Dynamic Copywriting

Brian Carroll’s “B2B Lead Generation Blog” is always a source of really good information to anyone who needs customers and sales (do any of you fit this category?). But his recent article, Can a social media like Twitter boost your lead generation results? Is especially enlightening.

I have dabbled on and off with Twitter for about a year now, without actually going all in (to use the famous poker term). But Carroll’s thoughts have me taking a new look at the popular social media site.

For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is sort of like a blog that limits your posts (called “Tweets” in the Twitter world) to 140 characters. It is precisely because they are so short and sweet that has spurred Twitter’s popularity. People who would not read blog posts of the length typically found on sites like my own, avidly read tweets from many people on Twitter.

Brian Carroll describes some of the lead generation uses he has discovered for Twitter:

Well, I’ve started to use my Twitter account a lot more, and I’ve found some productive uses for the application:

• Sent mini survey question and got answers quickly
  
• Promoted new blog posts and upcoming webinars
  
• Shared articles, resources, and blog posts that I found interesting
  
• Learned what topics my network finds interesting faster
  
• Discovered some useful blog posts and resources by using tweetscan.com

To these uses, let me also add one of my own. I constantly encourage my clients to start blogging as a way to get the work out about their businesses. But as you can well imagine, most business people or professionals are short on time.

Now, thanks to Brian’s thoughts, I can encourage them to start posting on Twitter.

Anyone, no matter how busy, can write 140 characters.

COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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Whether you sell a product or a service, you will put yourself miles ahead of your competition if you include an education element to your marketing process. This is why white papers, case studies, informative web content and ebooks are such popular and powerful marketing tools these days. It is also why many marketers find themselves in front of audiences giving speeches, seminars or workshops.

The fact is that companies or professionals who take the time to educate and share their knowledge can establish a much higher level of credibility in their customers’ eyes than those who simply go after the sale.

But what about educating customers and clients after the sale?

I found myself thinking about this after reading John Jantsch’s recent article Teach Your Way To Referrals in his blog on Duct Tape Marketing. (By the way, if you aren’t reading Duct Tape Marketing yet, you are missing out on a wealth of great ideas and information).

Jantsch makes the excellent point that after sale education efforts pay off big time in referrals, and I would also add repeat business.

This is simply not that hard to do. I am working with a client right now who has asked me to create an ebook and email marketing campaign for sales people who use his products. Without revealing confidential information, his products help a variety of sales people and small businesses generate leads.

The ebook he wants me to write is going to be a free, downloadable educational product that will give his prospects marketing tips and ideas. And once the ebook is downloaded, the prospect will receive regular emails that offer more tips and advice. (I'm sure you will recognize this as a classic "Permission Marketing" campaign).

Similarly, you can easily find a variety of ways to communicate your own knowledge and expertise to your target market and existing customers. It isn't a difficult process, just identify the problems customers want to solve or questions they ask (or better yet, look for the questions they should be asking but don't yet know enough to ask them). Create simple info products or presentations that address these hot buttons and you have an educational marketing campaign.

Jantsch puts it this way:

I know I love it when I get buy a product and the first thing I receive is a getting started guide, followed by a full tutorial, followed by daily “have you tried this” emails. Every business, product or service can do the same.

Check out his article at Teach Your Way To Referrals, and if you are not already reading his blog, start doing so now. You’ll thank me later.

And one more thing. If you would like to learn more about this educational approach to marketing, be sure to download a free copy of my own ebook, How To Increase Your Sales By Sending Out Emails. You will read about other businesses that have gotten excellent results by educating their customers and prospects.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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The most glaring problem I see on the business (or charitable) websites I visit is the lack of a form, clearly visible on the home page, to encourage visitors to opt in to an email list. The owners of these sites, frankly, are failing to take advantage of one of the best assets for putting up a website at all.

When I give talks to business people, one of the caveats I preach over and over again is that the most important reason to even have a website is to build an email list of qualified, interested prospects who willingly volunteer to receive information from you.

It is NOT enough to put a lame comment like “For more information call 1-800-XXX-XXXX.” Folks, it is not going to happen. They are not going to initiate contact, you have to do it. So give your visitors incentives. Bribe them! Give them self-serving, “what's in it for me” reasons to fill out a little form on your home page that asks for their names and email addresses.

So here are ten, plus one, reasons why your site should have a clearly visible place for your visitors to opt in to receive informative emails from you:

1. An opt in form enables you to build a list of people who have an interest in what you offer. Direct marketers have long quoted the mantra, “the money is in the list” for good reason. A list of interested prospects or repeat customers is the most valuable asset any business can have.
   
2. An opt in list allows you to target people who have given you permission to market to them. Read Seth Godin's modern classic, “Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers” which introduced the worlds to the concept of getting prospects to opt onto your list by providing free information that solves problems specific to your target market or helps them achieve certain goals that are, again, unique to your targeted prospects.
   
3. The people on you opt in list have self-selected themselves as your target market. This means you will no longer have to use the shotgun approach of trying to advertise or send direct mail to huge numbers of people. Seth Godin calls this getting prospects to “raise their hands” and identify themselves as people have needs your product or service can address.
   
4. The people on your opt in list WANT to receive your messages. As long as you don't bombard them with sales messages and provide them with a lot of useful, helpful information, they will continue to look forward to your emails.
   
5. Since most autoresponders require the person to confirm their request before they receive your information, you avoid accusations of spamming them.
   
6. Speaking of autoresponders, they are a software program available for minimal cost that sends out your emails automatically. The visitor fills out your opt in form, next receives an email that asks them to click a link in order to confirm that they wanted to receive the information, and then they are sent a second email with the requested info. Then they will receive your pre-written emails with additional information at regular intervals. This means your entire marketing program can be put on autopilot by using opt in forms and an autoresponder.
   
7. Sending out emails to the people on your opt in list is free. In an age when advertising and other forms of marketing is simultaneously becoming more expensive and less productive, email marketing to people who have requested your information is a true bargain.
   
8. An opt in form allows you to have repeated contacts with people who would otherwise be one time visitors to your website. Let's face it, a website is like a screen door on a submarine. Most visitors come to your site for about a minute and then leave. Very few people will buy on their first visit to your website. But if you get their attention and give them and incentive to opt in to your list by offering them some very useful information, you can nudge them again and again (again let me repeat that this works best if you continually give them useful information along with your sales and marketing messages), until they buy.
   
