We need to start using some new improved superlatives in our marketing copy. “Great!” you say. Yes, that’s the one. Great really grates on me. Great is so overused that it may as well be blank space. Great carries all the impact of a cotton puff.

Now, there was a time when great really meant something. Take Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, conqueror of lands, founder of cities for example. Now, he is great. Somehow I just can’t see Product XX’s great online resources changing the political and demographic history of three continents.

Or maybe Ramesses II, Egyptian pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty, known as the Great. Can you imagine the great new flavor of Processed Food XXX ruling unchallenged for 66 years, causing the building of cities and monumental sculptures that survive for 3,500 years? Or inspiring poetry such as P.B. Shelley’s Ozymandias “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”?

OK. Actually, I CAN look on Processed Food XXX and despair. But Processed Food XXX great?!?! Not a chance.

The Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s east coast is truly Great. The reef system is thousands of kilometers long, and hosts a diversity of corals and sea life unmatched on the globe. Somehow it just seems insulting to compare it to the great customer (dis)service system of Company XXXX.

So let’s stop claiming every new and old product or service is great. After all, when every thing is great, nothing is great.

There are plenty of under-utilized superlatives available. Pick up a thesaurus or a dictionary and take a look. Click over to Thesaurus.reference.com, Merriam-Webster.com’s Thesaurus or any of the other online thesauri and peruse some of the

august, capital, chief, commanding, dignified, distinguished, eminent, exalted, excellent, famed, famous, fine, glorious, grand, heroic, high-minded, highly regarded, honorable, idealistic, illustrious, impressive, leading, lofty, magnanimous, main, major, noble, notable, noted, noteworthy, outstanding, paramount, primary, principal, prominent, puissant, regal, remarkable, renowned, royal, stately, sublime, superior, superlative, talented, able, absolute, aces, adept, admirable, adroit, awesome, bad*, best, brutal, cold*, complete, consummate, crack*, downright, dynamite, egregious, exceptional, expert, fab, fantastic, fine, first-class*, first-rate, good, heavy*, hellacious, marvelous, masterly, number one, out of sight, out of this world, out-and-out, perfect, positive, proficient, super-duper, surpassing, terrific, total, tough, transcendent, tremendous, unmitigated, unqualified, utter, wonderful, abundant, ample, big, big league, bulky, bull, colossal, considerable, decided, enormous, excessive, extended, extensive, extravagant, extreme, fat, gigantic, grievous, high, huge, humongous, husky, immense, inordinate, jumbo, lengthy, long, major league, mammoth, mondo, numerous, oversize, prodigious, prolonged, pronounced, protracted, strong, stupendous, terrible, titanic, towering, tremendous, vast, voluminous,

alternatives to great. It is time to spice up and enliven our marketing language.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Tags: adjectives, advertising, creative marketing, descriptors, great, marketing copy, news, spelling, super, superlatives, tips
Posted on September 3rd, 2009 | 1 Comment »

It’s always surprising to us to see so much advertising, especially in print, which does not work. It simply doesn’t contain the ingredients needed to successfully communicate with customers.
If you make a cake, you don’t leave out any ingredients — right? Then why leave out an important part of your advertising message?

With a small budget and not a lot of space, many people run so called “business card” ads. The ad consists of the same elements that are on a typical business card: business name (usually a logo), your name, telephone numbers, and address, email address and website. Sometimes a catchy slogan too!

But where’s the offer? Where’s the call-to-action? Business card ads simply don’t do anything but take up space.

Think of your ad as a “salesperson in print.” What would happen if your salesperson dropped by a prospect and said, “Hi, I’m Ned from the ABC Company. Here’s my phone number and address. Hope you call sometime. Bye!”

Would that work? Nope, and it’s the same with ads.

If you want your ad to get results it must contain six key elements.  Here’s the recipe:

One:  make it crystal clear who you are talking to, e.g. “Small Business Owners” or “Sports Enthusiasts” or “Golfers” or whoever your prime target group is — get their attention by putting this at the top of the ad.

Two:  use emotionally strong words to outline a concern, need or frustration this group has that your product or service satisfies, e.g. “Tired of staying up late doing your bookkeeping?” or “Are you worried about data loss, security, viruses, and keeping your network safe from hackers?”

Three:  offer a solution. “Our easy-to-use bookkeeping system lets you keep track of your business without losing sleep.” Or “We can analyze your computer network, diagnose any problems you are currently having, and look for hidden problems.”

Four:  offer something they can get free that doesn’t present a risk. — Visit our web site” for a downloadable sample, a report, or tips and tricks. “Drop by the store for your free whatsit.” “Call me by five pm on Friday if you want your very own free whatever.” “Get our free computer system audit.”

Five:  sign the message with your contact info — your name, phone, fax, email and web address, and, of course, your logo and tagline.

Six:  have you got a good picture? Include a product shot, or a picture showing the situation prospects are facing because they do not have your product or service. Here’s a secret: often the most powerful picture is one of you! Now readers can put a face on your company.

There, that was easy wasn’t it?

Next time you are putting an ad together, in a place where you are sure your Ideal Clients hang out, you will communicate far more effectively than you’ve ever done, and yes, the phone will ring.

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

Tags: advertising, Duct Tape Marketing Coach, Elizabeth Walker, Ken Burgin
Posted on April 15th, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Right now in Canada, almost 85% of the population uses the Internet and it’s safe to say this number will continue to expand. So why wouldn’t you use your web site to support the advertising you do in all other media? You do have a web site, right?

Here’s the scoop: If you read our article last week on “Two Step Direct Response Advertising” you know we recommend ads that ask the reader/listener to make a specific response or action.

