I got a short one for you today but it’s… 

An Amazingly Persuasive Speech

Mr. Rogers Persuades The US Senate To Give $20 Million In Funding to CPB in 1969!

I received this from Perry Marshall’s newsletter and thought you definitely would want to see this.

Nixon wants to cut funding for the broadcaster because of war costs.

Watch this video and see…

…How Mr. Rogers crafts his words and uses language full of imagery and emotion to sell his argument.

It works. Check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a41lJIhW7fA

 To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

It’s been a crazy morning and I’ve just had a chance to sit down. But I wanted to make sure you got today’s post…

There’s a lot of talk recently about Personal URLs. I’m glad people are talking about it…but personalizing marketing and advertising communications is nothing new.

Actually for those of us who have been using direct marketing and direct mail it’s a given - common sense that is.

Why would you want to personalize your marketing messages and what’s all this talk about PURLs (Personal URLs that is)?

First off, imagine a letter arriving in your mailbox. It doesn’t have your name on it…you might just throw it in the garbage right? But let’s say you proceed to open that letter. You unfold the letter and see that it starts with “Dear Friend” or “Dear Car Owner”…if they don’t have a headline or graphic that grabs your eyeballs right away…good chance that paper is going to the trash (though I hope you’d recycle it).

Now, taking a step back. If that envelope had your name on it…close to 95% of people would open it. When the letter has your name on it…you almost feel compelled to read it don’t you?

That’s why hundreds of marketing tests have shown that the more you personalize your communications (just like the more you segment and target your market) the higher response you’ll get.

Let’s take a U-turn now and cover the second point. Personalized URLs.

I’ll break it down and tell you in basic English how this works…

Let’s say your a wine distributor and sell expensive and rare bottles and you want to get some new customers. You buy a targeted list of people likely to buy $150-$500 bottles of wine (in a future article we’ll talk about lists) and put together a postcard.

Here’s where the personalization starts.

The postcard has each prospects name on it (so it feels personal). The postcard copy talks about the history of these wines, how rare they are, what a great investment they can be, and how special you’ll feel having some of these in your collection.

That’s where the personalization often stopped.

 But the next step is where the prospect is told to access a special link just for them that will give them more details about the wines and how they can get a free gift. The URL might look something like this www.henderson.raregrapes.com

Now Mr. Henderson is feeling excited about their name being in a URL. What is it he wonders? Is it a special website just for them?

Yes and no.

What will happen is that they’ll access a website that is automatically generated. Software for Personalized URLs allows website owners to use a prospect or customer database…the software picks up the information you want to be inserted into the webpage like First Name or Location, etc and automatically puts it into the personalized web page.

The template of each page is pretty much the same. However, on top of automatically inserting new text in key areas of your message you can also set it to show different pictures for different people…so you could personalize it by showing pictures of people the same age as the prospect or same background, etc…there is much room for personalization.

If you were targeting 10,000 prospects it would take you months to set up 10,000 pages. But with this technology you can just set the level of personalization and what you want to change and then select your database.

Once prospects come to your website you can capture more of their information, send them personalized emails and other communications.

Of course the best software allows you to fully track every aspect of the campaign so you can adjust it along the way and improve each step as you role out more mailings.

You’d probably also be interested to know that personalization is already being used in automatic telephone marketing systems and SMS messages.

I haven’t yet seen it in video…but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was out there.

Just remember. The fundamentals of marketing or advertising haven’t changed here. It’s just a new way to deliver and enhance your marketing and advertising messages.

Next week’s topic is going to blow you away…you’ve probably thought about it before…but we’ll set the record straight.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

Bam!!!! We’re back. Picking up on where we left off las time….Here we go.

The missing ingredient and key to the success of any of your marketing and advertising whether print or online is testing.

I remember a few years back while working with a large Japanese ad agency…I was talking with one of their senior account executives about the need to test every ad we put out.

The exec told me “you can’t test advertising…there are too many factors.”

This guy was a veteran of the industry. Surely he was joking…pulling my chain. But he wasn’t.

He honestly thought that you can’t effectively measure the effectiveness of advertising.

Since that time I’ve met many business owners and executives that firmly believed (or just didn’t know) you can test your advertising to find out exactly what is working and what isn’t.

Online advertising has changed all this. More companies and agencies have started to put their advertising and marketing dollars into online media…where they’ve been taught to look at the number of clicks, leads, aquisitions, etc.

Now that’s great. Finally agencies are having to become more accountable. Their campaigns must get results or else they face losing their accounts.

Thanks to online media the industry is changing.

But what about TV and print? Why do we still see commercials of people acting like cats and men dressed like giant bees…ads that are considered ‘interesting’ or ‘creative’ by some…but surely do little to boost sales or build ‘the right’ brand image.

If these companies started testing their ads they’d quickly see something they wouldn’t be happy about…their work stinks.

Actually, if they are trying to win creative awards…they’re probably doing a great job. But as a business owner or company exec…I’d be gritting my teeth in anger knowing that my company’s marketing dollars are going down the drain because my agency wants to be creative.

Okay I get the picture, you say. So I’ll end my rant there.

What you need to know is this. Every piece of your marketing can be tested. Here’s how:

A print ad can have a specific call in number. When someone calls that number you can track the number of leads or aquisitions you make.

It’s the same with TV ads…you can use a URL that you’ve created special for that ad.

Companies that give their standard corporate URL in their ads are wasting a great opportunity. By providing a different URL they could track many more details and collect valuable data.

You can also split test 2 different ads to compare the effectiveness of different headlines and offers.

The result - you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. You’ll get a much better ROI…and you’ll make a lot more money.

Next week we’ll look at how personalizing your marketing can take your profits through the roof.

To your success,

Michael
Relagy Marketing

10 points you must review before you submit your ad - continued.

Alright, welcome back. Let’s dive right in…

• Your design should be easy to read; it’s amazing to see so many ads that use pretty pictures and all the colors of the rainbow..why amazing, you ask? Because you can’t read the damn ad. If your reader can’t read your ad - there’s no point. Black text on white is still the easiest to read. Also make sure your fonts, alignment and spacing are all set up so your ad is easy to read and understand.
• Ask questions give answers; asking your reader questions gets them emotionally involved in the copy. Answering the question reconfirms your an expert and more importantly gets the prospect thinking - “that’s what I thought!” or “really?”…good job you’re getting them involved again.
• Use stories; whenever possible include a story in your copy. Stories are powerful to help sell…doesn’t everyone love a good story?
• Spend time on your headline; this one is huge. Regardless of what a fancy ad agency may tell you your headline is the most important part of your ad. If the headline doesn’t pull the reader’s eyeballs in - you’re ad is toast. Make the headline count.
• Ask for the order; it’s ridicuolous how many advertisements don’t ask the reader to place an order. Ask and many of them will buy. Give them a reason to buy now, and many more will.

These ten points are the basics. There are more points on my checklist, and there is much more I can say about each one, but for now this will get you going.

Actually, there is one more point that you must know about.

Listen, the point is so important it deserves a post on its own. So we’ll cover it next time.

To your success,

Michael Zipursky
Relagy Marketing