Author Archives: KD

• what benefit to me justifies the cost
• who else has done this?
• how do i get the money to pay for it?
• what keeps them awake at night
• what the carrot is on the stick
• whats the hidden benefit
• acknowledging the flaws

 

address the prospects priorities in order

what benefit to me justifies the cost

who else has done this?

how do i get the money to pay for it?
what other expense has to be reduced
or what promotion or fundraising event
(fundraising event with your employees.. bowl a thon..

directly address the interests of the recipient

what keeps them awake at night

what the carrot is on the stick

industry publications
forums
websites
seminars
tradeshows
play prospect

—
teens, parents of teens, and young
women — to critique my copy.

investment of time and energy in
crawling inside their psyche, tribal
language, daily experiences.

Collier Principle: “Always enter the
conversation already occurring in the
customer’s mind.

”“What will your
customers be thinking about and talking
about the day they receive or see your
sales copy?

”swim-with-current-rather-than-against
strategy.
Do not arrive as an interruption
or disruption, attempting to divert your
reader’s attention from the object it is
focused on, fighting to interest him in
something different from what he is
already, at this moment, interested in.

Instead, align yourself with the subjects
already possessing his attention, the
matters already garnering his interest,
the self-talk conversation already
occurring in his mind, and the
conversations he is already having
around the water-cooler at work or at
the kitchen table at home with peers,
friends, and family.

“Study your
reader first — your product second….

The reader of your letter wants certain
things and the desire for them is,
consciously or unconsciously, the
dominant idea in his mind all the time.

He is also engaged by the news or
events or public conversations of the
day. Put yourself in his place.

If you
were deep in discussion with a friend
over some matter and a stranger came up
and said: ‘Mister, I have a fine coat I
want to sell you!’ — what would you
do? The same thing happens when you
approach a man by mail. He is in
discussion with himself. If you just butt
in, will you be welcome? How would
you do it if approaching him and his
friend in person? You’d listen and get the
trend of the conversation. Then, when
you chimed in, it would be with a
remark on a related subject. Then you
could gradually bring the talk around
logically to the point you wanted to
discuss. Study your reader. Know what
interests him. Listen to the conversation
he is already having with himself. Enter
where he already is.

”Seasons and holidays, and linking to
these — regardless of whether your
business naturally links or not — can be
extremely helpful. You need not be a
florist, jeweler, or restaurant to utilize
Valentine’s Day, for example. Beyond
that, and deeper than that, every
customer group has some shared item on
their minds. Know it. Start your
conversation with them with it.

If you’re writing a letter
to promote a service, use it yourself if
possible. Go talk to those who do use it.
Talk to people who use a competitive
service. Either way, the idea is to
list every possible feature and benefit,
then organize them by importance.

“People do not buy things for what
they are; they buy things for what
they do.

”Ted often looks
for what he calls the hidden benefit to
emphasize. This means it’s not the
obvious benefit — not the first benefit
you think of — yet one that is of
profound importance to your customer.

Even though the
attendees had paid a very high per-
person fee to be there, most had traveled
great distances, and the subject was of
critical importance to them, we both
noticed that on breaks, what most of
them were talking about was where they
were going to go play golf that evening
when the seminar let out

the headline: “Puts Recruiting on
Autopilot So You Can Go Play Golf!”it sold the system we devised for
insurance agent recruiting, but it did so
circuitously, by emphasizing the hidden
benefit: you’ll get the job done with less
time invested, so you can spend more
time on the golf course.

STEP 3: Create a Damaging
Admission and Address
Flaws Openly

By acknowledging the flaws, you
force yourself to address your letter
recipient’s questions, objections, and
concerns. You also enhance your
credibility.

try to think of
every possible objection, concern, fear,
doubt, and excuse someone might use to
keep from responding.

I knew he had the financial
ability to buy. So why hadn’t he? He told
me that he felt the offer was too good to
be true, and that made him skeptical
about everything said about the product.

If the marketer had anticipated that
reaction and answered it somewhere in
his letter, he would certainly have
increased the response to his mailings. By
admitting and openly discussing the
drawbacks to your offer, your
“credibility stock” goes way up

If you want waiters in tuxedos with
white linen cloths over their arms,
menus with unpronounceable words all
over them, and high-priced wines served
in silver ice buckets when you go out for
Italian food, our little restaurant is not
the place to come. But if you mostly
want good, solid, home-cooked pasta
with tasty sauces made with real
vegetables and spices by a real Italian
Mama and will trade white linen for
red-and-white checked plastic
tablecloths, you’ll like our place just
fine. If you’re okay with a choice of just
two wines, red or white, we’ll give you
as much of it as you want, from our
famous bottomless wine bottle — free
with your dinner.

This restaurant owner took
competitive disadvantages and turned
them into a good, solid, “fun” selling
story.Instead of
looking at them as problems and
obstacles to a sale, look at them as
building blocks in a believable,
interesting, and persuasive message.

 

• fool the gatekeepers

   

This is one of the
premises behind outer envelopes
designed to fool or at least influence the
postal carriers, such as good, fake
“Express Delivery” envelope faces or
official-looking or personal-looking
faces.

the gatekeepers

In most situations, I
advocate using first-class mail if you can
possibly adjust the economics of your
business to allow for it.

Envelopes
actually addressed by hand often
outperform all others in controlled split-
tests.

A plain white envelope with no
business name, only an address with no
name or a person’s name as the return
address; no teaser copy; individual or
ink-jet addressing; and a live stamp —
all this makes your mailing look like a
letter, not advertising or junk mail

Intimidating Imprints
“Audited Delivery … Verified
Delivery … The Information You
Requested Is Enclosed … Important
Documents Enclosed ….” Imprints or
affixed gold seals with this kind of
wording seem to work well.

2 OUT of 3
consumers say
they prefer
print catalogs
to online catalogs.

I have had
and have a number of clients who mail
extensively to chiropractors, dentists,
cosmetic surgeons, and medical doctors,
and, over the years, I’ve tried every kind
of envelope look you can imagine. By
far, the mailings that pull best are sent in
“plain Jane” envelopes without a
company name on them, but, instead, a
doctor’s name and return address. Staff
do not screen these envelopes. The
doctor opens them. The response to
these mailings versus the same letters
sent in different, more “honest”
envelopes is sometimes as much as 300
percent higher!— and note the personalization. Each
recipient’s name appears on the license
plate of the car!

PHOTO ENCLOSED: DO NOT
BEND

YOUR TICKETS ENCLOSED:
PLEASE OPEN IMMEDIATELY
REFUND ENCLOSEDOr: Rebate Enclosed.

• from unwelcome pest to welcome guest
• say it with a headline
• root for the underdog
• lumpy mail
• “believability” is even
  more important than “credibility.
• Facts and credibility only support
  persuasion.
• answer the question: why
  should the reader bother?
• Demonstrate the value!

 

In case you had illusions to the
contrary, no one is sitting around
hoping and praying that he will receive
your sales letter. When it arrives, it is
most likely an unwelcome pest. How
do you earn your welcome as a guest?
By immediately saying something that
is recognized by the recipient as
important and valuable and beneficial.

Gimmicks too
often fail. Saying something of genuine
importance and interest to the recipient
usually succeeds.

You say it with a headline.

our natural tendency
to root for the underdog. When this
headline refers to something you have
thought about doing, but talked yourself
out of, you’ll want to know if the
successful person shared your doubt or
fear or handicap.

Who Else Wants

?
I like this type of headline because of
its strong implication that a lot of other
people know something the reader
doesn’t.

In many cases, a multidimensional
object is used to intentionally make the
envelope “lumpy,” to arouse the
curiosity of the recipient.

You’ve got to
reach out and grab the reader where he
or she lives — immediately — then do it
again and again and again.

One or two
sentences of less-than-compelling
interest, and your reader will abandon
you.

Re. #2: You don’t necessarily have to
hire photographers and get photos taken
for you. Stock photos can be purchased
or licensed from many different sources,
such as Google.

However, “believability” is even
more important than “credibility.

”The facts about your business, such as
years in business, clients served,
proprietary methods, and so on are
important, but not nearly as persuasive
as what clients have to say about their
real-life experiences with you, benefits
realized, and skepticism erased.

Facts and credibility only support
persuasion.
Consider offering a free initial
consultation or a free package of
informative literature; this may break
down barriers of skepticism and
mistrustA

answer the question: why
should the reader bother? Similarly, you
should work at making the intangible
benefits of your product tangible. This
can be accomplished with before/after
photographs, slice-of-life stories, case
histories, or other examples.

Demonstrate the value!

gotta-break-a-few-eggs-to-make-an-omelet school.

If you are operating
in a tiny or limited market where people
talk to each other a lot, you may want to
be especially cautious about this.

• Sell Bulk
• Price Paid to Develop
• Parts Worth More Than the Whole
• Conceal the Price
• more likely to avoid pain than to
  get gain
• Problem-Agitation-Solution
• see the hearse backed up to the door
• triggering emotional responses

 

No B.S. Price
Strategy,

Sell Bulk

If you are selling an information
product like books, courses, or
subscriptions, remember that one way to
convey bulk is with a list of the 1,001
(or some other huge, specific number)
pieces of information contained in your
product.

we might list every
vitamin and mineral provided by the
apple, then list every health benefit
delivered by each of those vitamins and
minerals. We might then show the huge
bulk of other foods you’d have to
consume to get those same nutrients and
benefits — all to turn that little apple
into a huge “bulk” of benefits and value.