9. Continuing this last thought, opt in marketing defeats the hazard of one-shot marketing. Most people will not decide to buy on their first exposure to an offer. They need repeated exposures to absorb all of the benefits you offer and to develop a belief that your claims are true.
   
10. Opt in marketing can position you and your company as experts if done right. Offering free information puts you in a whole different category of people who want their business. Both the initial piece that entices them to opt in, and the ongoing emails that give you additional opportunities to communicate your message to them, show them that you are capable of solving their problems or helping them achieve their goals.

BONUS REASON: Perhaps the best reason of all for having an opt in form on your website is that your list building efforts allow you to build a relationship with your prospects. Over time, you become a known and trusted source and advisor. Because you take time to educate the people on your list, your credibility climbs through the roof. And nothing in business can beat a relationship built on trust and credibility.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I just read an article by Erica Stritch in Rain Today that 69% of buyers who are considering hiring a professional services firm will visit a company's web site before making a decision to do business.

This statistic just adds one more compelling reason to make sure your web site delivers the kind of content that will engage and persuade your visitors.

The days of just slapping up a brochure on the web or filling your site with empty "mission statement" language are over (if they ever exited). Whether you are a professional services firm or not, the point is that you cannot afford to make your web site an afterthought.

How can you make your site engaging and persuasive? Here are a few ideas"

• Pay attention to the search terms people typed into a search engine that led visitors to your site. This is a great clue to tell you what people are looking for and what questions they want answered. Make sure your site delivers this information.
  
• Build your site around what your visitors want to know, what problems they want to solve or what questions they want answered - rather than what you want to sell. Check out my article You're Really Just Selling Aspirin for more on how to do this.
  
• Make sure the home page offers visitors clear choices to click based on those questions they want answered or problems they want to solve that I mentioned above. It is fine to have product or services choices for those who have already visited your site or who are ready to buy, but most people want information first.
  
• Do I have to mention benefits? Of course I do because 90% of web sites I visit are written by people who wouldn't know a benefit if it bit them on the nose. If you have trouble distinguishing between features and benefits, substitute "solutions," "answers" or "changes" for the word "benefit."
  
• Use your site as a lead generation machine. Give visitors a reason a REASON to give you their email address. Offer something valuable and free (usually some information product words best). Most people will not return to your site unless you contact them later with more of the information they sought in the first place.
  
• What you say in your meta tags does matter. True it has little impact on getting search engine traffic, but it is also what people see when your site comes up in their search results. This will go a long way toward getting them to click onto your site. BUT it also tells them what to expect when they arrive, so don't le them down.
  
• Include case studies. The actual success stories of your existing customers will not only give people confidence about doing business with you, it will help them understand what you do and what problems you can solve.

None of us can take for granted the importance of our web sites. When over two-thirds of our potential clients check us out online as part of their decision-making process, no business can afford to gamble with a bad impression.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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Larry Bodine, who writes the Law Marketing Blog wrote an interesting piece this week called, Evidence That Yellow Pages Are Trash.

As you probably know, lawyers and law firms are among the most prolific Yellow Page advertisers. Larry mentions that in his local pages, lawyer ads run from page 497 to 538, with little to distinguish themselves other than pictures of gavels and scales of justice.

Sigh. This means I am going to have to get on my lawyer-marketing soapbox again.

As many of you know, I used to be a lawyer and one of my peeves is how poorly lawyers and other professionals market their services.

Frankly I believe this is one of the reasons practicing law is such a high-pressure profession. Poor marketing leads to taking on bad clients with bad cases who leave swaths of stress and frustration in their wake. Many of the cases and clients in a lot of lawyers' files are there simply because they couldn't afford to be selective.

Good marketing enables all professionals to be selective and lets them work with the people they really want to work with.

Back to Larry's article. Larry looked out his window one morning and saw what appeared to be a bag of trash laying in his front yard. When he went out to throw it away, he found it was the local Yellow Pages. His point is that the lawyers who bought expensive ads probably would not have preferred to have it presented as trash in someone's front yard.

I will grant Larry's point that Yellow Pages could be presented much better, but my mind took what he said and went off on its own direction. I believe Yellow Page advertising could be productive for professionals if they were handled better.

Instead of cookie-cutter ads with gavels, scales of justice or pictures of stern looking lawyers, why not use these ads to offer free information kits on different areas of the law?

For example, if I were looking for a lawyer to handle my medical malpractice case, do you think I would be attracted to an ad that listed medical malpractice within a laundry list of other specialties? Or do you think I would gravitate to an ad that offered a free booklet or case study on medical malpractice?

This is the difference between one-step vs. two-step advertising strategies.

Decades of direct response advertising and generations of copywriters have proven that two-step advertising, in which a person merely has to request free information, almost always gets a higher response.

Alternatively, a one-step ad which requires that the person must call a phone number to schedule an appointment, requires much more of a commitment on the person's part, and therefore gets a much lower response.

Two-step advertising requires less of an initial commitment on the part of the potential client, but gives the firm the opportunity to build a list of prospective clients and follow up with these people with subsequent mailings or emails.

These days, the term, Permission Marketing is used interchangeably with "two-step advertising." The ad's sole purpose under this strategy is to gather a list of prospects and follow up with them by offering valuable, free information. Repeated contact with potential clients who have opted onto a list invariably converts more of them into actual clients.

What kind of information can be offered both as the initial inducement to opt in or as follow up material? Problem-solving information pieces like white papers, list articles, FAQs, or case studies all make excellent free info products.

The added benefit with these materials is that they all position the lawyer or other professional as an expert in that area of their practice. They go from someone who just mentioned "medical malpractice" as one of several areas within a laundry list, to someone who is knowledgeable enough to have written material about it.

So, Larry Bodine's point is very well taken that Yellow Page ads may lack a lot in their presentation, but I would urge professionals who do Yellow Page advertising to simply write ads that are intended to build lists of prospective clients.


COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown
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I've written before that one of the key components of writing website content that makes sales and attracts new clients, is to use your website as a platform to build your email subscriber list.

Frankly, a website that does not generate leads is a waste of internet real estate and certainly a waste of the company's time and money.

