often times the admin will tell me to send the CIO, or whoever I'm calling, an email about who we are and what we do. Recommending Products Vs. Selling Them Some of the best sales people I have ever met, were able to meet all of their sales goals without ever selling a thing. They simply recommended their products to their customers. Consulting Versus Selling Consulting Vs Selling, How we can make sales by not doing selling but consulting. As we know, everybody loves to buy but hates to be sold.
|
|
Looking For Royalty Free Photos for your Website, Business or Advertising?
List4Sale Domain Is For Sale - $10,000 For Enquiries eMail Us © www.List4Sale.biz 2011 |
|
