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In the wonderful world of marketing. Regardless of whether you are working “offline”,”online” or both,It’s critical to remember that old business adage, “There are riches in niches.” Niche marketing is the process of finding and then filling a small,recognizable segment of the marketplace, in such a way that your competitors are not. Your business must have an edge, both online and off. An effective web site should ensure that it’s purpose is recognizable immediately.
And here’s why:

1. Web Usability, Your web visitors have got used to zooming by web sites at the same rate as drivers viewing a billboard at 70 mph. This is no Sunday morning stroll.Your visitors want facts,and information. They want to know if by visiting and staying on your site, that they have found what they were looking for. Give them what they want and tell them what your company and product is all about, and make sure that you do it quickly.You have literally a matter of seconds, before they click to the next site on their list!

2. Search Engine Optimization. Your web site will not show up in search engine results unless your site and content has the words people are using in performing their searches.People look online, normally very specifically for what they want. Enter the conversation going on in the visitor’s minds. What keywords and phrases are people typing in the search boxes when looking for businesses and products or services like yours? Make sure that you Use those words in your web content, and without overdoing it, make sure that these keywords are repeated.

3. It’s Really is “Just Good Business”. Every day the internet throws up another huge selection of great business ideas, products or services.But that doesn’t mean that as individualls, that we have to do them all. Trying to do too much is likely to stop you from capitalizing on the economies of scale that a smaller more focused business operation, in a smaller more tightly defined niche enjoys. In addition, that tighter focus helps keep your sanity!You will never be able to be “all things to all people”!

Developing your web site should be an exercise in niche marketing. Every page should be very specific, addressing just one thing, or topic (if at all possible). Too many “plug ins” jumping up and down for attention confuses visitors and dilutes the impact and effectiveness of your message. One idea communicated clearly and with personality and sincerity, will cause people to respond.They will then register, download, call or buy. Isn’t that the whole point?

One of the additional services that I offer my clients is FREE critiques of their ads and direct mail pieces.

As you can imagine, as a result of this service, I get to see a lot of different types of advertisement every year.

Here is one of the things that I have discovered - LOUSY ADS GET LOUSY RESULTS !

This is particularly instructive, because often entrepreneurs and small business owners will tell me that a

Particular type of media doesn’t work. It might be postcards, sales letters, newspaper ads, radio or TV spots.

But the reality is that they all work. Some work better than others, and clearly my personal favorite is some form

of direct mail. But people that run lousy ads and get lousy results often mistakenly blame the media. When in

actuality, it’s just the fault of the lousy ads.

So, let me discuss with you “Ten Advertising Mistakes” that entrepreneurs make and the

resulting impact that they can have on the effectiveness of your advertising.

#1: Far and away, the biggest advertising mistake is having a Lousy Headline. When I write an ad or a direct

mail piece for a client, or for myself, I normally spend half of my time developing the headline. In fact, typically I will

write about a dozen different headlines before I settle on the one that I think will get the best response.

The headline is the most important part of any ad. It has to grab the readers’ attention and pull them into what you

have to say. Headlines like:

Biggest Sale Ever

End of Season Clearance

We’re The #1 (Fill in the Blank) in Orlando, FL…

…are typically worthless.

What you really want to write is a headline that offers a benefit and provokes interest and curiosity.

For example, instead of writing a headline that reads “Biggest Sale Ever,” try…

“Discover the (name of business) Sale That Other (category type) Don’t Want You To Know About!”

Now, which one creates more interest and curiosity? Which one is more likely to get the prospect to read the

rest of the ad?

#2: No Offer/Lousy Offer: It’s very difficult and often very costly to acquire a new customer.

What will make someone respond to the marketing piece? Well, one thing is certain - there is no way that

any one will respond to a lousy offer, or even worse, no offer. Make the offer as generous as you can afford.

Remember, the real money in acquiring a new customer is in making them a “customer for life.” That way, you’ll

reap your dividends when they return over and over again.

#3: No Deadline Or “Wimpy” Deadline: People are natural procrastinators and unless you motivate them to

respond NOW, they never will. They might look at your advertisement and want to take advantage of your offer.