Along those lines, I want to direct your attention to a great article on http://marketingprofs.com called Four Ways To Build Your Email File Organically: It Is So Worth The Wait by Kimberly Snyder

The really great thing about Snyder's advice is that it will not be difficult or expensive to implement. Just a few tweaks to your website and you should really see a big improvement in number of email opt ins you receive.

Writing website content is an ongoing process. You learn new ideas and you put them into practice and then test the results. Snyder's four ideas are no different. But I think you will see the results very quickly.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Let's face the facts. Even if the president doesn't want to use the "R" word, we are already well into a tough economy. That means it is going to be harder for professionals like doctors, lawyers, consultants, accountants and others to attract new clients or get more business from their existing clients.

However there are a few steps professionals can take to still get business coming in the door, regardless of the economy:

1. Create "bait" information pieces like white papers, tip sheets or other booklets that provide valuable, free information for prospective clients.
   
   These bait pieces are soft sell devices like, "8 Ways to Save on Property Taxes," "5 Ways to Avoid Getting Sued," or "How to Keep Your Children Well This Winter."
   
   But a hard sell piece like, "10 Reasons Goode, Hailey and Knight Should Be Your Accounting Firm" is not a good bait piece.
   
   
2. Turn every advertisement into a direct response ad – even Yellow Page or directory ads.
   
   There are two types of advertisements, "awareness" ads and "direct response" ads. Awareness ads just tell prospects that you exist and if they have nothing better to do with their time, to give you a call.
   
   Direct response ads entice readers to take action, such as to call your office or visit your website in order to get your white paper or tip sheet. When you advertise this way, you can actually measure how effective the ad is and make changes along the way.
   
   
3. Build a list. When people respond to your direct respond ads, collect these "opt in" leads to build a list. This concept is called "Permission Marketing" (based on the book by that name written by Seth Godin). This list of people who have requested your free information may become your most valuable resource, so take good care of it.
   
   
4. Make your website a resource for people who are prospective and existing clients. Don't be afraid to give away free information, but create more white papers, tip sheets, checklists, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and case studies about some of your clients success stories.
   
   It may sound counter intuitive to give away free information, but you will find that it pays dividends. It gives visitors a reason to keep coming back to your site and it establishes your credibility as an expert in your field.
   

For those of us who sell our services and knowledge, a tough economy is a time to roll up our sleeves and work smarter. But if you do work smarter, use direct response advertising, build a list and create a website that your prospects view as a resource, you will be rewarded while your competitors tread water.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

As I mentioned recently in an article called How to Use Case Studies to Promote Your Business, case studies can be one of the most effective methods of promoting your business.

A good case study is the story of how your firm solved a serious problem for one of your customers or clients. The customer, of course is the star, but you or your firm is the agent of change that turned the situation around.

In a real way, a case study is better than a referral because it is a compelling story. When other business people read how you solved someone else's problem, they will likely realize that you are the best person or business to solve their problem as well.

How can you market your business with case studies?

1. Include it in a press release. The media is always looking for new stories that contain a practical problem solving element to them. Your press release may be no more than an abridged version of the case study with a mention that the full version is available upon request.
   
   
2. Send it to prospects or existing customers. Sending out case studies is a great way to keep in touch and to let people know what you do. The story "feel" of a case study makes it seem much less like a marketing piece, and therefore softens the sales message while at the same time making it more effective.
   
   
3. Give it to your sales people. Sales people love case studies because they are "proof" of your effectiveness in solving problems. They can use them in their presentations to demonstrate key points andas testimonials. They also make convincing sales brochures.
   
   
4. Post it on your website. Providing quality, useful content on your site is a powerful way to increase traffic.
   
   
5. Use case studies as articles in your newsletter. These success stories show real world examples of how you solve problems in your market place. Even if your newsletter is an internal piece for employees, it still helps to educate your own people.
   
   
6. Use case studies as a speaking topic. If your executives occasionally give speaches or talks, a case study makes an excellent presentation. It can be adapted as a powerpoint or a handout.
   
   
7. Include case studies in proposals for new business. When you are competing for new business, a proposal that contains one or more case studies demonstrates very effectively your firm's competancies.
   
   
8. Adapt case studies as lead generation materials. Not only is it a great free giveaway, it can also be a tremendous enticement for prospects to request the full version if your piece only gives them the first part of the case study. Think of it as a cliff hanger that they must request the rest of the story to find out how a problem was resolved.
   
   
9. Use as testimonials. As a general rule, client testimonials are nice to have but lack the power of a story. By asking clients who send in positive feedback to be interviewed for a case study, you convert their comments into a compelling success story.
   
   
10. Use as a trade show handout. Case studies are much better than free golf balls as a way to interest prospects and turn them into clients. You might even enlarge the case study to print on your exhibit wall for all passersby to see.
    

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Why is it that some websites and blogs make money and others don't?

I think the key reason is unprofitable site owners do not have a clear focus on what the purpose of their site or blog is.

There are basically two types of websites or blogs:

1. A "Branding" Site, is a site that is designed to build your credibility or your "brand."
   
   For someone like myself, who uses this site to build a reputation as a freelance copywriter, a branding site is designed to establish oneself as an expert in a certain field.
   
   The same concept is true for any independant business person, whether you are a lawyer, doctor, consultant, home builder, realtor, etc. Your goal is to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
   
   But for an organization, the purpose of your site is still to build a brand, increase credibility and demonstrate that your firm is an authority in whatever service you offer.
   
   Think about how many sites you see that make empty boasts about how such and such firm is "the best" at whatever they do. Do such ads impart credibility to you?
   
   Probably not, but when you see a site that offers informative articles, free white papers or reports on how to solve a problem that concerns you, do you have any doubts about that company's credibility? In most cases you will find this company highly credible.
   
   In either case, whether you are an individual business person or a company, a branding site must build repeat visitors who keep coming back because you offer valuable information, keep them abreast of new trends, or post "how to" articles that solve certain problems.
   
   Another distinguishing trait of a branding site is that it seeks to generate money from offline business. If you'll pardon me for using this site as an example again, it exists solely to attract clients who want me to write web content, case studies, white papers and other copywriting materials for them.
   
