I had the good fortune to meet Shaune Clarke just after he arrived from Canada to take up residence in Australia - transporting his marketing business half way round the world.

He gave a great presentatoin at the World Internet Summit that I attended earlier this year.

Shaune honed his interview skills as an ex talk show host and transferred them to creative copy writing that drew powerfully from interviewing his clients as well as real people in their target audience.  He uses emotional interviewing techniques to really get to the heart of the matter and the person!

His sales messages are far from the hype and hard sell that you often see on the net and in direct mail. 

Relying instead on “indirect persuasion” to get his message across Shaune helps prospects buy in a manner that feels good to them. And I like that. Win-win.

Here’s a few things that stood out for me in what Shaune shared that I want to share with you.

• use persausive emotional copy that flows
• you are not writing to everyone - speak to the people who have the problem AND want to fix it (I would add “and are prepared to pay for it”)
• pull the buyer in subconsiously
• trigger specific conclusions in the mind of your prospect that sparks the buying process
• infer what you mean and let them make a connection between desire and imagination
• use indirect persausion - one technique for example is “passing comment”
  • Determine a feeling you want your prospect to feel once they experience the product or service.
  • Write out a statement that shows this feeling.
  • Now, write out an In Passing comment that eludes to this feeling. For example, let’s say that the feeling you wanted to convey is confidence. The statement could be something like… “Nothing phases me now”. The comment you might include in your sales copy could be…
    “I’m not shy anymore -my friends were really surprised when I gave a speech at my wedding.”

You can see how the feeling we want the prospect to have is generated by this simple In Passing comment?

Thanks Shaune - hope you’re loving sunny Queensland!

Now I already shared 3 techniques to get more prospects to notice your ad and here’s a couple more you won’t want to leave out.

4. Audio and video

Whether adding audio or video to your website or mailing a CD or DVD to your prospects the technologies are available right now to do that easily and inexpensively.  You must have these explosive techniques in your arsenal.  Both powerful attention getters that will instantly create a closer connection with your prospective customers when they see and hear what you have to say.  Just hearing your voice alone will make a big impression and really stamp your personality on your message.  Add the visual and you are tapping into one of our most potent senses and people will really feel like they know you.

Video is particularly useful if you have a product to demonstrate.  If a picture can paint a thousand words - what can you say in a short video? And here’s a tip.  Make it memorable.  Keep in mind that even if you don’t make a sale you at least want to be remembered.

5. Give to get

Nothing gets attention better than FRE^E and don’t we all love getting something for nothing? But here’s a tip. Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it is not valuable or worse still, that it’s worthless. Really, ask yourself, would you want something that is worthless?

Now here are two important things to remember.

Firstly, you must give valuable information and “showcase” your knowledge as well as your generosity or there’s no point to this approach. Imagine what your prospective customer will think when you give away great content. How much more will they get in return for payment?

Secondly, don’t expect your prospective customer to know the value. You do and you must put a price on it.  This honours you and honours them.

So put some or all of these ideas into your advertising and I guarantee you that people will begin taking much more notice of what you have to offer. Once you’ve got their attention you can lead them to read your sales message right to the very end. More about that in my next post.

I attended Brett McFall’s advertising bootcamp weekend on the Gold Coast because I knew he is a world renowned direct response copywriter and internet marketer and I was keen to learn from the best.

As a direct marketing specialist I had always hired copywriters to produce their magic but here was Brett laying it all out in a system that anyone could follow.

Now, with Brett’s permission I’m going to share what I learned with you over the coming weeks so you can apply these strategies to your own copywriting and boost your leads and sales. 

The number one secret to the 7 secrets of advertising success is to get more prospects to take notice of your advertising. After all, if they don’t even notice you, that’s a done deal and you’ve totally wasted your money.

There’s a whole bunch of ideas you could use, and here’s a few to get you started.

1. Captivating Headlines

Advertising guru, David Ogilvy says that four out of five people only read headlines - nothing more! Think about that.  If you don’t grab your reader’s attention in the headline they’ll click off or turn the page and you’ve lost them. More to the point - they’re not coming back.

You’ve got about 3 seconds so make every word count. And remember your reader will only be thinking about “what’s in it for me”. You are guaranteed to get your prospects attention if you write your headline focused on their wants and needs and offer a solution.

2. Editorial Advertising

When placing a print ad in a newspaper or magazine a great strategy is to model your ad to look and feel like the editorial copy in the publication your prospect is reading. They will pay more attention to it.

Even though they’re aware it’s an ad, people are still going to read it because it’s in that style of the editorial that they are familiar with.  Subconsciously they know and trust the publication so you have an added level of endorsement you just don’t get in a straight ad.

3. Lumpy mail or grabber

This direct mail technique is bound to get your prospects attention and get the envelope opened. People are curious so put something lumpy inside the envelope or pin a “grabber” to the right-hand corner of your letter. Like a fake check or fake money. Even real money. Clip on a dollar note or stick a coin on.

Just make sure you use something relevant and refer to it in your headline or opening paragraph so it’s not seen as just a gimmick.

There’s a couple more great techniques I’ll share next post….

Most small business owners and entrepreneurs make the same fundamental mistake when they put their hard earned money into advertising.

The reason why is obvious, but little understood. They simply copy the big end of town and do what big companies do because they think that’s how to advertise successfully. After all, aren’t those companies successful?

Unfortunately it’s the last thing small business should ever do. In fact you should never do it. Play that game and you could wind up working for less than the average wage. A slave in your own business because your advertising is sending you broke.