But unless they have to respond right away, they will often put it on one side and never take action. A deadline is

what makes them respond. Deadlines create fear. Fear of losing out on a particular offer or opportunity. I have

typically found , the shorter the deadline the better. My personal favorite is three or four days, and I have had

great success with even a one-day ONLY deadline. One rule that I suggest that you live by, is never to give a

prospect more than a two-week deadline. If you do, you might as well save your hard earned money that you

invested in the ad.

#4: Lack Of Testimonials: What your current customers say about you is ten to twenty times more important

and believable, than what you say about yourself. Testimonials are a great way to gain instant credibility with

prospects. So the question is, how many testimonials should you use? The answer is to use as many as you can,

and use them everywhere. Put them in all your advertisements. Hang them on the walls inside your offices or

retail outlets. One of the clever ways that you can use them, is on your telephone “message on hold.”

When your customer calls you up and are put on hold, they get to listen to a recording of current and past

customers singing our praise.

#5: Lack Of A Guarantee Or A “Wimpy” Guarantee: This is a very simple concept but often scares,

in particular, retailers to death. Multiple studies have proven that the stronger the guarantee, the more people

will buy. Sure, some will take advantage of your guarantee, but they are way more insignificant than the number

that ultimately will buy more. If you can’t guarantee your products or services, then find something else to sell.

You see, having a BIG, BOLD, and SOLID GUARANTEE is just the right thing to do.

#6: Me-Too Appearance: I have written and developed hundreds of ads and direct mail pieces during my

career. The most successful ones ever have been “handwritten” letters on yellow legal paper. Why was this so

successful? Because it didn’t look like an ad! In other words it didn’t have a “me too” appearance. Instead, it

looked nothing like a traditional ad, nothing like any other mail that was being received by the customer and more

like a letter that a friend would send, resulting in a constant stream of phone calls responding to the offer!

#7: Focus On The Business Instead Of WIIFM: How many times have you see an advertisement for a

particular business and basically all that it says is how wonderful the business is? It talks about how many years

they have been in business, or the excellent customer service, or vast product choices. But what about what the

customer really wants? Customers ONLY want one to know one thing – WIIFM (What’s In It For Me).

When you concentrate on the customer and what’s in it for them, you’ll get much better results with your advertising.

#8: Trying To Accomplish Multiple Objectives: This is one of my personal pet peeves that I often see in bad

advertising. The business or ad agency that created the ad often tries to accomplish multiple objectives. An ad should

ONLY EVER have one objective.

All you should care about is getting the response. That’s the only thing that can put money in your bank account.

Image can’t do that. Last time I tried, the teller at my local bank wouldn’t allow me to deposit image.

#9: Failure To Tell Your Story: I often tell my customers, seminar attendees, or private clients that this is the

biggest mistake that I occasionally make. And whenever I make it, I always regret it later. Customers and prospects

like a story. They want to hear why you are making the offer that you are making. It seems to add credibility, and

when they believe you, they always respond better. Tell everything about your business that you can, and don’t

ever take anything for granted. Things such as products or services that you offer, methods of payment you accept,

street address, phone number, email information and web site address should never be left out. The inclusion of any

one of the above items on the list might be just the thing that makes the prospect respond.

#10: Cute: Why is so much advertising cute? Two main reasons: Firstly, cute advertising is the type that wins

awards, and ad agencies like to win awards in order to help them “pitch” new clients. Also, advertisers like cute

advertising, because they think it gets remembered. Well, let me ask you a question? Can you give me the names of the

advertisers, that spent over a million dollars each during the last Super Bowl in order to air their 30-second ‘cute’ TV

commercial? Bet you can’t name more than one or two.

That’s because cute advertising is remembered for being cute, but not for selling anything. Studies have shown that the

type of advertising that sells is still emotional, direct response advertising and not the “cute” brand building type.

Now that you have my list of the top ten advertising mistakes that entrepreneurs and small business owners make,

go back and revisit your ads and see how many you are making.

http://www.richardbutler.biz

Have you noticed recently that Alka-Seltzer has brought back one of its old ad campaigns: “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”. Only this time around with Peter Doyle and Doris ?, most recently from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’ The thing to point out immediateley is that this marketing campaign is most certainly the right match, to the demographics of the product’s aging customers. Generation X’ers don’t use Alka-Seltzer.Why? Well first off it can’t be delivered by e-mail!!!

