If your opinion is that there is not bad marketing, and that the point of the advertising is to create awareness, you would say this is OK. They could have shot a real sex scene instead…

Mattress performing a fellatio

Mattress sex scene

Creative advertising or off target?

Use these 5 powerful buying stimulators in your ads, web pages and other sales messages to get more sales. They produce immediate results without increasing your costs.

1. CONVERT BENEFITS INTO FEELINGS

People usually buy a product or service because they expect to feel a certain way after the purchase. Keep this in mind as you develop your ads, web pages and other sales tools.

Use vivid word pictures to dramatize the pleasant feeling your customer will experience when enjoying the benefit produced by your product or service. The following portion of a business opportunity ad I saw recently illustrates this concept:

“No boss. No schedule. No debt. Money to buy what you want and lots of time to have fun.”

2. DRAMATIZE THE FEELING OF LOSS

After telling your prospect what they will gain from buying your product or service, tell them what they will lose if they do not buy it. Most people fear loss more then they desire gain.

Strengthen your selling appeals by reminding prospects of what they will lose if they do not buy from you. For example, the above business opportunity ad becomes more powerful by adding the following:

“Or… continue building wealth for your boss while you struggle month after month just to pay your bills.”

3. REDUCE PRODUCT CHOICES

Promote only 1 product or service each time you advertise. Most people have difficulty selecting one product to buy when their decision forces them to delay or reject buying something else they also want. When prospects cannot make an easy choice they often make no decision at all — and you lose the sale.

TIP: Combine several products or services into one package for one price. Eliminate the difficult decision of selecting and rejecting items by not including an option to buy any items separately. You will get more sales because your prospect’s buying decision is limited to a simple “yes” or “no”.

4. INCREASE THE BUYING OPTIONS

Offering choices of WHAT to buy reduces your sales. But offering choices of HOW to buy increases your sales. Offer many different ways for customers to buy from you. The same method is not convenient for everybody. Prospective customers are more likely to act immediately when their favorite way of ordering is available.

For example, many online marketers only accept orders online. They could easily increase the number of sales they get by including options to order by phone, fax and postal mail.

5. SIMPLIFY THE BUYING PROCEDURE

You get more sales when you make it easier for customers to buy from you. Look for ways to make your buying procedure easier and faster.

For example, many online marketers use a shopping cart to process their orders — even when they offer only 1 or 2 items. Don’t force your customers to endure the complicated process of a shopping cart just to order 1 item. Some will abandon the process …each one a sale you lost needlessly.

Use a simple online order form instead of a shopping cart when you offer only 1 or 2 items. It generates more sales.

Each of these buying stimulators will increase your sales. Start using them now in your ads, web pages and other sales messages. They will produce immediate results without increasing your costs.

Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in generating low-cost leads. He recently wrote a manual for small business owners, “How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards”, and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more info: mailto:BobLeduc@aol.com?subject=Postcards Phone: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

Everyone is familiar with the traditional fixed unit pricing method (e.g., $2 per box or $5.95 per bottle). Did you know there are at least 10 alternative ways to price your products and services? Each of these alternative-pricing strategies can be used to help you achieve specific sales and marketing goals. Here are six creative ways to price your products and services:

Volume Pricing: The more a customer buys per order, the lower the price per unit. This pricing strategy incentivizes the customer to increase his/her order each time he/she buys. This strategy can also be used on an annual or cumulative basis to encourage customers to place repeat orders with you throughout the year to earn additional discounts or incentives (like Frequent Flyer miles) as his/her total year-to-date purchases increase. This pricing strategy helps to maintain customer loyalty over a long period of time.

Multi-Pack Pricing: This pricing strategy involves selling multiple units of the same product in one package for one price (e.g., six-packs of beer or soft drinks). This strategy accomplishes 3 objectives: It increases the average number of units purchased per sale, it leads to increased product usage, and it minimizes the customer’s exposure to competitive offers (by keeping them “out of the market” over a longer period of time).

Multi-Product Pricing: This pricing strategy involves selling different, but complementary, products in one package for one price (e.g., a combo pack of shampoo and conditioner, or a combo pack of a toothbrush & toothpaste). This strategy encourages customers to buy your brand for both products (increasing the average order size) and helps to expose customers to more of your products.

