How To Turn $200 Into $16,000

March 20th, 2003 Posted in Advertising, Approaching, Business Monitoring and Reporting, Case Studies, Creating Sales Opportunities, General, Making Sale, Offline Marketing, Targeting Top Customers

How To Turn $200
Into $16,000

The Amazing Advertising Secret That Makes All Your Ads, Letters and Brochures 500% More Effective – At No Extra Cost

When is the last time you rushed out to buy a newspaper or magazine to read all the ads in it? If you are like most people, probably never.

Most people don’t buy newspapers or magazine to read the ads. They buy them to read the stories, the editorial articles, don’t they? So why is it that all the advertisers try so hard to make their ads look like ads? Good question, isn’t it?

Now, I’ll let you in on a little secret. There is no law that says your ads have to look like ads.

Countless studies have shown that…  If you make your newspaper or magazine ads look like editorial articles, you’ll increase their readership by at least 500%………….

and that’s the God’s honest truth.

To explain why that’s so, and why most people don’t use this type of advertising layout, let me take you back in time a little. The year is around 1904. The place is the Lord & Thomas Advertising Agency. (One of the best agencies of its time). A messenger brings a note to Mr Thomas. The note reads something like this …

“I am in the lobby downstairs. I can tell you what advertising is.  I know you don’t know. I want to tell you the answer. If you want to know what advertising is, send the messenger down to get me.”

John E. Kennedy

Another man in the room is Albert Lasker. He’s been searching for the answer to this question for over six and a half years. He sends the messenger boy downstairs to get the man who sent the note. A short thickset man in his 40’s enters the office. He leans towards Mr Thomas and Mr Lasker and whispers these words …

“Advertising is Salesmanship Multiplied by the Media.”

Yes, that’s it. All advertising is simply salesmanship multiplied by all the ads you place, the letters you send out and brochures you distribute. This is the secret very few business owners, and even fewer so-called marketing and advertising experts know and understand.

Your advertising, whether it’s Direct Mail, newspaper, radio, TV or anything else,

should only be judged by one rule ……….

How many sales it gets you and at what cost.

All your advertising must be measured. It must be monitored to give you undisputed evidence as to its success or failure. Let me ask you………….

Would you order goods or services, keep ordering them month after month without knowing if you ever received them? Would you hire salespersons and keep paying them without proof that they earned their salary by making sales? Would you? Of course you wouldn’t!

Would you accept from your salespeople that they are building your image for the money you are paying them? Would you be satisfied if they said they are keeping your name before people, to make up for no sales? Would you be happy if they told you that they are influencing sales you normally get anyway? Or that your sales may have been lower without their efforts? Would you accept to let them continue without getting sales? Hoping that in six months they’ll start making sales? Would you?

I’ll bet you wouldn’t!

You would demand profitable sales and orders. Sales clearly made by each person. Sales that give you a profit after your costs.

This, my friends, is what you should demand from your advertising expenditure, as well. Sales. Proven sales. Each ad must show a profit for you, up-front and immediately, or within a few weeks (or days) after placing your ad.

You can get the kind of direct mail, newspaper or other advertising that’ll actually produce sales. True newspaper advertising is simply “salesmanship on paper.” Salesmanship multiplied by the newspaper, radio, TV, or whatever media you use.

Imagine a sales person who doesn’t get any sales in their first week with you. What would you do? Talk to them, train them, teach them how to approach the customer differently. They’ll either change their approach and the results they are getting, or you’d fire them.

Likewise, a bad ad doesn’t get better by using it 6, 20 or 100 times. If it doesn’t work the first time you run it, you must make it work. Change your approach. Try another headline. Make a better offer. But most of all ………..

If your ad doesn’t work the first time –
give it the boot and use another one!

If advertising is “salesmanship in print, radio, TV etc.”, it is also salesmanship multiplied. After all, with the cost of just one ad you can reach thousands of prospective customers…….and since true advertising is salesmanship multiplied ……..

If you multiply nothing by 10,000 you still end up with nothing.

When you multiply a pretty picture, your company name, a clever jingle or your product name a thousand times you’ll probably have nothing as the result.

On the other hand, imagine your best live salesperson. It could be you or someone you’ve hired. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could clone this fabulous person a thousand times? Well, now I’ll tell you how you can multiply them.

