Dynamic Copywriting

I just posted a new ebook I've been working on for small business owners and professionals who need to increase sales or attract new clients.

This new ebook is free and can be downloaded at How To Increase Your Sales With Non-Spam Email Marketing.

I've done a lot of work with lawyers and law firms, as well as "brick and mortor" small business owners, and have seen them spending an inordinate amount of money on useless advertising that produces disappointing results. In response, How To Increase Your Sales With Non-Spam Email Marketing was written to give them the tools of Permission Marketing, email marketing, information products, direct response advertising and direct response web sites.

I absolutely believe that almost all businesses can double their sales using these marketing tools.

So if you are a small business owner or professional who wants to attract more business, be sure to download your free copy. Using these methods, you really can double your sales - and I can prove it.

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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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

I just read a great article on Patrick McEvoy's terrific blog, Rainmakers' Best Practices, called How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

The article features a very simple video that was posted on YouTube on May 1, 2007. Briefly, the video is a very simple presentation by a young lady sitting at her desk discussing Defective Drugs and how to sue Drug Companies.

McEvoy says the video has received over 6500 hits in the year it was first posted, and asks lawyers why they don't put up similar videos that explain a legal problem they work with.

Just imagine, he asks his readers, if a simple, five minute video could generate over 6000 people calling their law offices or visiting their web sites? How much new business would that little video create for a lawyer?

What really struck me was how easy it would be for anyone to produce a similar video to market their own business or professional services.

The easiest way to attract new business, is to give away free, valuable information. "How to" articles, white papers, tip sheets or other formats all demonstrate that you are an expert in your field.

But let me also mention another way to produce a simple video if you (like me) are lacking in a lot of technical know how.

I recently discovered that Powerpoint presentations can be converted to videos by using Microsoft Movie Maker. Movie Maker comes loaded on most Windows packages (which means you probably already have it on your computer, even if you don't already know it).

Just take an existing Powerpoint presentation, or create a new one, and turn it into a video with Movie Maker. You can even record your own voice narrating the presentation.

Then you simply upload the video to YouTube, or any of the hundreds of video sharing sites. I bet you will be astonished by the traffic you receive.

Be sure you read Patrick McEvoy's article and watch the video at How to Sue Drug Companies for Free.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

I am guessing that if I were to ask you to name some of the most successful companies you've ever done business with, both McDonalds and Amazon would be on your list. Now this post is not going to sum up all the reasons both companies are enormously successful, but one thing they both do very well is the add-on sale.

In the old days, I still remember when McDonalds' employees asked if you wanted fries with your hamburger and soft drink order. But now they sell them all together in a Value Meal. It is a package of products that go together and essentialy speeds up the decision-making process for customers.

Amazon also is a top notch add-on seller. On your first visit, when you look at different products they offer, they present you with an array of related products that they suggest. Their system has identified these other products as products other customers, who have an interest in the same product you are looking at, have also bought.

On your second visit, Amazon is already building a database on you and your tastes based upon what products you look at (even if you have not yet bought anything from them). With each visit, they learn more and more about you, not in a sinister Big Brother sort of way, but in a way designed to serve you better AND produce more sales for them.

So here is something to think about. What other products or services can you bundle together for your customers? What else do you offer that solve the same problems or serve the needs of the same customers?

For example, many lawyers offer related services when clients need their wills updated. They may offer living wills, powers of attorney, and other related documents to those clients seeking estate planning.

This is the ultimate win-win. The customer benefits because you are looking after more needs than the obvious ones they came to you about. You benefit because this simple approache generates more revenue for your business.

Think through all of your products or services. What else can you offer with them that will benefit the customer? Can you "bundle" them together in such a way that saves the customer money, but still produces more revenue for you?

I'm guessing it is as easy as asking if they want fries with their order.

COPYRIGHT © 2008, Charles Brown

A significant part of this blog’s focus is to help law firms and other service businesses develop new business. But getting an entire organization aligned with marketing goals is no easy task.

This is illustrated by an article Larry Bodine wrote about in his Larry Bodine’s LawMarketingBlog called, "Can You Beat This 25 –Question Sales Training Quiz?" A few of the questions on this quiz are:

• Most of our rainmakers are over 65.
  
• Few or no partners have individual business development plans in writing.
  
• Most of our lawyers are active in only bar associations and lawyer groups -- not in any organizations of clients.
  
• The firm does not premeditatedly identify industries where it has experience with the aim of pursuing potential business clients in those industries.
  
• Business development time spent by lawyers is not tracked.
  
• The firm has never broadcast a Webinar.
  
• The firm has no blog.
  

These are all signs of an internal focus that is easy for any organization to slide into. A thriving organization, whether it is a law firm, a consulting practice or a service business, must have an external focus.

This means to have a real finger on the pulse of the marketplace. It is simply not that hard to find out what potential clients want and need. And it should not that hard to get out of the office and join groups of potential clients or take part in charitable causes that can bring your people into contact with potential clients.

If your organization does not track and reward it’s key people for getting actively involved in new business development, nothing will happen. In law firms, and I suspect many other organizations as well, key people are actually penalized for taking time away from performing billable work to get out there and meet new potential clients.

Check out Larry’s article and see if your firm needs to make some changes.

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

I think marketers and copywriters of all industries could benefit from a recent article in Binary Law,which discussed a survey conducted by Primary Research Group. The survey is called, "Survey of [US] Law Firm E-marketing Practices", and it shows how law firms are now marketing their legal services.