Cross-Promotion Pricing: This strategy involves offering a discount on a different second item when a featured first item is purchased at regular price (e.g., “Save 20% on our selected sweaters when you purchase a leather jacket at regular price”). This strategy encourages customers to buy your brand for both products (increasing the average order size) and helps to expose customers to more of your products.

Time-related Pricing: The price a customer pays depends upon when they buy it. For example, to encourage early orders, you can offer: “Buy before November 1 and save 15%.” Or, to encourage additional repeat orders, you can offer: “Place your next order within 90 days and save 15%.”

Pre-paid Pricing: This pricing strategy requires customers to pay up-front for the product or service in return for a significant savings (e.g., long distance telephone cards). This strategy encourages customers to “buy now, use later.”

There are, of course, many other useful pricing strategies, including Pre-Season Discounts, Subscriptions, Cost Plus, and Contractual/Negotiated pricing. If you want your customers to “buy early, buy often, buy more”, then select the right pricing strategy to help you achieve your specific sales and marketing goals. Get creative, and “price for success.”

W. Lee Steele is the President of Strategic Insight, Inc., a marketing consulting firm based in Tempe, Arizona. Mr. Steele can be contacted at leesteele@strategicinsight.com .

When I critique, edit or rewrite sales copy, I discover that many clients commit common errors. Granted, not all of them are writers. But most of them fail to drive customer actions not because they lack writing skills but because they fail to look at their copy from their readers’ perspective.

Although unintentional, they’re so involved with their business or product that they tend to forget their prospects. They tend to explain things in ways that only they understand. They tend to forget the number one axiom in copywriting: Different words mean different things to different people.

Let me share with you at least three simple steps you can take now to increase the readability of your copy, the excitement level of your offer and the responsiveness of your readers.

1) Lace Your Copy With Headers

On the Internet, people don’t read. They scan. Unlike a book that’s purchased for the purpose of being read from cover to cover, people seldom read entire web pages from top to bottom.

How often do you read entire newspapers, for example? More than likely, you scan them quickly and stop at any headline that captures your attention, piques your curiosity and pulls you into the article. On the Internet, that behavior is even more prevalent.

Moreover, reading web or sales copy, especially long copy salesletters, is a wearying task and hard on the eyes. So, don’t write to be read. Instead, write to be scanned. Keep paragraphs brief, and incorporate headers throughout your copy in order to direct your readers’ eyes.

Make your lines short, either within small tables of no more than 600 pixels wide or 70 characters in length. And refrain from writing your paragraphs deeper than four to five lines, too. If you have to, cut them up into smaller ones. Above all, add a header at every two to five paragraphs.

Make your headers prominent by using different sizes, colors or fonts. And avoid overused, stale and hackneyed expressions, such as the common “Welcome to [Whatever].” Lace your copy with powerful yet brief headers that are inviting, invoking and informative.

When your readers scan your copy, your headers must be strong enough to stop them in their tracks and to make them feel that the following text cannot be ignored. In fact, write your headers with the assumption that the preceding text was not read at all.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you promote business opportunities or show people how to find them. Instead of, “Home-Based Business Success,” use, “Uncover Profitable Opportunities Hidden In Your Home!” Rather than, “Affordable Diamond Business Opportunities,” say “Mine Your Own Business … At Rock Bottom Prices, Too!”

2) Blend Your Copy With Bullets

Directing the eye is an important element of copywriting. In order to direct your readers’ actions, you must first direct their attention. While an effective headline will capture it, captivating their attention is a whole different issue.

Maintain your readers’ attention with bullets. Bulleted lists are effective because they are captivating, intriguing and pleasing to the eye. They can help to reinforce the offer, give readers a visual break and are clustered for greater impact. This is particularly true with long copy offers.

In fact, an effective way to use bullets is when they follow the words “you get” and “reasons why,” such as “with this [product] you get” and “here are the reasons why [you must buy now].” They give the reader the ability to know, instantly, what they get out of reading further or responding.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you sell an exercising machine that helps to strengthen the abdominals. You can say, “With your new Abdominoflex Machine, here’s what you get,” and then you follow it with a bulleted list of the various benefits a customer receives from your machine, such as …
- A system that provides an easier yet intense workout that will burn off unwanted calories more rapidly and enjoyably;
- A scientifically designed exercise regimen laser-targeting specific areas for a faster, firmer and shapelier figure;
- A compact, lightweight and space-saving machine that can be stored right under your bed and pulled out only when needed;
… And so on. Also, you can use bullets to list the various consequences of going ahead (or not) with your offer. For instance, you can use them to reinforce scarcity-enhancing elements (such as deadlines) and emphasize the negative consequences of not enjoying the benefits of your offer.