   So the way I do that is to write about things I think will be helpful to my potential clients. Sometimes I may miss the mark, but I always try to think of what problems these businesses want to solve and what information they need.
   
   And over time, based on the feedback you readers give me, I have created a site that is a valuable resource to businesses that need to turn their website visitors into customers, or want to use white papers and case studies to attract more business.
   
   To sum up, a branding site is built upon the principle that them more free, valuable information you give away, the more you will attract new business.
   
   
2. A Traffic Site, on the other hand, makes money by making sales or hosting advertisements online. This site is nothing less than an "online saleperson."
   
   As a result, traffic sites are less dependant upon repeat visitors and more dependant on search engine traffic.
   
   A traffic site usually lives and breathes on ranking high on Google, Yahoo and other search engines for prospective customers to find it. Few traffic sites are designed to attract clients to offline businesses, but instead their purpose is to generate online sales and orders, or get visitors to click on ad links.

Are these two types of websites mutually exclusive? Hardly. A branding site needs to use all the search engine optimization techniques it can in order to rank higher when potential clients do a Google search. Moreover, many branding sites make additional sales by selling products like books or white papers on their sites.

By the same token, traffic sites often provide valuable, problem-solving information to enhance the company's credibility and reputation and to give visitors reasons to return again and again.

But the key here is focus. One of my biggest errors with this site when I first started out was a failure to focus on branding myself. I once had Adsense ads on this site, which only resulted in visitors clicking away to go off to see what someone else had to offer.

One of the best ways I know to prevent a muddled focus is to think about what you want a visitor to do once they arrive on your site.

If you want them to order a product, find ways to display those products with attractive photographs and descriptions of each item.

If you want them to click on your Adsense ads, make sure your site is optimized so the search engines have a clear "understanding" of what type of visitors to send your way. That way the search terms these people typed into Google match the type of ads displayed on your site.

On the other hand, if you want to establish yourself as an authority in your field and get visitors to hire you for offline work, make sure your articles are really informative and give them a reason to keep coming back.

Again, these two types of websites and blogs are not mutually exclusive, but you will find they produce much more business for you if you maintain your primary focus. To use the baseball expression, "It's all a matter of keeping your eye on the ball."

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Yesterday I sent you to a link on YouTube by Trevor Crooks, an Australian copywriter who had a great illustration on the power of headlines. The link, if you didn't get it, is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA.

Now to recap, the example used were the actual results from a chiropractor's ads. This chiropractor ran three seperate ads that were the same except that each had a different headline.

Here were the headlines he used:

Free Report: Are you making these mistakes when treating your migraine headaches?

Free Report: "They all laughed when I called a chiropractor...until my migraine headaches went away.

Free Report: "Who else wants Migraine headache relief?"

Notice that all three are formulas for headlines you've probably seen over and over again. There is a reason for this: all of these formulas are decades old and keep getting re-used because they continue to work better than the new headlines we creative geniuses try to come up with.

Now hopefully you have already watched the video so I am not spoiling the surprise for you, but the winning headline, the headline that generated the highest response and got more requests for the free report, was "They all laughed when I called a chiropractor...until my migraine headaches went away.".

I don't know about you, but that wasn't my first choice... or my second either.

The point is, we are not in the business of predicting what buyers will do, we are in the business of testing what they will do and letting them decide what campaigns we run in the future.

We "professionals" think we know what the public wants, but they fool us again and again. You've read me preach on this site against getting to infatuated with our own creativity, but I did it to. I simply thought, "They all laughed when ..." had been done to death and sounded primative.

Testing isn't for the proud, or the fragile ego (I know mine took a hit on this little exercise). But it does show what will make money, and that, in my book, is the name of the game.

freelance copywriter, ghost writer, web content writer, lawyer marketing, lawyer advertising, white papers

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Let's go over this again, "Headlines are the most important part of your advertisement/web content/sales letter or any other marketing communication."

The headline pulls readers into the rest of your piece. It tells them there is something here that may help them and is worth reading.

You knew all that, right? But don't be ashamed if you have wandered off the path and into the dark woods. We've all done it and gotten too caught up in our own creativity. Just don't get lost in those woods. Get back on the path as soon as you can.

There are two other things I want to say about headlines. First, the old tried and true formulas continue to work because they still appeal to buyers' basic needs.

And second, only the market place can determine which headline is most effective. Think of your buyers as voters. You can't tell them how to vote (they are, after all, voting with their money), all you can do is wait to see HOW they vote.

And all this leads me to a colorful copywriter from Australia named Trevor Crook. Take a look at this video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA) in which he compares three actual headlines used by a chiropractor to generate leads for his practice.

Trevor gives you a chance to choose which of the three headlines you think outsold the others before he reveals the winner. I won't reveal the winning headline for you, but I will say that I didn't guess right either, and I am in this business.

This again goes to show that ONLY THE BUYERS can vote on which headline motivates them most.

As you watch this video, another thing you should notice is how OLD all these headlines sound. They are tired old formulas that have been used over and over and over and over again. Many are nearly a century old, and yet they are still used BECAUSE THEY STILL WORK.

The link again is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO1adJvZneA. Trevor may seem like a character (I'm sure he is one) but he knows his stuff.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Hopefully I have been preching to the choir in all my many articles urging marketers and site owners to use their websites as “lead-generation machines,” to gather email addresses and build your lists of prospective and existing clients. I hope as well you have been doing just that for a long enough time that you get a little irritated with me when I harp on the subject again and again.

But have you been subdividing your list into specialized lists that allow you to target your market more and more precisely?

For example, have you subdivided you prospects from those who have actually bought from you at least one time in the past?

Also, have you subdivided your prospects based on what types of products or services they are most likely to buy from you in the future?

Other ways to subdivide your list is to distinguish geographic areas, b2b prospects vs. consumers, industry fields, income levels, business sizes, and on and on. Some of these distintions will make sense to your business and others will not, but always be on the lookout for ways you can present highly specialized offerings to your customers and prospects.

A very easy way to do this is to continually offer new opt in opportunities to the people who are on your list. To do that, you must create new enticements that will appeal only to certain subscribers on your list. In other words, let your subscribers self select themselves and tell you what sub categories they are on based upon what interests them.