One statistic jumped that jumped out at me is 20% of U.S. law firms now have active blogs. Although the survey used a tiny sample of 46 law firms, which limits the applicability of it's results, I still found it exciting to learn that more lawyers are marketing their services with blogs.

Why lawyers should market with blogs

Blogging is one of the best ways out there to generate traffic to your website. Search engines love blogs because of the frequently updated material on the topic a serious blogger produces. A case in point is a recent article I wrote called, "Marketing For Law Firms" about a Kansas lawyer named Grant Griffiths who eventually stopped all his advertising because his blog on Family Law was pulling in all the new clients he could handle.

Another wonderful benefit lawyers can see from writing regular blog posts is the fact that over time, these blog articles become material that can become drafts for magazine articles, white papers, and even full-length books.

Many lawyers and other professionals I know want to write a book "someday" in order to maket their law practices or other businesses. But the project seems impossibly large to them and they are so busy.

Blogging just two or three paragraphs a day can quickly add up to an impressive amount of material. Include reader comments and questions, and the bloggers responses, and this material grows even faster and can soon become a book length manuscript.

The take away from all this is that lawyers are beginning to market themselves in smarter ways. Perhaps the days of inane and useless lawyer ads are beginning to wane.

This lesson is instructive for lawyers and non lawyers as well if they are looking for ways to market themselves and attract new clients.

COPYRIGHT © 2007, Charles Brown

Recently one of the readers of this blog posted a comment about Grant Griffiths, a lawyer in Kansas who has abandoned advertising altogether in favor of writing his blog (thanks Whitney). See the article at Kansas Family & Divorce Lawyer. This is a great article for anyone who sells their knowledge, skill or expertise, because this attorney credits his blog for giving him a number one Google ranking under the keyword, "Kansas family law."

One of the reasons I tend to harp on the flaws I see in law firm advertising in this blog is because I used to practice law. As both a former private practice attorney and a copywriter, I can say that law firms have the worst marketing of any industry or profession I know of.

Whether you are looking at ads placed in the Wall Street Journal by 700 lawyer "blue chip" firms or the Yellow Page ads placed by small main street firms, the ads are almost always dismal. I swear these people wouldn't know a benefit if it came up and bit them on the nose.

And they all follow the same format: "we are a trusted name in admiralty law," "we can get you money if you are hurt in an automobile accident," "we handle cases in elder law, personal injury, corporate law, mergers and aquisitions, DUI defense, etc."

The ads are either empty boasts or laundry lists of the areas of law they practice. (And by the way, you probably won't find the same firm practicing admiralty law, mergers and aquisitions and DUI defense).

So how CAN a law firm market itself effectively without diminishing its professionalism? Easy, write and give out free information pieces.

If you are a lawyer start saving all the memos and briefs you write. Also save your research notes and cases you find interesting as you prepare for court. With few exceptions, these materials can be rewritten for lay audiences and turned into white papers, tip sheets, brochures, articles for your website, or articles you can submit to trade magazines, etc.

You can also start a blog like our friend in Kansas. Write two to three paragraphs a day on your field of practice and in not too many months your site will have a very high number of visitors every day.

Frankly, I would like to see the day when I do at least two-thirds of my copywriting work for law firms. I know from personal experience that it is a wonderful profession when you are working with clients you like and doing the kind of work you believe in. But it is an extremely stressful way to make a living if you have to accept unpleasant clients or take on unpleasant cases just to keep the doors open.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown

If you are in a service business, there are only three ways you can get new clients:

• You to client: “Will you do business with me?”
  
• You to client: “I do great work, will you do business with me?”
  
• Client to you: “We’ve heard you do great work, will you do business with us?”
  

  (excerpt from “Consultant-Market Yourself,” by Robert Gentle)

Pop quiz, which of these three options would you prefer? Really? You all chose option #3? Imagine that!

So how to you get potential clients to hear about you, form a favorable opinion of the quality of your work, and initiate contact with you?

While there are many ways you can do this, I believe that the following is probably the easiest path:

• Start with your website. Make your site a Mecca for people seeking information on your field of expertise. If you post a lot of informational articles on your site, people will form the (accurate) opinion that you are an expert on that topic.
  
  
• Attract traffic to your site by writing short articles with links back to your website. Publish these articles on article submission sites like ezinearticles.com, articlecity.com, goarticles.com and articlebliss.com.

  Each of these sites allow other webmasters to post your articles on their sites as long as they make no changes and keep the link pointing back to your site. This creates a viral effect that can multiply your single article dozens of times, with each new site that publishes your article containing a link pointing back to your site.
  
  

• Attract more traffic by posting appropriate comments on related blogs. Each comment should include your signature file with a link back to your site. Do not spam! If your comments are not appropriate to the conversation and are not informative, you will not convince anyone that you are an expert.
  
  
• Find related online forums with http://www.boardtracker.com/. This is a search engine especially designed to search out what is being discussed in millions of online forums. Once you have located a discussion related to your topic, repeat the previous step for commenting on related blogs. But be sure your comment is not just a self-serving plug, but is relevant to the discussion and provides helpful information.
  
  
• Produce new content regularly and often. Make sure your site always contains new, fresh information so people will keep coming back.

  Eventually, you will have written enough content that you can repackage the information in another form, like an ebook, a printed booklet or even a full-length book. Then you will have an information product you can truly leverage to get your client acquisition process in high gear.

COPYRIGHT © 2006, Charles Brown