Magic Bullet Marketing Blog

The team and I sign-up for almost every marketing email list we can find.

Why?

Well besides keeping an eye on the competition, it also allows us to improve our business by learning.

Yes, we read and buy a lot of Internet Products.

Today we spent about an hour discussing one particular big launch.

Like any “mastermind group”, our conversations are part philosophical, part scientific, part motivational, part rant… OK, so you get the idea.

In particular one of the launch emails caught our eye.

Not because it was good but it was BAD.

Instead of dismissing it, we analyzed what we disliked about it.

Here is a summary of our findings.

- The email subject line was factual (no benefit).

- The email copy was hype.

- There was no engaging story to read.

- The case study was tedious.

An example of, “Toxic Marketing Syndrome”.

Basically, if your marketing is a “snoozefest” you won’t get people to read about your product and hence fewer if any sales.

The solution is;

- Tell a great story

- Weave in benefits with real-life examples

- Keep the reader and potential buyer guessing

- Use video, lots of photos (before and after examples)

- Be different!

Now, maybe next time I should record our conversation – it can be an education all by itself!

Later, Michael.

I wanted to share with you something you can instantly use to help increase the effectiveness of your website.

Here it is…

Facts don’t make sales.

Emotion do!

Facts make me sleepy.

Emotions grab my interest.

Basic human behavior.

And the best copywriting method to “shift” a prospect from mild boredom to excitement is to use “curiosity”.

See what “The Last Protege Student Of Gary Halbert” said about this on the thegaryhalbertletter.com blog.

In particular, “Marketing Secret #4″ aka. “The Marketers Jedi Mind Trick!”

The Last Protege (link)

- Michael

Yesterday I went shopping online for a high-priced item.

The item or ‘thing’ isn’t important.

What was interesting was how hard some people make it to buy from them.

Some examples.

1. “Call this phone number to order” — I did and got stuck in voicemail HELL!

2. “To order FILL OUT THIS FORM” — 25 fields before I order. You’re kidding, right?

3. “To order call 555-5555″ — I did and no-one called back.

And so the saga went.

My suggestion, “find someone non-computer savvy and give them the task of ordering from your site”.

Ask them to explain what your site offers.

Ask them to go through the order process.

Listen to their questions.

This simple exercise could be worth a small fortune to you.

I am looking for someone to help test out some new marketing methods I have pioneered at my expense.

I’ll pay to promote your business, you keep the revenue but I get to see how well my methods work and I can use these results as ‘proof’ my methods work.

There is a slight catch!

I want to try these methods on marketing SOFTWARE not ebooks, CD or DVD’s.

The software must be your own unique product. It can be a hosted script or a PC product.

If you are interested then reply in the comment box below.

The comments are moderated and won’t be published.

I will contact you privately.

One of the great ways to learn about marketing is to study past advertising.

Here is a great resource I highly recommend.

It is called, http://www.hardtofindads.com/

They offer a free login to do searches and get close-ups of the scanned advertising.

When I am searching for an idea or inspiration this is one of the site I use.

I want to spend a few minutes today on the subject of PROOF.

When it comes to offers your customers have a legitimate degree of skepticism.

WHY?

Maybe they bought something worthless in your market.

Maybe they fear their spouse giving them another lecture about that ‘gizmo’ which didn’t work!

Maybe they think you look odd, strange or funny.

It is your job as a marketer to demonstrate that your product works and gives results.

You see they (your customers) don’t really care that you have bills to pay.

They really only care about the results your product offers.

So, how do you build proof?

The first part is you use story telling (true stories) about the results your existing customers have with your product.

Then you weave in social proof.

What is social proof?

Well, most commonly you can use testimonials.

You’ve already seen those text boxes in a gazillion sites before.

But if you’ve been following this blog maybe you should consider video testimonial — yesterdays post was about in inexpensive Video camera.

No fancy production values. Just your regular Joe saying something nice about your product.

Photographs of customers holding your product smiling helps.

So does a photo of you!

Yes, people want to see YOU.

See me… yes, the photo on the top right hand side of this blog.

It helps build trust even if I don’t ALWAYS wear a suit and tie.

So, start thinking today how to use stories and social proof in on your web site.

The results will thank you.