3) Paint Your Copy With Pictures

Another strategy is to use words and phrases that help to paint vivid pictures in the mind. When people can visualize the process of doing what you want them to do, including the enjoyment of the benefits of your offer, you drive their actions almost instinctually.

The brain, according to “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, is a goal-seeking mechanism. If I told you not to think of a white flower, you would still think of one because I directed your mind by giving it a goal. But if I told you to think of a pink one, you would then not think of a white one.

In order to direct your readers’ actions, you must also direct their minds. Use mental imagery and picture words that invite, entice and incite. Guide the mind and you guide the action.

We think in relative terms. And we are predominantly visual, too. Our brains have a tendency to translate messages into their visual equivalents in order to appreciate what they are being told. In plain English, the mind thinks in pictures, and not in words or numbers.

For example, if I told you to think of a garbage can, you’re not going to think of “G,” “A,” “R,” etc. You’ll visualize a garbage can. The more I describe it to you as well as the more senses I engage in my description, the more realistic it becomes in your mind, including its color, smell and texture.

During a televised newscast, a reporter, flying over the scene of a forest fire in her station’s helicopter, was asked, “How big is the fire?” In a voice partially drowned by the whizzing sounds of helicopter blades, she said, “It’s over 140 acres of land, which is about 200 football fields back to back.”

Similarly, compel your readers not only with vivid picture words and mental imagery but also with stories, examples, analogies and metaphors that they can intimately understand and appreciate. Help your readers to paint the kinds of pictures you want them to paint.

The more vivid the words paint, the easier it will be for the mind to decode the message you are conveying into something your readers can understand, appreciate, relate to and, above all, act upon.

In Conclusion, Remember This …

I agree that copywriting may not be an easy task for many. But one of the most important steps you can take is this: look at your website through your readers’ eyes. Imagine coming across your site for the first time. What would you read? Where would your eyes go? What would your mind think?

More importantly, what would you do?

If you hesitate at any point, realize that hesitation on your part is confusion on the part of your readers. And confusion often leads to procrastination. If your readers are confused, they will do nothing.

About the Author
Michel Fortin is a master copywriter and consultant dedicated to turning businesses into powerful magnets. Get a FREE copy of his book, “The 10 Commandments of Power Positioning,” and subscribe to his FREE monthly ezine, “The Profit Pill,” by visiting http://SuccessDoctor.com/ now!

Over the years, I have developed a series of 20 questions that I often use with new clients to help them (and me) uncover the keys to their future success. I refer to this client exercise as “A Question of Focus.” The list of 20 questions can be found at www.strategicinsight.com/20.htm. One eventful day, while I was counseling a new client, I uncovered a very powerful 21st question.

Question 21 was an off-the-cuff question I just happened to ask one of my clients several years ago. The client’s answer to the question instantly crystallized their situation and pointed them towards the right direction for their company.

I soon realized that this question had significant application for virtually every company, no matter what their size, industry, or market position.

Every company will have a different answer to Question 21, but the answer will identify exactly what they need to do next in order to become more successful in the future.

Question 21 is: “Why don’t you have ALL the business in your market?”

Typical answers might be:

“Not enough prospects know about us.”
“Many customers/prospects think our prices are too high.”
“The competition has more sales people than we do.”
“Our competitors spend more on advertising than we do.”
“Our product line (or range of services) is too narrow to compete with other companies in our market.”
“We don’t have enough stores in our area.”
“Many prospects don’t want to do business with a small company like us.”
“Many prospects don’t think we can deliver on our promises.”
No matter what your specific answer is to Question 21, your answer will always tell you what you need to do next in order to move your business ahead. Your answer always identifies your major obstacle to success (and, therefore, what you need to change.)

Focusing your future efforts on eliminating, or at least minimizing, your specific obstacle will be your most important next step in moving your business forward. Your major challenge then, will be to identify and execute those marketing strategies that will help you to overcome that obstacle as quickly as possible.