You simply ask yourself what makes this person so good. And the best way to do this is to audiotape their sales presentation a number of times. What do they say? How do they present your product, your service and your company when selling one on one? What “reasons-why” do they give a prospect? Reasons to buy that make a case for your product or service. Reasons why the prospect should deal with your company rather than someone else’s? Whatever they are,

the same reasons that sell one-on-one
will sell when multiplied a thousand times in your promotions.

Once you have it all on audiotape, transcribe it onto paper. And there will be the basis of what you should say in your ads or letters. And, because your advertising will always lack the personal influence of a live salesperson, your salesmanship in print, TV or whatever must be even stronger and more convincing than selling in person.

The reason why most promotional efforts fail, or aren’t as successful as they could be, is because instead of multiplying the best salesperson in your ads, you usually multiply the worst – or none at all! (Your company name in a headline is not a selling point – it’s an ego trip and a waste of your money.)

Because advertising is “salesmanship in print”, it is also proven that long copy (lots of information, long TV or radio ads) almost always get more sales than short copy. After all, would you send your best salesperson to see a good prospect with these instructions: “Be brief. Only say 10 words and our address and phone number”. Would you tell them, “Stand in there and recite that clever jingle”? They’d look pretty silly doing that, wouldn’t they? So why do it in your ads?

What you would tell your salespeople, is to present the best possible case for your product or service. The best arguments. The best facts. The strongest benefits the prospect will get by using your product or service. You’d tell them to do whatever is necessary to ……

Make the sale.

At this point, you may be wondering why 99% of all ads are not as I have just suggested they should be? Why, most ads are full of clever jingles, and lots of white space. Why even the biggest companies have ads that don’t really say much at all. Why most ads are creative rather than effective.

Here it is then. The four reasons why ineffective advertising is common …

1)  The people designing all those cute and artistic ads get awards and praise for artistic and cute ads – even if they don’t sell any goods. Their excuse is that they are “building your image”.

On the other hand, there are no awards or applause for the person who writes ads forcefully and convincingly enough to actually sell your products or services in large volumes.

2)  It costs the person creating your ad four times as much to produce good selling ad copy and “salesmanship in print” type ads and letters. Why does it cost four times more? Well, simply because it takes four times as long to create them.

“Image building” advertising that gets you no direct sales, is a lot cheaper and quicker to do. You don’t need to be an advertising genius (and certainly not a salesman) to leave lots of white space or have a bunch of dancing bears in your TV ads.

3)  Most of the so-called ‘experts’ who write and design ads never have, and never will, sell anything person-to-person. And, if they can’t sell your product in person, how in the world will they sell it in mass-media advertising? (You should never have anybody writing your ads, unless they can prove to you that they can sell your products one-on-one, person-to-person.)

4)  Most of your friends, employees and people you ask will tell you that ‘those’ kind of ads will never work. Now listen to me and listen well. Don’t ask for opinions on your new ads. 99.9% of the people you ask will have no idea of what a good ad looks like. However, they’ll love to give you their opinion. Beware. Don’t listen to them. Test the ads, letters and brochures in real life. Test them, by using them in your market place!

Years ago, when I first started in marketing and advertising, I told my parents I was writing direct mail letters and teaching others how to do it. My mother’s reaction was … “Peter, will anyone buy things through the mail? I certainly wouldn’t!” The next time I visited her, I noticed she had art union tickets, vitamins and photos from companies who market only by direct mail. She didn’t even realize they were ‘direct mail’ sales. They were simply things she bought regularly.

Great advertising is often not seen as advertising by the purchasers.
It is simply seen as useful information that helps them make a decision.

Just as great salespeople don’t really sell you things, they guide you to a buying decision.

I hope this helps you all make a ton of cash!

 Car Radio ad: This ad sold out the stock and created the busiest two days in the history of the store, over $15,000 worth of sales from a $700 ad.  Prior to this ad, this company could never make their newspaper ads show profit.

Stop smelly feet ad: Can you see why this ad will work?  Ads like this have been running for years and years in some magazines and newspapers.

Manual Ad: This type of editorial style ad works very well for us.  Variations on this style of advertising have been directly responsible for sales in excess of $40,000 per month in our home based business. 

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