If your list consists of small businesses and large corporations (but you have something to offer both), create free information reports or CDs that will appeal only to the executives of large organizations on your list. At the same time, create another product that will appeal to the small business executive.

You then create additional autoresponder campaigns for both groups (I am personally very happy with Traffic Wave, which allows me to create an unlimited number of campaigns with an unlimited number of letters, for a monthly price of $17.95).

These multiple lists then enable you to make offers that are attractive to the small company executive that would just elicit a yawn from the large company executive (and visa versa). Moreover, the more precisely you target your customers, the more effective your sales messages will inevitably be.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

Hopefully you have a system in place to capture data on how visitors arrived at your website. This is very important information, because it tells you if you are doing the right things to get more visitors and if you are satisfying the problems and questions that brought these people to your doorstep.


For example, if you are using a tool like Google Analytics, you can track all the search terms (or "keywords") people typed into the various search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc that led them to your site.


What does this information tell you? Well what if the search engines are sending people who want something altogether different from what you offer? This happens all the time when the content on the site uses key terms that different meanings in different contexts.


If this happens, don't regard it as a total loss. Often the problem can be fixed by a small tweak. For example if your company sells Red Delicious Apples, and search engines are sending people who want Apple Computers, just go back through your content and add "Red Delicious" to the word "Apple" where ever it is found on your site.


But this data may also give you the opportunity to write more content on those same keywords (search terms) if they ARE in line with what business you are in. This would enable you to get MORE of this kind of traffic, but instead of getting it by dumb luck, you would be getting it by design.


When you decide on a list of keywords / search terms you want to target, you can have all your content written to emphasize these terms so that the search engines will give you higher rankings. After all, you won't get too much traffic if you are on the 85th page of a term's search results on Google.


But if over time you write more and more content that diligently features these keywords, you will find your site moving up in those search engine rankings.


Not only that, but the people who find your site in this way will be targeted potential customers, because those search terms they typed represent problems they want solved, or questions they want answers to. If you are in the business of solving those problems or answering those questions, these visitors are gifts.


So make sure your web content is written to emphasize specific keywords or search terms that pertain to the business you are in. Use analytic tools to make sure your keywords are working and to find new search terms that are getting people to your site. And finally, write more content emphasizing these search terms so that your site will get more of these specific kinds of visitors.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

This is the year law firms, professionals and service providers finally start seeing real results for their marketing efforts. This will be the year that their advertising, direct mail and websites finally start bringing them the targeted new business and new clients they really want to work with.

How? Because I believe those people who market professional services will finally wake up to the fact that "Multi-Step Marketing" is far more effective than "One-Shot Marketing."

Why One-Shot Marketingwhite Isn't Working For Law Firms or Other Professionals

As a former lawyer myself, most of my attention is focused on marketing ideas for law firms, but what I am about to say is equally applicable to other professionals, service providers and even sellers of products if their expertise is part of the package that comes with their products (large B2B computer systems or software programs would be an example).

One-shot marketing is when you see an ad or visit a website that asks you to contact the company for more information.....and that's it. That simple (and often understated) request for a contact is the only call to action such an ad or website makes.

One-shot marketing gets one, and only one, chance to influence the prospect to act. And if that ad doesn't dramatically reach out and grab the reader's interest, it will be forgotten in 2 seconds.

Look at most of the ads in the Yellow Pages or in business news publications. Do any of them just reach out and grab you that way? Do any of them offer anything really different from their competitors' ads? Rarely.

Why Law Firms and Other Professionals Must Adopt Multi-Step Marketing

As the name suggests, "Multi-Step Marketing" takes advantage of multiple contacts with prospects. When you see an ad, a website or a direct mail piece that offers you a free DVD, CD, white paper, report or ebook on a topic that is currently a source of problems for you, that is the beginning of a multi-step marketing program.

When you request that free information because it sounds relevant to problems you need to solve or changes you want to make, you are "opting in" to the marketer's mailing or email list. This is called "permission marketing" because you are giving that company permission to contact you again. In so doing, you have identified yourself as a prospect with at least some level of interest in what that company does.

If the free information piece you receive from that company is well written and seems to offer a solution to your problem, you may decide to do business with them on the spot. In most cases, this information will help you form the opinion that this company is an expert in this area. It may also position that company as the front runner in your mind in case you ever decide to do business with someone in that field.

But you may not decide to act right now. It is what happens next that truly delivers the remarkable success for multi-step marketers. Over time, you will receive occasional follow up mailings and information. If you weren't ready to do business when you first received the information, your circumstances may change over time.

The long term effect of repeated contacts by the company (because you gave them permission to market to you) is that this company increases its positioning in your mind as THE experts in their field and as THE company you are most likely to do business with when and if you decide to act.

Multi-Step Marketing Helps Law Firms and Professionals Measure Their Marketing Results

Law firms and other professional services have a very difficult time measuring how effective (or not) their advertisements, websites or direct mail really is.

How do you know which calls were produced by your Yellow Page ad, the ad you put in the local newspaper, from your website or from other sources?

Multi-step marketing gives professionals an instant tool to determine how well an ad or website is doing. The number of requests for the white paper, DVD or other information product is the measurement of how effective your ad or website is.

You can even give the same product different titles so you can test whether one ad generates more inquiries than another.

Multi-step marketing eliminates the feeling that advertisers often have of stumbling around in the dark.

Will my "prediction" for 2007 come true? Well I intend to do my part to get the word out to law firms and others who need to hear about multi-step marketing. I'd also love to hear from you. What experiences and recommendations do you have?

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

What is the one thing your business cannot do without? What one single priority outranks all others?

Whether your business is a small one-man operation or a huge, Fortune 500 behemoth, generating new leads for new business is your single most important imperative.

Without customers or clients, you have no business. And without a constant stream of new leads, you will eventually have no customers.

According to a recent survey, lead generation is the number one goal for businesses in 2007.

Generating leads to acquire customers and drive sales will be top of mind for b-to-b marketers next year.

According to BtoB’s “2007 Marketing Priorities and Plans” survey, acquiring new customers is the No. 1 marketing goal for 2007, cited by 62.3% of respondents.

That said, how are you planning to generate leads for your business in 2007?

Two immediate ideas that can get your lead generation project off to a fast start in 2007 are:

1. Create Free Information Products. These can be everything from white papers to tip sheets to ebooks to free DVDs. This strategy recognizes that all buyers go through an information gathering stage in their buying process (the exception of course is impulse purchases, which is a topic for another article). Think about the last time you bought a new car, new house or helped a child choose the right college to attend. You probably looked up a lot of information on the internet, possibly you questioned people who had direct experience with your various possible choices, or you asked the companies for information.
   
   The single caveat of this approach is to avoid selling for your competitors. Don’t just offer information that sells the entire category. If you do that, your reader may choose anyone who offers what you offer. You must sell yourself without being too self-serving in the process ( a fine balancing act, but one that can be done).
   
   Offering free information is a strategy that recognizes that each buyer has a unique buying cycle and procedure. This approach allows you to enter their consciousness at any point along that buying cycle and become a trusted resource for valuable, non-self serving information.
   
   
2. Turn Your Website Into a Lead Generating Machine. It costs most businesses $10 to $20 for every qualified visitor that lands on their websites. I would argue that if you have a choice between getting a visitor to buy something now vs. leave his or her contact information, you are better off getting them to create a lead. When someone has opted in to receive future emails from you (ie “permission marketing”), you have multiple chances to sell and then sell again. This person can become a repeat customer for life. But if you try to hit the home run every time someone visits your site, you only get that one chance to sell and at best may only sell one thing.

Lead Generation is a huge topic and I will revisit this subject many times in the coming year. But for now, I would like to leave you with some resources you will find helpful.

• Brian Carroll writes a blog entirely devoted to the topic of generating b2b leads. He offers a lot of great ideas that you can never keep up with. If you can only put one our of ten into practice, you will do well.
  
• Michael Stelzner writes a great blog on marketing with white papers. He has also written an excellent book on the same topic called: Writing White Papers: How To Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged.
  
• Anne Holland has written a very good article on Marketing Sherpa in which she offers some very practical insights and ideas on how to generate leads.
  
• Another article by Anne Holland is about lead generation mistakes that get in the way of effective marketing. Anne is nothing if not candid, and her insights are always worth reading. They are also the kinds of mistakes we can all make, so her article is a good cautionary piece.

I’m interesting in hearing about your ideas and insights on the topic of lead generation. What do you think about this topic?

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

They are fast and easy to write and readers love them. Tip sheets may just be the easiest method for promoting your business you've ever tried. And once written, you can find many ways to put these tip sheets into the hands of your potential clients.

I was looking through my files recently and suddenly noticed how many tip sheets I have saved over the years. It occurred to me that they were examples of very smart marketing because most of the authors had provided information about their services and their contact information at the bottom of the sheets. This made it easy for someone like me to contact them years later, if the need arose for their services.

I am supposing here that I am fairly typical and I would presume there are many other people out there who save and file worthwhile information. This makes the humble little tip sheet one of the most versatile marketing tools around.

So without further ado (and because I would really like to see you print a copy of this article for your files) here are eight tips that you can use to promote your business with tip sheets:

1. Demonstrate your knowledge and expertise when you write tip sheets. Tip sheets are promotional tools that prove that you are an expert in your field. When you condense your knowledge on a given topic, you create something that is far more convincing than any form of paid advertising.
   
   
2. Offer your tip sheets as “freebies” to arouse the interest of potential clients. You can offer free tip sheets on your website, Yellow Page ad, or on your email signature file. Use tip sheets as “bait” to lure potential clients inro opting onto mailing (or emailing) list.
   
   
3. Tip sheets make great inserts to go in your publicity kit. A busy journalist may just glance over your information, but there is something about the numbered list or bullet point format of a tip sheet that grabs the eye. It may be the only thing in your kit that gets read, but it may convince a reporter or editor that your pitch is newsworthy.
   
   
4. Publish your shorter tip sheets as online or offline articles. You can submit them to sites like ezinearticles.com, idea marketers, Go Articles or Article City, or you can submit them to trade magazines your clients are likely to read.
   
   
5. Publish your longer tip sheets as booklets or ebooks. You can give these booklets and ebooks to your potential clients, or you can follow Robert Bly's advice and create a seperate profit center by putting a price on the cover and charging people who are not potential clients. Bly's advice is to put a price on the cover of a booklet even if you only plan to give it away. The price increases the booklet's perceived value to the person who received it free.
   
   
6. Use your tip sheets as free handouts at workshops or speaking engagements. Never do any public speaking without some sort of free handout. Quality tip sheets will insure that you audience remembers you for afterwards and have a way to get back in contact with you if they need your services. Remember the tip sheets I have saved for many years. Those authors who had the foresight to put their contact information on them can reap the benefits of these sheets years later.
   
   
7. Put tip sheet on your website. The more you post useful information on your site, the more people will come to regard it as an information resource. When they view your site in this way, they are likely to bookmark it and become repeat visitors.
   
   
8. Print your tip sheet as a panel on your brochure. Brochures are often thrown away shortly after they come into a potential client's possession. But if you include useful information, people are much more likely to keep and file your marketing materials. Even if they have no need for your services today, their circumstances could change months or even years later. If your tip sheet/brochure is in their files, they can get back with you years after they got your materials.

Not only are tip sheets, written with bullets or numbered list formats, appealing to your readers, writing in these formats helps you to organize your own thoughts and ideas.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

For many businesses, an annual ad in the Yellow Pages or one of its competitors, can be a huge investment. If the ad works well, it can bring a in steady stream of new customers all year long.

But what if your ad just doesn’t pull in as much business as you need? Worse, what if it doesn’t even break even for you? Many businesses depend on the Yellow Pages for most of their sales for the year, so the risk of an underperforming ad is something to be reckoned with.

Here are a few ideas that should help you maximize this investment and generate the highest possible return throughout the year.

1. Test your ad. How do you do this? In the months leading up to the deadline to place your Yellow Page ad, run several small or even classified ads in your local media. Test several headlines, run them against each other to see which one pulls the most. The winner gets to be your standard bearer all year long.
   
   
2. Use your ad to generate leads by offering a free booklet or some other form of free information. Not only will this pull in a better response than your competitors, it will also build a list of interested prospects for you to send out future mailings.
   
   
3. If you go the lead generation route, give your booklet an interesting title, like “31 Ways to Save Money on Car Repairs,” (for the auto repair shop). Or “19 Health Care Tips For Your Child” (for a pediatrician). Be sure this title is prominently displayed on your ad and make it the focus of your ad.
   
   
4. Instead of one large ad that reads like a laundry list of all the services you offer, experiment with several smaller ads offering a single service. Law firms especially put up really boring Yellow Page ads that do little more than list all the specialties they practice. Unless your ad is the biggest, with the brightest colors, and is in the first page of your category, you will have a hard time getting a decent return on your investment for such an ad. But narrowly-targeted smaller ads give you a much better way of catching the eye of a specific group of clients who need a specific service.
   
   
5. Piggy back on the narrowly-targeted smaller ads by offering more free information related to each specialty. Offering free booklets or newsletters positions you as an expert within your specialty.
   
   
6. Now here’s my soapbox.. I have called on too many expensive Yellow Page ads only to be met with incompetent or rude people on the other end of the phone. Train your employees how to answer the phone, to return calls promptly and to have intelligent answers once a caller actually responds to your ad.
   
   
7. Don’t just automatically run the same ad year after year. Your competitors aren’t going to just roll over and play dead. If you run a successful ad this year, you may just find a dozen imitators running very similar ads next year. Find ways to differentiate yourself from the rest of the pack. Don’t claim to be the biggest, the best or the most experienced. None of that matters to your potential clients. Don’t try to fight it out among the other big fist in the pond, find your own pond and be the only fish in it.
   
   
8. Write your ad to solve a really vexing problem your reader may be having. To use the law firm ads as an example again, if you specialize in juvenile criminal law, target your ad to the worried parent who has a child in trouble. Make your information piece about “what to do if your teenager is in trouble with the law.” People pick up the Yellow Pages because they have a problem. And they will call the ad that best demonstrates the ability to solve that problem.
   
   
9. Be a specialist. Specialists make more money than generalists. So, if you can, let your ad show your specialty. But a category is not a specialist. (Using lawyers again) if you specialize in white-collar criminal law, don’t just say you practice criminal law. If you specialize in personal injury involving a reckless commercial vehicle, don’t just say personal injury. If you specialize in contract negotiations, don’t just say you practice business law.
   
   
10. Your headline is the most important part of your ad. So don’t just run with the first thing that comes to mind. At the risk of repeating myself, test your headlines. Put your strongest benefit front and center in your headline. Address a problem in your headline. Make a promise in your headline. Headlines are too important to leave to chance. After all, do you want to live a whole year with a mistake?

Don't put up your ad blindly. Too many businesses put no thought into their ad, and then have to live with the results for an entire year.
freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

Inch for inch, a small ad just might be the best advertising deal around. If done right, a small space or classified ad can bring you profits far exceeding what a larger often produces. Here are some ideas to get more bang for your buck with small ads:

1. Use small ads to test headlines and other key elements before you pay for a larger ad. Headlines are funny things, you really never know which one will take off and be your best money maker. Instead, you have to let the people who read your ad “vote” for the headline that appeals to them the most with how they respond. So it makes a lot more sense to test headlines on small ads before you spend money on a larger ad.
   
   
2. Use small ads to generate leads. Offer a free booklet or some other free information product in your small ad. When the reader gets your information, make sure it contains far more useful information than sales message. But even then you will have much more space to sell than in a full space ad in a publication.
   
   
3. Of course you should also make use of the leads generated by your small ad. Send these people follow up information. This way, your single small ad enables you to recontact the same interested people over and over again.
   
   
4. Instead of using a single, large ad to tell about your wide list of services or products, use several small ads to target each niche you cover. For example, the Yellow Page ads of many law firms are little more than laundry lists of the services they provide. A more effective campaign might be to target each specialty with a single small ad. Take this one step further, and the law firms might offer different free information products or white papers on each small ad targeting each specialty.
   
   
5. Speaking of Yellow Page ads, many businesses make the expensive mistake of putting up a year-long ad without testing. Since the Yellow Pages only come out once a year, it is not feasible to test the ad there. But you can run several small ads in local publications to see which one is most effective and choose the winner as your year-long Yellow Page ad. Running an untested Yellow Page ad is one mistake that can cost you not only in a poor return on investment, it also causes you to go a whole year with a lower sales than you might otherwise have been able to realize.
   
   
6. If your product has multiple uses or benefits, highlight each use or benefit in separate ads. Don’t count on readers wading through a long list text to get to the single benefit that appeals to them.
   
   
7. Test, test and then test again. Small ads give you a cost-effective way to compare many different ideas to see which ones pull in the highest response from readers.
   
   
8. Effective headlines for small ads can be shorter and punchier than larger ads. Try to compress as much meaning as possible in five words or less. Here are some headlines that have worked very well on small ads:
   $500 a Week
   
   15 Minutes a Day
   
   Free 48 Page Booklet
   
   Anyone Can Learn
   
   Fun-Packed
   
   No Obligation
   
   Money Back If Not Delighted
   
   Send No Money
   
   Mrs. E.C. Made $65
   
   Learn In 6 Weeks
   
   (reprinted from Tested Advertising Methods, 5th Edition, by John Caples)
   
   
9. If you are using the small ad to generate leads offering free information, give your booklet or information product a good title and experiment with using that title as your headline (but test, test, test). For example, “101 Ways To Help Your Child Get Better Grades,” or “33 Ways To Unlock The Hidden Job Market.”
   

It is hard to imagine any marketing plan that cannot be made better with the smart use of small ads. They are cost effective, allow you to more precisely target your intended audience and …..can be tested.

freelance copywriter, writing web content, copywriting tips

COPYRIGHT(C)2006, Charles Brown. All rights reserved.

We freelance copywriters are often an analytical bunch. Always trying to tinker with ad copy to see if it can be made better. This includes our own copy as well as the work of others.

For example, David Garfinkel, in his September 4, 2006 blog post at http://world-copywriting-institute.typepad.com/ provides an excellent analysis in the article, "An Expensive Ad that Almost Gets It.”

Before we look at what David says about this ad, let me set the stage: I firmly believe that elements of direct response can be successfully incorporated with so-called “image ads” that are designed to establish a dignified brand.

For example, brokerage firms like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley do this all the time. You frequently see their ads offering booklets on their market forecasts and white papers on their analysis of the economy. Despite the heavy restrictions placed upon financial services marketing, these ads manage to do three things simultaneously:

1. convey dignity and a brand image,
   
   
2. present a strong sales message, and
   
   
3. generate leads for their salespeople.

Direct Response vs. “Advertising Art”

Regular readers of my blog may recall my story of a copywriting job I didn’t get. The client was a high profile interior design firm in Florida that catered to a very affluent clientele.

The ad agency that interviewed me had created a beautiful two-page spread depicting a home most of us can only drool over. It truly was an example of advertising art.

The trouble was the copy. It relied only on a single sentence that frankly said nothing at all. This sentence was presumably intended to arouse so much curiosity that people would flock to the client’s store or tie up the entire South Florida telephone system trying to call in. (no website address was mentioned on the ad).

When asked for my input, I suggested that the client create an information piece such as a booklet full of decorating ideas. My thinking was that such a booklet would not only have high, perceived value to the reader. It could also, in the process of offering numerous how-tips, generate additional sales for the client’s design services as well as specific items of furniture and wall decorations.

I then suggested the beautiful ad could feature the booklet as a free offer to anyone who called or stopped in. (Of course, they would have to provide their names and contact information in order to receive the booklet, thereby creating a list of prospective customers for the client).

Alas, the creative types felt my ideas would detract from the beauty of their layout and would smell too much of “salesmanship.” I didn’t get the assignment, the ad ran exactly as I had seen it, and appeared only one time in a very high-profile magazine.

Trying To Sell The Law Firm

Fast forward to the article in David Garfinkel’s blog. The ad shows a picture of Craig Newmark, the founder of the hugely successful craigslist.com. The ad’s headline, PEOPLE WHO MAKE GREAT COMPANY’S WORK, seems to offer insights into how people like Newmark create and grow successful companies.

Presumably, the ad seeks to attract clients to the law firm with an implied promise that the firm will help entrepreneurs become as successful as Craig Newmark.

Disappointingly, the ad offers zero benefits to the reader and breaks the headline’s implied promise. The ad concludes will the thundering dud of a sales message, “Perkins Cole: Legal counsel to great companies like craigslist.”

What if the firm had written a white paper on the legal needs of small, growing companies? What if the white paper fulfilled the promise of the ad’s headline by providing how-to information on how entrepreneurs can grow their companies with help from knowledgeable law firms? And what if this white paper was featured in the ad as available free to any reader who asked for it?

Why White Papers and Image Ads Go Together

White papers convey the dignity such a law firm is trying to project, but they are also valuable sales tools. They promise - and absolutely must deliver - valuable how-to information, or analysis helpful for readers’ decision making. They target certain types of readers who, because of their interest in this topic, identify themselves as potential clients.

Here are a few ideas that should help you create a marketing campaign based on both white papers and image ads:

• Begin with a clear idea of what decision you want your reader to make. This applies to both the ad and to the white paper. With the ad, you obviously want qualified readers to contact you, provide their address and/or their email address and telephone number. With the white paper, you want them to make a decision to contact you for an appointment. Not having this clear idea will cause major problems later if your work fails to lead the reader to a decision.
  
  
• Don’t forget to talk about benefits. Even with image advertising, benefits are essential. Yet image ads routinely shy away from talking about benefits. Too salesman like, I suppose.
  
  
• Make a promise and fulfill it. The headline of your ad, the ad’s copy, the free offer, the title of the white paper and every single word inside the white paper, should make a promise to either solve a problem for the reader or to help the reader realize a desired change. And after all that is done, deliver on that promise.
  
  
• Generate leads. I have written before on the value of 2-Step advertising, and why it delivers more sales than one-shot ads. Although my article, Freelance Copywriter Secrets: Why 2-Step Ads Make More Sales, is not specifically written about image advertising for professional service providers, you may still find it to be helpful on this subject. One of the primary reasons to use a direct response device is to generate a list of prospective clients, who “opt in” to receive your follow up emails and letters. With a list of such people, your marketing becomes a continual matter of re-contacting interested, qualified prospective clients.
  
  
• Create a series of white papers. Become known as the law firm, design company or professional services organization that has the right stuff. Within a law firm, for example, many lawyers have different specialties, each worthy of a multitude of white papers. Stuck for ideas on what to write about? Just look at what problems clients want to have solved for them. Each problem can result in a new white paper.

Image ads and white papers make the perfect marketing marriage. The more valuable information you give away, the more new business and new profits come back to you.

freelance copywriter, copywriting tips, freelance commercial writer

For decades, many researchers and freelance copywriters have demonstrated the same immutable fact: A two-step, or multi-step, advertising program produces many times more sales than ads that attempt to get people to buy from a single exposure to a marketing message.

What is a two-step program? When your ad promises a fee DVD, a free tape, a free booklet, a free report, a free ebook or free information of any kind, you are applying the two-step technique because you are attempting to make the sale on the back end rather than up front.

As I said, we now have decades of research proving that two-step ads bring in more sales. In one study, five million inquiries received by 165 firms were analyzed over a 12 year period. The study concluded that buyers are many times more likely to purchase if they have been exposed to two or more marketing messages.

This means that your ad is the first exposure. The free information you send out is the second. Subsequent mailings just increase the likelihood a person will buy even more.

But the benefit a marketer receives from a two-step program doesn’t stop there. Few companies can stay in business long if their customers make only a single purchase. The two-step process creates a database of qualified and interested potential and repeat buyers.

Smart marketers know that the money is in their customer lists. By recontacting these same people over time with new offers, new products, information about sales and special promotions, and even additional free information packages, their databases can generate considerable long-term profits and sales.

And best of all, since the largest expense was that very first ad, the cost per sale of all this new business keeps going down.

Contrast this to the marketer who puts up a single ad that attempts to make a sale from one exposure to her message. Yes, some sales will come in if the copy is well written, the right audience is precisely targeted and the stars are in perfect alignment.

But these marketers only get one bite at the apple. Either people buy right then or they don’t.

They don’t get the feeling of value your customers receive when they get your free information (which also creates a slight sense of obligation to you), they don’t get exposed to your offer multiple times, they don’t receive information about your other products, sales and special promotions.

And they probably don’t even remember that marketer’s name five seconds after they read her ad.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown