You cannot write an effective sales letter or advertisement
until you answer one question.
Once you’ve answered this question, your letter will almost
write itself.This question is: “What am I really selling?”
Am I selling cosmetics? Or am I selling the hope of the
reader becoming irresistible to men?
Am I selling clothes? Or am I selling a transformed life
that will lead to romance and success?
Am a selling a car? Or am I selling excitement, comfort,
and an image for the driver?
Am I selling refrigerators? Or am I selling fewer trips to
the grocery store because of all the added space, plus
dramatically
improving the appearance of the kitchen because of the fine
cherry wood paneling?
Am I selling vacations? Or am I selling an experience that
the reader and her children will remember for the rest of
their lives?
Am I selling gym memberships with treadmills and weights?
Or am I selling a new body that will make people more
attractive to the opposite sex and give them a longer,
healthier life?
Am I selling a seminar? Or am I selling a way to give those
who enroll an advantage over their peers and competitors
that will last a lifetime?
Am I selling admission to Harvard? Or membership in an
exclusive club that will lead to a more profitable career
and open the doors of opportunity throughout life?
Am I selling a subscription to an interesting magazine? Or
access to information the reader can’t do without and can’t
get anywhere else?
Is Starbucks selling coffee? Or is Starbucks selling an
experience, a place to hang out, and even a social life?
Are florists selling roses? Or the easiest way for a guy to
get back on the good side of his wife or girlfriend?
Is the phone company selling communications equipment? Or a
way to stay connected to friends and loved ones?
Is Viagra selling a fix for erectile dysfunction? Or a more
exciting, more enjoyable love life?
Understanding exactly what it is you are really selling
will improve the results of your marketing exponentially.

Your marketing campaign will be successful if it has these
four essential elements:
1. You must offer a product or service that people want.
This may seem obvious, and is just another way of saying,
“You’ll have a very difficult time selling ice to Eskimos
or down parkasto people who live in Ecuador.”
It’s amazing how many business people keep pounding their
heads against the wall trying to persuade people to want
theirwonderful product.Those businesses are not around
long.The greatest marketing plan and salesmen in the world won’t
succeed in selling products people don’t want. This is why
your product development people must also be marketers.
So often I’ve seen brilliant software architects scream,
howl, jump up and down, and treat the client like he’s an
idiot when the client doesn’t like the software.
“This software is great! This software is brilliant!” screams the software architect. “Why can’t they see that?”
The problem is the client doesn’t like the software,
doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it, and wasn’t looking for
it. And there is nothing a marketer can do to change that
fact.
Much better to find out what the customers want first,
and then develop the product tailored precisely
and exactly to what they want.
This is called “market research.”
The product or service you are selling is critical to your
marketing.The #1 rule of successful marketing is: If you
offer people what they want, you eliminate the need
for salesmanship.
2. You must have an attention-getting, compelling
message that distinguishes you from your competitors.
People are bombarded all day long with messages—TV ads,
radio ads,junk mail ads, and Internet ads. You must have a
message that stands out. You must have a message that gets the attention of those who would want your product . . . if they knew about it.
3. You must have a way to find those who want what you
are offering.If you have no way to systematically and
precisely find those who would want your product or service
if they knew about it, your business will have a very tough time surviving. You must match your message to those who will be interested in hearing your message. You must have a “Message to Market Match.”
This is just another way of saying you need a list of qualified prospects or leads, or you need a way of compiling such a list. There
are two ways you can find qualified prospects. You can rent
lists of people who have bought similar products to the one
you are selling.
The mailing list business is an enormous industry. So
that’s one source of names. The other way is to compile
your own one-of-a-kind list. There are many ways to do this, which I will get into later. The point here is that acquiring or compiling a list
of qualified prospects or leads is essential to your marketing.
4. You must have a cost-effective delivery system for
your message. Delivery tools at your disposal for getting
your message out include: direct mail, email, radio ads, TV
ads, newspaper and magazine ads, ads on the Internet, the
telephone, the Yellow Pages, classified ads, seminars, webinars,
teleconferences, books, special reports, newsletters, business cards, bulletin
boards, signs, and even the door-to-door sales calls (which we want to avoid). And there are countless variations within these categories.
You will need to choose the delivery tool that’s
appropriate for your business model, product, and budget. A
hammer is a great tool if you want to drive a nail into a
piece of wood, but a very bad tool if you need to saw the wood in half.
dbdprints
Business Marketing Solutions
877-400-9321



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