If you have, and use, a web site, the action requested may be to go to the web site to get more information; download a coupon; buy on line; join a “preferred customer” group or whatever will further, or complete, the transaction process and establish a relationship with that most valuable person, a customer or potential customer.

Your web master, or increasingly, you yourself, can easily create a new “landing page” that is specific to your current offer e.g. – your web site is www.abc.com and you create a new page called www.abc.com/offer.  Feature this address in your ad to create a super highway right to your specific offer page—most people who are interested will go there within 30 seconds of seeing your offer and you can watch the visits add up as they happen!

Customers have now driven right up to your site and you can bet they will also browse whatever else you have on the site while they are “in the store”—you have just given them another way in.

Why do this? Because whether newspaper, magazine, radio/TV or billboard, the space/time you buy is limited—on your web site, the space you need is almost limitless.

You can add all the details, all the pictures and all of the downloads you want—and what’s more, you can make it transactional! That is, in many cases you can make the sale right on the page by adding a PayPal link—how great is that!

It goes without saying that the way we buy has changed radically in the last decade. According to Internet World Stats: In 2008, Canadian retail e-commerce tallied its fifth straight year of double-digit growth. Online sales more than doubled in Canada from 2003-2006, and nearly half of Canadian retail firms now have a web site, compared to the 42% that did in 2005.

It is expected that the average amount that Canadians spend online will grow strongly over the next three years. Canadians are already either on par or ahead of their US peers in purchasing electronics, travel and event tickets online.”

So get with the program—put that web site to work in your advertising.

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

Tags: advertising, Duct Tape Marketing Coach, Elizabeth Walker, Ken Burgin
Posted on March 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Many business owners say things like, “We seldom advertise because it doesn’t give us any results —it’s a waste of our money.”

And you know what—for these people this is probably true. The ads they are running are not designed to produce tangible results.

Most advertising does nothing to motivate a prospect to act—it’s simply “image” or “awareness” advertising. If your marketing budget is on par with that of Coke or Nike that’s fine, but the rest of us expect a return on those ad dollars.

What you need to do is turn all of your ads into “direct response.” These are ads that are designed to generate a very specific response or action. You can apply this approach to any ad, in any kind of media, whether newspaper, magazine, TV or radio.

The purpose of these ads is not so much to “sell” but to generate a list of qualified leads—people who may be inclined to do business with you in future and, most importantly, have given you permission to market to them.

Step one: Create one or more valuable reports, workshops, evaluations, trial products, checklists, newsletters, courses or tip sheets. You know, something like, “How To Tell If Your Contractor Is Lying To You” or “What Every Senior Must Know About the Canada Pension Plan” or “101 More Things You Can Do With Your iPod.”

Now that you have your value packed written report, every bit of your advertising— whether Yellow Pages, direct mail, back of your business card, letterhead, email signature, web site— should focus on getting people to pick up, request or download that report.

Don’t try to do anything else with your advertising, let the report sell you.

Step two: Send the report or sample to all who respond and then begin marketing to them like crazy!
Why is this approach so much more effective?

Now you can demonstrate your expertise in a non-threatening way, on the prospect’s own terms, even if all you can afford is a small ad.

Nobody likes to be sold to, but if they take the time to read your report, understand that what you do that has value, and have an 8-10 page conversation with you, the relationship and trust have begun.

People who have requested your free information are officially a hot lead. They are identifying themselves as someone who is very interested in what you do. Half of your sales job is done!

And now you can measure the response to your advertising! If one offer falls short of your expectations, change something the next time you run the ad and see if the results improve—you are now in control.

Meanwhile you will be building a database of people who you can market to—so send them a newsletter. Invite them to sale events. Offer them incentives. Put your advertising dollars to work and check the results.

Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker are the Marketing Masters (www.MarketingMasters.ca), a full-service marketing and advertising partnership that helps build busy businesses. Send your ideas on How to Thrive in Times Like These to liz@marketingmasters.ca or ken@marketingmasters.ca, or call 1-866-908-5720.

web: http://www.marketing,masters.ca
blog: http://thebuzzwithkenandliz.blogspot.com/

Tags: advertising, Duct Tape Marketing Coach, Elizabeth Walker, Ken Burgin, Marketing
Posted on March 16th, 2009 | No Comments »

In my last post we talked about keywords for a PPC campaign. This time we’re going to talk about Advertising copy.

Your first step was to review keywords. Your second step is to review and create advertising copy.

Does your ad copy correlate to the keywords the user typed in? It should. Does your advertising copy repeat the keyword? It should. Your potential customer will have a better user experience on your site if your advertising copy mimics the search term they typed in. If you were searching for a product or service online, which types of advertising copy do you click on? The ones that might have something to do with what you are looking for or the ones that obviously say they have what you are looking for?

Advertising copy is hard to create. With only 70 characters, how do you get your potential customers to click on your ad instead of your competitors’ ad? Testing ad copy (see bonus tip below) and trying different messages to see which one works best for your goals is the way to go. To get started, look at your landing page and pull text from there. The landing page’s headline could be used, or perhaps one of your product’s listed features will fit in the 70 characters allowed. Not only will the landing page give you some ideas, but by using the same content in both the advertising text and the landing page, the customer experience is better (and so is your quality score!).

Bonus Tip: Include at least two different advertising texts in each ad group. You can see click-through rate (the ratio of impressions to clicks – one of the factors in your quality score) and potential conversion rate for each different ad, allowing you to find the wording that best suits your objectives.

Nicole Poole
Online Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: advertising, fundamentals, keywords, ppc
Posted on November 20th, 2008 | 1 Comment »