Good luck and keep selling!

W. Lee Steele is the President of Strategic Insight, Inc., a marketing consulting firm based in Tempe, Arizona. Mr. Steele can be contacted at leesteele@strategicinsight.com.

Is your business going through a period of slow or no growth? Here are 4 low-cost ways you can revitalize your business – and increase your sales.

1. PROMOTE A NEW USE FOR YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE

Find and promote a new way customers can benefit by using your product or service. You will immediately attract a new group of potential customers. You will also capture customers from your competitors who cannot provide or do not promote this new benefit.

For example, I recently saw a promotion for a well-known marketing course normally sold to individuals. The promotion targeted sales organizations and offered a special group purchase plan. It stressed how the course would increase the sales organization’s productivity and income.

2. USE A NEW METHOD OF ADVERTISING

Test some new methods of advertising to attract a fresh group of prospective customers.

For example, print your best small ad on 4 by 6 inch postcards and mail them to a list of prospects in your targeted market. Postcards cost very little to prepare and send. And your promotions will not be seen by competitors who see (and copy) them in most other media.

TIP: Continually test new marketing methods – and old ones you never tried. You can reach more prospects and generate more sales with a variety of marketing methods than with just one or two.

3. GENERATE SOME FREE PUBLICITY

Publicity is what you get when someone else promotes (or you get them to promote) your business. It establishes more credibility with prospective customers than advertising and generates sales at a much lower cost.

Look for ways you can generate some free publicity for your business. For example, contact non-competing businesses serving customers in your market. Offer to publicize their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicizing your services to their customers.

CAUTION: Do not expect free publicity to replace the results you get with advertising. Use it to supplement your advertising. You control where and when your advertising appears. You cannot control where or when you get publicity …or whether you get any at all.

4. CONVERT YOUR CUSTOMERS INTO PUBLICITY AGENTS

Satisfied customers can be your most effective publicity agents. Give them an incentive to tell their associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from them is much more effective than advertising – and it is much cheaper.

For example, ask your customers for referrals. Offer to reward them each time one of their referrals becomes a customer. Your reward can be as simple as a special discount on their next order or a special bonus item.

Every business goes through periods of slow or no growth. When it happens to you, use these 4 low-cost marketing tactics to revitalize your business – and increase your sales.

Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses just like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information: Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: “Postcards” Phone: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

You can get more sales with your sales messages by making sure they always include the following 7 key features.

1. A Captivating Headline

Always include a captivating headline at the top of your sales letters and web pages. An enticing headline captures your reader’s attention and compels them to read more of your message.

The most effective headline is a short dramatic statement promising a benefit. For example, “Easy Way to Double Your Sales”.

2. Believable Claims

If the actual results you can produce for your customers sound too good to be true, they will assume it is not true and they will not buy. Understate any claims that sound exaggerated even if they are true.

3. Authentic Testimonials

Testimonials from satisfied customers prove you lived up to your promises in the past. They overcome your prospective customer’s skepticism and replace it with confidence in you and the claims you make.

Develop the habit of asking your customers and clients for testimonials. Then use them in all your marketing efforts. Get permission from your customers to include their real names and addresses with their testimonials. Testimonials from real people are believable. Anonymous testimonials are not.

4. A Motivating Offer

Your offer is the only reason people respond to your advertising. They want the “deal” you are promoting (free information, special price, free bonus with order, etc.). Include an enticing offer in every sales message. A strong offer will maximize the number of responses you get.

5. A Risk-Free Transaction

Do you know the major reason why people often hesitate to buy something – even if they want or need it? They do not want to risk getting something different than they expect.

Eliminate this risk by guaranteeing your customer’s satisfaction. If you sell products, offer a liberal money back guarantee. If you provide a service, offer to continue working without additional charge until your customer is satisfied with the results. Make the transaction risk-free for your customers and you will get more sales.

6. A Magnetic “P.S.”

Most prospects glance at the beginning of your web page or sales letter then jump to the end before reading anything in between. Take advantage of this and put something at the end of your message to stimulate their interest. Create it like a second headline – but in the form of a “P.S.”

For example, emphasize your offer, highlight a deadline or dramatize a significant benefit. An effective P.S. reinforces the attention you captured with your headline. Together they motivate prospects to read your entire message.

