Marketing Maestro

We have done our share of book marketing but today a book ad caught my eye.  The title of the book How To Get Rich by Felix Dennis (founder of Maxim magazine) just comes right out and says what the book is all about.  The ad's headline is You'll Never Get Rich Working For Your Boss.  Who wouldn't stop and read that ad?  It is very direct and to the point and hits at the heart of the subject matter. This book like so many of the others in our industry shares the author's secrets on how he made his fortune.

The question remains whether or not people will choose Felix Dennis's book over a Trump book.  What do you think?

For the last few weeks we have been running a multivariate test on one of our registration pages. The final results are not in but some of the initial findings are worth sharing.  Here are a few key areas everyone could probably benefit from when building out web pages or writing sales copy.  

• The most important element in terms of increasing conversion is to present copy in bullet points (or some similar format). Basically people don't want to read. People like to get bite size chunks of information.  Bullet points are easy to scan, read and remember.
• Be very direct with your call to action buttons. If you want someone to register then say 'register now' not submit, go, next etc.

Changing some of these elements has helped improve our conversion rate by up to 50% in some cases.

Note: These results are based on our user and test data and might differ for your business.

Have you tested copy formats or button copy? 

My friend Jeff sent this video of the lemonade business my way.  If only starting, running and marketing a business was this easy.

I guess everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten is true.... 

Enjoy

It is commonly believed that Hallmark made greeting cards popular by creating different occasions for giving cards to friends and family.  They may even be responsible for a number of 'holidays' on our calendar.  Many companies celebrate national holidays with sales and marketing promotions but how many companies celebrate their customer's life events (OK my dentist sends me a birthday card.  Lucky me...) or even their own special days?

Today we did just that and celebrated our 3 Year Anniversary by posting a note on the Trump Blog.  In addition to giving a discount on our products we wrote about the past year and some upcoming product launches. The hope is to create a bit more insight for our clients and to make everyone feel a part of this exciting company.

Did you ever think of creating a holiday to call your own?  It could be fun.

What can you do as a marketer to use life events to market your business?

This photo was sent to us by a friend of a TRUMPU employee in OR.  See the license plate.

If I knew who this was I would send them a Trump U. hat to wear when they drove around...

I read the following in my friend Andrea Nierenberg's newsletter.

"Great customer service never goes out of style, yet sometimes we may forget that our best customer or client is our competitor's best prospect."

I thought it was worth sharing for a few reasons:

1. Who doesn't need this reminder?  Treat your customers well or they will leave.  It is very easy for a competitor to pick up one of your unhappy customers.
2. When the economy is hurting and budgets are cut a good place to look for new sales opportunities is your existing customers.
3. Let's not forget the old marketing idiom that it costs less to keep an existing customer than acquire a new one.
4. I am hoping to share some marketing results from a customer marketing effort that will illustrate how powerful your customer database can be if treated properly.

How often do you hear an executive struggling with a marketing problem and not wanting to hire an agency or additional resources declare:

"Our business is so unique no one knows it like we do"

Of course not and that is exactly why you should hire an outside resource.  You know your business and how to run it but marketing your business is a different skill set.  If you run your own business you are probably too close to it to have a good perspective on driving new customers to your business.  You need outside advice and resources to help solve those marketing problems.  Don't get me wrong business owners and executives should have marketing insight but you shouldn't try to do everything on your own.

Does this mean you should listen to anyone who has marketing advice?  Probably not, since many of those people are probably trying to sell you something but if you have a few key resources you will be well served in the long term. 

Let me let you in on a little secret (shhh). There are no business that are so unique that a good marketing person couldn't find a hook to use.  Just hire a great marketer or marketing partner.