And as a minor point,we are certainly going to be noticing that the recycling of old advertising will become an ever increasing trend in the coming years.

The other day I also happened to stumble across a new TV commercial for the very first time. This time it was for a “new” extreme version of the old”over the counter” version of Pepcid. This is actually a medicine intended to treat a much more serious condition, but it is now being used as an alternative treatment to Tums or Alka-Seltzer.The big point of difference is that it is taken before eating the food, that you already know will give you problems and try to kill you! Rather than taken afterwards, as in most similar products case. In other words “pop the pill” and eat the pizza!

Some years ago, when Dan Kennedy was a heavy drinker, grossly overweight and eating junk food 24/7,he suffered badly from stomach troubles and used to joke constantly about sprinkling Tums on his food as seasoning! In his first sales job,he often tells the story of the guy that was duly appointed as his sales trainer. A 30 year veteran territory rep, who ordered a drink comprising of three glasses in the bar. The first glass, straight Scotch, the second glass, iced water, and in the third glass,ice only, to which he added Pepto-Bismol. Then he would sip glass #1, #2, #3,followed by #1, #2, #3 and so on!

Anyway, the new Pepcid slogan is a real dandy: FEAR NO FOOD.
If they are really smart,(and I bet they aren’t), they’ll make up T-shirts, start a “Fear No Food” Club, get a Club celebrity endorsement who is known for over eating, etc. It reminds me of the old “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz”, “oh what a relief it is!” slogan. This was also a terrific one, because it instantly tied the entire experience of using the product and the promise into the one single sentence.

USP’s (unique selling propositions),slogans,“elevator speeches” are all important items. Particularly When you get them right, when you can capture and hold a piece of the marketplace’s mind as your proprietary territory. When they think of product or service “x”, they think of you. Truth is, few marketers ever get close to successfully getting into such elevated territory,largely because they can never really,clearly, enunciate what they are about, and then consistently stick with that message. It’s definitely something to aspire to. That is, to being understood, as being about something.

Dan Kennedy hung one of his hats on the “No B.S.” tag for that very purpose. To ultimately be known, as the guy who tells it to you straight, who’s certainly blunt,maybe a little coarse, definitely insensitive, but always delivers value. And I think he’s been pretty successful making this positioning stick. It’s a promise that he has become known for, and known for keeping. This then begs the question for you and your business. Are you about something? Is there a promise you’ve become known for, and known for keeping? What is it? Can you define it in words? Are you communicating that message to the marketplace?

http://www.richardbutler.biz

A good copywriter is a great communicator.  Very, very simple.  And copy is just like oxygen, it can
breathe life into any sales & marketing campaign, or take any business off life support.
If you’re finding yourself working harder and harder each day, only to get fewer and fewer qualified leads, learn to become a direct marketing copywriter.
If you can’t distinguish your marketing methods from your nearest competitors, learn to be a direct
marketing copywriter.
If you’re trying to squeeze out the last ounce of profit from a dying business model, learn to become
a direct marketing copywriter.
 On the web or off the web.  You owe it to yourself as a direct marketer … which means getting a direct order, it does not mean going to a store and picking up something to purchase, this is directly.  I’m communicating with you and I’m giving you a way to purchase from me directly.
You owe it to yourself and your business to use copywriting as a secret weapon for the next campaign that you launch, and it will seriously make your response rates soar.  Increase the pulling power of every ad that you have.
That may sound like a commercial, but it’s been indelibly etched in my mind.  I didn’t read it from
anywhere.  It’s just there to know because I remind myself how important it is to write copy.
If I’m not communicating with my reader then I don’t have a sale and I’m not giving them the opportunity
to buy.  I’m confusing them.  That’s what it means to be a great copywriter and it can be easier than
you think if you just record yourself, just like Eugene Schwartz one of the greatest copywriters of all
time.He took a tape recorder with him, wherever he could.
So all you have to do is record yourself or have someone interview you , and take those words about the subject at hand or maybe call your best sales people and ask them “Why do you do so well? 
Tell me how you go about selling all those customers?”
Take those words, transcribe them, and you have about 80% of the research you need.  You don’t
have to be a great writer, but you do have to be a great communicator.

This is an excerpt from the FREE Report “10 Steps To Killer Web Copy” that is available here:

http://www.online-marketingstore.com/download/10Steps.pdf

The most recent website boom showed us all that the business world and businesses of all types and sizes were indeed ready to enter the world of the internet and embrace the new technology. However, things have changed significantly, and many sites have not moved on, and kept up with the times. Here are a number of errors that many sites still make in today’s current internet culture. 1)Infrequent updates- To construct a site that gains the most unique visitors and ultimately the most business, you must have the best, most up to date site possible. If a visitor feels that the site is not properly maintained and updated, then the chances are they will “click away” and find a similar business and site that they feel does regularly update and maintain their information. They need to feel that the information is as current as possible and therefore as relevant as they can easily find. 2) JavaScript pop ups- A JavaScript pop up, is a notification screen (window) that opens when you visit a site that gives you a message and normally has an ”ok” button at the end. This was very popular during the initial internet boom. But it quickly became over used, and subsequently the technique became a real “no – no”. Not only did web designers add the pop up to the main page of their site, but they made the mistake of also adding one to each and every sub page within it. The problem was that typically these pop ups did not contain any relevant information that would be viewed as important to the visitor. This soon became very annoying, and is even more annoying now, as most newer computer systems also have a sound effect that accompanies the pop up. If you have a message that you feel MUST be displayed to the visitor, before they can go further into your site, then a JavaScript pop up may still be the best option, but if you do utilize this technique I strongly caution you to be careful not to overuse it. 3) Heavy graphics- It is important to remember that not all internet users have the benefit of a broadband connection. You need to remember that a percentage of your worldwide visitors will still be on a dialup connection. Typically this means that they will have trouble downloading your site, especially if you have a large quantity of graphics on your pages. Unless your website is in flash, I would try to avoid using any animated graphics, as they normally involve large file sizes, long downloads and do not provide valuable information to the visitor. A simple site that clearly delivers the intended message will now be much better received than one that concentrates on being a design piece with clever graphics and amusing animations. 4) Using heavy, high contrasting colors- This was also very popular during the initial internet boom. It also soon became unpopular due to overuse. It was initially believed that use of high contrasting colors would grab the user’s attention. While this may well have been true, it also carried with it a negative effect since it tends to hurt the user’s eyes, and therefore sway them away from spending time within the site. 5) Clutter up pages- If your website appears to be cluttered and badly organized, then visitors will be less likely to progress deeper into your site, particularly if they think they will have to invest too much time weeding out the information they need from the other information that they perceive is useless to them. You do not want to run the risk of having too much information on each page, and you also never want to include more then one topic on each page as well. A good navigation system will eliminate many potential problems that you and your visitors may have. The visitor needs to be able to find the information that they are looking for, quickly and easily. Only then will they be prepared to invest time and progress further into the site. 6) Lack of a navigation system- Many of the sites created during the internet boom lacked one of the most important elements needed within a site. So often once a visitor clicked on a page, they were taken to a new page, without ever having a way to return or move to other pages within the site. A navigation system insures that the visitor will be able to view your entire site. A good navigation system will both take the visitor back to the page that they originally came from, to the main page, and to the other major parts of the site. Additionally, the navigation (normally at the bottom of the page) should have links to other items, such as website polices and terms and conditions. Navigation systems should always have a series of text links which can be easily utilized with a dialup connection, as well as any other more graphic buttons or links. 7) Over using Advertising- This is actually a fairly recent new problem with websites. This situation started as soon as Google started their Adsense program. Many sites have more ads then  information on their pages. A visitor does not want to have to spend time weeding  though ads to find the information and content that they are looking for. The reality of the situation is: A visitor is more likely to click on an advertisement link if they do not feel that they are being bombarded by them. Nobody likes to be sold to! This is definitely a situation where the old adage “less is more” is certainly true.

Last Updated ( Saturday, 14 June 2008 )