7. A Compelling Reason To Buy Now

People tend to procrastinate after they decide to buy something. As time passes, other things distract them and they forget about you.

You can avoid losing many of these sales by rewarding customers for taking immediate action and penalizing them if they do not. Give them a compelling reason to accept your offer within a short time – or forfeit the benefit of it. For example, offer a special discount price or a special bonus for ordering before a specific deadline.

Make sure your sales messages always include all 7 of these key features. They create the most favorable conditions for getting a sale.

Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in building successful businesses. He just released a totally New Edition of his best selling manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards, and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: “Postcards” Phone: 702-658-1707 after 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

Customers want to believe you are in business to help them. They don’t mind if you make a profit by helping them. But they won’t buy from you if they believe you are only in business to get their money.

Here are 4 ways you can assure customers that you are in business to help them.

1. Personalize Your Sales Approach

Customers will not believe you really want to (or can) help them when they see you trying to sell the same product or service to everybody.

Learn everything you can about your customers and their lifestyles. Then, sub-divide your targeted market into several narrowly defined niche markets.

Customize your sales messages to the specific interests and needs of prospects in each niche market. Customers should be able to see your product or service as the perfect solution to their specific situation.

2. Convert Everything Into Customer Benefits

One way to convince customers you want to help them is to focus on the benefits they can get from you.

Customers don’t really care about you, your company, your products or your professional credentials. They only care about the benefits they can get by using your products or services.

Keep this in mind as you develop your web pages, sales letters and other promotional materials. Present everything in terms of the benefit it provides to customers. For example:

…Don’t just list the features of your product or service. Explain how those features provide the benefits your customers want.

…Don’t just publicize your educational or professional credentials. Describe how those credentials equip you to do a better job for customers than your competitors.

3. Build A Relationship

You can also demonstrate your commitment to help customers by building a relationship with them. Few prospects buy on the first communication – even if they desperately want or need what you are selling.

Stay in contact with these prospective customers. Follow up periodically with some useful information …and don’t charge them for it. Building a supportive relationship proves you want to help them. It gains their trust – and eventually a sale.

Internet Marketers: Make sure you have a way of getting the email addresses of visitors to your web site. You need it to follow up with them. For example, offer a complimentary subscription to your email newsletter – or a complimentary special report delivered by email.

4. Encourage Questions

Answering questions is another way to demonstrate your interest in helping customers. It also captures sales you would otherwise lose from prospects unable to get all the information they wanted. Encourage prospective customers to ask questions when you are in a live selling situation.

Make it easy for customers to ask questions when they are at your web site or in other selling situations without live communication.

For example, provide a phone number customers can call to speak with you or someone else who can answer their questions. Consider using a toll-free number unless you only do business in a local area.

Tip: Include a Q&A page on your web site with answers to frequently asked questions. It will reduce the number of questions you have to answer individually.

Customers know you are in business to make a profit. But they also want to know you are in business to help them. The 4 methods revealed in this article will help you assure customers that you are committed to helping them.

Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses just like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information: Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: “Postcards” Phone: 702-658-1707 after 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

Here are 7 high-powered selling tactics many businesses overlook or ignore. How many do you use?

1. CREATE HIGHER PRICED OFFERS

Increase your average size sale by combining 2 or more related products or services into a Special Combination Package. Price this combination package lower then the total cost of buying each item separately — and promote it as a Special Offer.

TIP: Don’t complicate your package offer by including an option to buy any items separately. Limiting customers to a simple “yes” or “no” decision generates more sales than confusing them with a “yes”, “no” or “which one” decision.

2. TONE DOWN YOUR CLAIMS

Avoid making any claim about your product or service that sounds exaggerated …even if it is true. When your claim sounds too good to be true, your prospective customers will assume it’s not true — and they won’t buy. Reduce any bold claims to a more believable level.

TIP: Express numerical claims as odd numbers with fractions or decimals. For example, “Our clients save 17.7 percent” sounds more believable than “Our clients save 20 percent” …even if 20 percent is the accurate number.

3. TRIVIALIZE YOUR PRICE

Demonstrate a low cost for your product or service by breaking down the price to its lowest time increment. For example, “$349 per year” frightens many customers away. But presenting it as “Enjoy all of this for less than 96 cents a day” attracts them to the low cost.