Discuss the Price Paid to
Develop the Offer
Is this relevant to the consumer? Maybe
not, but that doesn’t prevent you from
making it relevant.

No
expense was spared

With over $3 million
worth of research

as reliable as God’s sunrise.
Make the Parts Worth More
Than the Whole

when
it’s all added up it is much, much more
than the price of the whole unit.

its core
concept is the building of very high
value, then offering a substantial
discount.

Conceal the Price
“Just three small monthly installments of
$11.95 charged to your credit card.”
The typical doctor saves
thousands of dollars with our
Full-Service System Concept for
practice promotion and
management. Consider the value
of everything you get as a System
Client:

Each two-day Seminar focuses
on a different aspect of practice
success:

If you sought out
individually offered seminars
covering these same topic areas,
you would pay at least $995.00
to as much as $1,995.00 for each
one. So this is at least a
$4975.00 value.

we are able to
get higher prices by disguising them in
payments.

The higher-
priced item has a lower monthly
payment than the lower-priced item —
and 72 percent of his buyers opted for
this lower monthly payment choice!
understand that people are
more likely to act to avoid pain than to
get gain,

Problem-Agitation-
Solution
It may be the most reliable
sales formula ever invented.

The first step is to define the
customer’s problem.

a good sales letter avoids
assuming knowledge on the part of the
recipient.

the letter sets forth the
problem in clear, straightforward terms.
You need to say here only enough to
elicit agreement.

Once the problem is established,
clearly and factually, it’s time to inject
emotion. This second step is agitation.

That means we stir up the letter
recipients’ emotional responses to the
problem. We tap their anger, resentment,
guilt, embarrassment, fear — any and
every applicable negative emotion. We
want to whip them into a fervor! We
want to make the problem larger than
life, worse than death.

to sell life
insurance or cemetery plots, you have to
make your customer see the hearse
backed up to the door. That may sound a
little grisly, but it’s true.

but if you insist on just wearing any old
pair of ordinary shoes, here’s what you
have to look forward to in your so-
called golden years: fallen arches …
intense lower back pain …
extraordinary discomfort in golf or
tennis shoes … even pain from just
walking around a shopping mall! You’ll
be asking your friends to slow down so
you can keep up. You’ll be futilely
soaking your feet at night like some old
fuddy-duddy. You may even need pain
pills just to get to sleep.

After you’ve clearly stated the
problem and after you’ve created
tremendous agitation about the problem,
you should have readers mentally
wringing their hands, pacing the room,
saying: “This has got to stop! I’ve got to
do something about this! What can I do
about this? If only there were an
answer!” And that’s right where you
want them!

It’s at that point, that crucial moment,
that you whip out the solution. The third
step is to unveil the solution, the answer
— your product or services and the
accompanying benefits.

“The two keys to unlimited media
attention and publicity are being
predictive and being provocative.”

good, solid, time-tested sales/sales letter
strategies do not wear out or become
obsolete. What worked in a sales letter
in 1950 will still work in 2050, with
only slight language modification. This
is, in fact, one of the advantages of sales
letters — as assets, they can have much
more sustainable value than other kinds
of media assets
according to the Social Security
Administration:

5 percent successful, 95 percent
unsuccessful.

it
works. People understand it. It creates
fear — fear of being in the 95 percent
group. It creates motivation —
motivation to be in the 5 percent group.

last spring, two neighbors reseeded
their lawns. Now it’s June. One has a
beautiful, lush, thick green lawn. As
perfect as the best golf course in the
country. A lawn to be proud of. His
neighbor, though, has a different lawn.
With little brown patches. Uneven
texture. Crabgrass and weeds fighting
for territory.
What made the difference?
It’s very important to recognize that
none of this copy has to do with either
investment or insurance products or
financial services. It is all about the
reader and her interests and concerns.
The copy is also not factual or
analytical, but is very emotional.
Connecting with people via ads, sales
letters, or any other means is best done
by triggering emotional responses.

• selling is manipulative
• Intimidation
• ROI – Sell Money at a Discount
• ego – keep up with the Jonses
• Strong Guarantee
• Be a Storyteller

all successful selling
is by nature and necessity
manipulative, and must apply pressure
to get decision and action. The only
things people buy entirely of their own
initiative and decision are basic
commodities like soup, cereal, and toilet
paper at the supermarket, and goods or
services that respond to emergencies,
like plumbing repair. Even then, toilet
paper makers use labels, size variation,
and price gimmicks, and plumbers often
sell good-better-best options of toilets,
pipes, and water heaters. Even their
selling is manipulative. Certainly all
other selling is.
The sales letter is handicapped by
having to apply sales pressure from a
distance with no interaction with the
prospect, but is assisted by having the
best possible pressure crafted and
delivered perfectly without human
variables. The sales letter writer needs
to put as much pressure as possible on
the reader to buy and buy now, because
it is easy for that reader to do otherwise
— there’s no salesman sitting across
from him staring him down and blocking
his escape route!
Technique #1: Intimidation

intimidation = take away selling

I consider Robert
Ringer’s bestselling book Winning
Through Intimidation to be one of the
most useful business books I’ve ever
read.

that the hardest
deal to make is the one you desperately
need or really, really want to make.
Somehow, the other person always
senses that, and it scares him or her
away. On the other hand, the easiest
deals to close occur when you feel that
you don’t need them and really don’t
much care whether they come to fruition
or not. This is called “taking a position,”
and it applies equally well to selling in
print.
Limited Number Available
… if your response is received after our
supply is exhausted, it will not be
accepted and your check will be
returned uncashed.
Most Will Buy
the “band-wagon
effect,”

You Will Buy Only If …
challenge to the reader’s ego and pride.
it takes a very special
individual to fully appreciate the value
You Can Buy Only If …
Many use an
“application process” to make people
qualify to buy.
Only Some Can Qualify …
It appeals to the person’s
desire to be part of an elite group, for
approval and recognition.
These five applications of
Intimidation Technique are part of a
broader context I teach as Takeaway
Selling. It does what its name suggests:
show the prospect something interesting,
appealing, or desirable, then snatch it
away and have it play hard to get.
My
entire lesson on this can be found in my
book No B.S. Sales Success in the New
Economy.

—

Technique #2: Demonstrate
ROI — Sell Money at a
Discount
in business-
to-business sales letters, it’s very
important to talk about, promise, and if
possible, demonstrate ROI.
Demonstrating ROI puts you in the
position of “selling money at a
discount.”
would assume you
were a counterfeiter, so you’d need
experts there to attest to the authenticity
of the product. Then you’d need to make
it easy to buy, maybe by accepting Visa
or MasterCard.
It sometimes pays to exaggerate our
ROI promise, then bring the reader back
down with copy like this:
… and even if I’m only half right, you’ll
still pocket over $ …
This creates a feeling of
reasonableness, conservatism, even
objectivity — all reassuring to the
reader.

—

Technique #3: Ego Appeals
“keep up with the Jonses”
offer is convincingly portrayed as a
status symbol
What Excuse Do You Make When
Asked for Your Fax Number — and
You Haven’t Got One?
Can you afford to appear “behind the
times” to your clients, customers,
vendors, and associates? Or is it
important to you to be perceived as
successful, savvy, in tune with the trends
leading the American business scene?
It has been used to sell
car phones when they were new, cell
phones when they were new, websites
when they were new. And whatever the
next, new technology is that comes
along, it too can and will be sold at
some point based on Ego Appeal. Again,
this is not limited to tech products.
Again,
this is not limited to tech products.
You’ll see it used, for example, to sell
the newest innovations in golf clubs or
tennis rackets, automobiles, etc.

—

Technique #4: Strong
Guarantee
practical experience continues to prove
that, one, a guarantee boosts response,
and two, the better the guarantee, the
better the response.

Skepticism,
cynicism, fear abound
Basic Money-Back Guarantee
You might say
“delighted” or “thrilled” or even use
fancier language, rather than “satisfied.”
You could opt for a folksier approach:
“return the widget for a full refund — ho
hassles, no hard feelings.”
Refund and Keep the Premium
Redundancy
Say the same
thing twice or even three times! For
example: “Receive a full 100 percent
refund of every penny you paid.”
Free Trial Offer
Make the Guarantee the Primary
Focus of the Offer
Income tax savings guaranteed — or
your money back! If, in the first three
issues of my newsletter, you haven’t

Restaurants guarantee lunch served in
fifteen minutes.
Often, we’ll offer $10.00, $20.00, or
$50.00 if the recipient reads the entire
sales letter and feels his time has been
wasted.

In this case, I
paid out less than $200.00 from mailing
to nearly 4,000 prospects, but I brought
in over $100,000.00 in profits.
—

Technique #5: Be a
Storyteller

I usually incorporate interesting
stories in the sales letters I write and
encourage others to do the same.

they tell his personal life story, a
dramatic, classic rags-to-riches story.