You know the type of advertising I’m talking about…a big logo at the top, boring feature after boring feature and a big fat phone number at the end…sound familiar? And no sign of a sales message. This type of ad does not ask the reader to buy or do anything! What is the point of that?

And you have to have deep pockets a.k.a. a big budget to play the game of image advertising - placing ads regularly, over a long period of time. Major companies spend millions of dollars promoting their brand hoping that when you are out and about in the marketplace, about to make a purchase, they will come to mind. Even if you do happen to buy their product they will have no idea what advertisement you saw or even if you saw it at all.

As a small business owner you simply can’t afford to do that. And anyway, your “brand” is not important to your customer. They are only interested in what your product or service will “do” for them. So that’s the good news. You don’t have to waste your time or money building your brand.

Fortunately there is a better way to bring in all the customers you can handle and it’s called direct response marketing.

Once you understand the difference between brand advertising and direct response marketing - you will never make that mistake again.

So why do I think direct response is the champion? Simply because it puts you in the driver’s seat. Using direct response you actually give your customer instructions on what you want them to do. Specifically, how to “respond” to you so you get their contact details. Which means instead of hoping (and remember, hope is not a strategy) people will come to you - you can go to them. Again and again and again so that you create an ongoing relationship. It also means you can concentrate on building your customer list so you never have to worry about where your next sale is coming from.

It’s a proven fact but often overlooked. It’s easier (and cheaper) to make a sale to an existing customer than to find a new one. Design your marketing funnel around meeting your customers’ needs so you can cross-sell them related products or services and up-sell them more of what they just bought - they’ll love you for it.

So take my advice and spend your marketing dollars on creating direct response campaigns designed to attract and retain your ideal customers and leave that image stuff to the big spenders.

This young man, Adam Davis is someone I not only look up to (the long and the short of it) but I trust him and his team to run my Google Adwords campaigns.

We caught up recently in Sydney at Brett McFalls “sleepies” seminar (aka how to make money while you sleep) where Adam was presenting.  He is only 21 but heads up his company of movers and shakers and is growing in leaps and bounds. In fact he is so stretched right now that he just hired a new key staff member.

Here’s how he advertised and attracted 41 applicants in under 24 hours….

“Most people know that my business is going crazy at the moment, and we currently have a waiting list of people looking to use our services because we can’t create accounts fast enough (we like to be very thorough when creating Google AdWords campaigns).

I’m also receiving tons of emails a week and I try to answer them all - however last week I slammed my finger in my car door and fractured my middle finger, so typing has become a serious problem (so you better value this blog post haha).

So once I realised that I would soon have people yelling at me because I wasn’t responding to them, I decided to write a job ad for a personal assistant…” click here to see how the story pans out http://www.adamtraffic.com/blog/

Weekends are precious to me and I prefer to spend them outside, playing golf with my husband or playing with my grandchildren.

But over a recent weekend, there I was - yet again spending my entire weekend inside.

And no I wasn’t home alone. I was in a seminar room at a 5-star hotel in Sydney, with 200 other eager entrepreneurs learning from author and internet marketer Brett McFall about “How to Make Money While You Sleep” - the title of his new book.

Brett is the man I happily pay for training and coaching so I grabbed a copy of his book the day it was released. And I got entry into his 2 day seminar for FREE.  Just for buying his book and you can too.  Gotta love that.

So although I didn’t improve my golf handicap or pick up the winner’s trophy like I did the previous  weekend:-) I certainly improved my knowledge exponentially on how to kick my business into a higher gear using the power of the internet so I can make even more money while I sleep. Time very well spent! z z z z z z z z

Here’s a man I really see eye to eye with!

As an energetic 5′2″ - 7.5 stone wringing wet baby-boomer, I’m still known as the Pocket Rocket.

But standing alongside Pete Godrey after spending a day at his Turn Words into Money Road Trip in Sydney recently I looked him in the eye and agreed that he really is a wizard with words.

Still dealing with a very recent bout of Ross River fever, Pete stepped up and gave 110%. He didn’t want to let his audience down and he didn’t. Very brave.

He also confirmed my opinion that between him and Brett McFall there is nothing you need to know about direct response marketing and copywriting that you can’t learn from them. That’s why I hang on their every word.

Here’s some Pete gems.

• Understand the psychology of the market - win your prospects hearts and minds - emotionally and intellecutally.
• The 3 M’s - message, market = match - tightly fit your message (copy) to the market (prospect) = match your solution to their problem
• Two golden rules. Think - Emotion not logic - prospect not product
• Copywriting does not happen in a vacuum - you need a marketing strategy. 

Did you “hear” that last one? It’s big.

Sounds like common sense but all too often I see people struggling with what to say and often it’s just because they have no clear strategy.  Clarity is power and I’m all about powering up your marketing.

Hello and welcome to my blog where I plan to share strategies and resources to help you power up your marketing.

Stretch and grow - that’s my motto. I practice this in my personal life and my business development. Like recently when one of my adventurous grandsons, 4 year old Lachlan and I were exploring the caves and clambouring down the cliff directly behind my house and home-office. By the time we reached the river below we were both well and truly out of our comfort zone but very proud of our achievement. He could hardly wait to tell his parents (my daughter and son-in-law) and I was wondering “how to” tell them what we’d actually been up to! But we had so much fun helping each other every step of the way that it’s now our special “secret” time when he comes to visit.

Truly, if you are not growing you are not just standing still - you are actually going backwards. Can you relate this to how you “do” your business?

I hope you are actively seeking new and better ways. And that I can deliver information that will continually challenge you to stretch and grow. By sharing marketing strategies as well as life philosophies with you I look forward to being a part of your ongoing success.

Here’s to Powering Up Your Marketing

Kathleen