4. REVEAL WHO YOU ARE

Prospective customers are more likely to buy a product or service from a business when they can reach the person responsible for operating the business.

Make it easy for prospects and customers to reach you. Publicize your real name and personal contact information. Include your name, address and phone number on everything you use to promote business …including your web pages and email messages. Few prospects will actually contact you. But more will buy because they know they CAN contact you if they have a problem.

5. PROVIDE FAST ANSWERS

Answer inquiries and questions from prospective customers quickly …while their level of interest is high.

If you find yourself personally answering a lot of questions, post the answers to your most frequently asked questions on a Questions and Answers page at your web site.

A Q&A page enables your customers to get fast answers to their questions while reducing the number of questions you have to answer individually. But it deprives you of an opportunity to impress your prospects with the personal attention that usually leads to an immediate sale.

6. WELCOME COMPLAINTS FROM UNHAPPY CUSTOMERS

Don’t avoid complaining customers. Give them priority attention. Unhappy customers or clients who complain help you grow your business.

Complaining customers are giving you an opportunity to resolve their problem and keep them as a customer. They’re also alerting you to a problem you need to correct before it causes you to lose business from other prospects and customers.

7. MAKE TESTING A HABIT

Continually measure and compare the results of your advertising and promotional efforts. Continual testing enables you to make adjustments to improve your total performance. It pays off in higher profits and reduced financial risk.

Many successful businesses use an 80/20 formula for testing. They invest 80 percent of their advertising budget in proven promotions and 20 percent in testing new variations. This formula generates a constant stream of profitable business from proven promotions while it forces the business to continually test and find ways to produce better results.

These 7 simple selling tactics are easy to use and highly effective. They will quickly increase your sales volume and profit — without increasing your expenses.

Bob Leduc is a Sales Consultant with 30 years experience in generating low-cost leads. He recently wrote a manual for small business owners, “How to Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards”, and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more info: mailto:BobLeduc@aol.com?subject=Postcards Phone: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV

When you know the answers to these 5 key marketing questions, you can create effective web pages, sales letters and other sales generating communications. The answers to these 5 questions reveal how you can get your prospect’s attention and motivate them to take the action you want.

1. Who Do I Want to Reach?

Describe detailed characteristics of your ideal prospect. Be very specific.

Once you clearly define the characteristics your ideal prospect you can develop a powerful sales message appealing directly to their unique interests and needs. Prospects are more likely to respond when they feel you are talking directly to them about their individual needs.

2. What Action Do I Want to Generate?

Decide in advance what action you are trying to stimulate. Do you want to get inquiries for your product or service? Do you want to produce sales directly from your promotion? Or do you want to build a list of qualified prospects willing to receive frequent offers from you?

You can develop an effective promotion in a short time when you have a clear understanding of the action you are trying to generate.

3. What Is My Competitive Advantage?

Identify why prospects should do business with you instead of with a competitor selling a similar product or service. For example, do you provide faster results, easier procedures, personal attention or a better guarantee? If you cannot think of a reason – create one. Add something to your business you are not already doing.

Your competitive advantage can be responsible for fifty percent or more of your sales. Make sure you have one – and don’t lose it. Keep checking on your competition and make any changes necessary to keep your competitive advantage.

4. How Will I Prove My Claims?

Don’t expect prospects to believe what you say. Make sure you provide proof of any claim you make.

For example, collect and use testimonials from satisfied customers. Provide research data supporting your claims. Get endorsements from experts your prospects are likely to recognize.

5. How Will I Create Urgency?

Most prospects do not respond the first time they see your promotion. Instead, they delay making any response – then often forget about you.

You can convert many of these procrastinators into buyers by giving them a compelling reason to respond immediately. For example, give them a special price if they order now – or include a valuable bonus if they order by a specific deadline.

TIP: Develop a series of 4 or 5 different special offers. Use them one at a time with an expiration deadline. When one offer expires, replace it with the next offer and a new deadline. Continuously recycle through the same series of offers. This enables you to create urgency using special offers without taking time to create new ones.

You need to answer to these 5 key marketing questions before you can create a motivating web page, sales letter or other sales generating communication. The answers to these 5 questions will reveal how you can get your prospect’s attention and stimulate them to take the action you want.

Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses just like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper. For more information: Email: BobLeduc@aol.com Subject: “Postcards” Phone: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV