Sick of hype and hard sell? Good news. The Marketing Gurus seem to be catching on. Famed copywriter Clayton Makepeace just wrote an article that confirms what I (and others) have been saying for years: “Everything you think you know about attracting new customers and writing to existing customers is quickly becoming obsolete.” For example: […]
Category Archives: free sample
Ignore customer's attitudes. Change their behavior.
Changing customer attitudes is a difficult and expensive proposition under the best of circumstances, and this ain’t them,” says ad agency president Sharon Krinsky in a delightfully snarky blog called The Ad Contrarian. For the time being, she says ignore your ad agency’s brand babble and focus on giving your customer a practical reason to […]
Have I got a car (or two) for you
How bad is the auto business? So bad that a dealer in Europe is offering two-for-one: Buy one car, get a second one free. How can he afford it? Distributors in southern Europe have been so desperate to get cars off their lots that they were selling them at huge discounts. From a marketing standpoint, […]
Info-marketing catapults first-time author into Amazon Top 100
Is information marketing effective? Does it really work to attract clients and income? Let’s look at Steve Pavlina, one of my favorite bloggers. For almost four years, Steve has been writing about “personal development for smart people” and posting the articles on his blog. Today, his first book is among Amazon’s Top 100 in sales […]
Free gas and the psychology of copywriting
It will be the hottest marketing promotion of the summer — until it runs out of gas. Companies of all kinds are giving away tankfuls of free gas as long as you buy something: a new car, hotel room, even Calloway golf clubs. With $4 a gallon fuel prices and $50-75 fill-ups becoming part of […]
Direct response "complaint" letter
When is a complaint letter like a sales letter? When it gets the immediate, affirmative response you’re looking for. Take the letter “professional complaint letter writer” Bruce Silverman wrote to the Ritz-Carlton that ended up getting him a week, totally comped, at the company’s Kapalua in Hawaii. As today’s Consumerist detailed, Silverman has been amazingly […]
Want more word-of-mouth?
Andy Sernovitz at MarketingProfs offers six WOM tips, gleaned from his experiences with Holly Suttmann, a former schoolteacher who has effectively been promoting her Black & Light Candle company. “Holly really understands word of mouth,” Andy says. “She’s proof that every business can master these inexpensive techniques. There are a lot of global companies that […]