How To Give Your Business AnEdge Over Your Competitors!

See inside for the best ways to give yourbusiness an edge over your competitors

The 10 fatal marketing mistakes and how to avoid them

Fourteen ways to keep your customers coming back and spending money with you

The three most important fields in your database and howto use them to make more money . . .Plus more!

Special Report by Michael Ross

Copyright Notices

Copyright © 1997−1999 by Michael Ross

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by anymeans, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from thepublisher. Requests for further information should be addressed to

Miros Designs Marketing, Suite 1, 144 Casino St, Lismore, NSW, 2480.

Published by Miros Designs Marketing

Suite 1, 144 Casino StLismore, NSW, 2480,Australia.Ph: (02) 6622 2020.Email: miros@ozemail.com.auFirst Published 1997Printed and bound in Australia.

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Legal Notices

While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication,neither the author nor the Publisher assumes any responsibility for error, omissions, lackof care, default, negligence or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein.

This publication is not intended for use as a source of legal or accounting advice. ThePublisher wants to stress that the information contained herein may be subject to varyingstate and/or local laws or regulations. All users are advised to retain competent counselto determine what state and/or local laws or regulations may apply to the users particularbusiness applications of this material.

The purchaser or reader of this publication assumes sole responsibility for the use ofthese materials and information. Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, bothfederal and state and local, governing professional licensing, business practices,advertising and all other aspects of doing business in Australia or any other jurisdictionis the sole responsibility of the purchaser or reader. The author, publisher and alldistributors of this book assume no responsibility or liability for any loss or damage ofany kind whatever arising as a result of any purchaser or reader of these materials actingon the opinions, advice and recommendation expressly or implicitly published here. Wedo not guarantee any results you may or may not get as a result of following ourrecommendations. You must test everything for yourself.

Any perceived slights of specific people or organisations is unintentional.

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Introduction

The information contained in this book works. However it will only work, and increaseyour bank account, if you use it. This book can help you and your business in a numberof ways . . .

You will have more happy customers.

Your turnover and profits will be higher.

You’ll have more time and the freedom to do the things in life that you really enjoy.

You won’t be at the mercy of the economy or fickle customers.

You’ll never run ineffective promotions again. Instead you’ll only run promotions thatwork and get results.

What this gives you is an easier and more enjoyable life because all the worry aboutmaking money has been removed and replaced with marketing systems that give yourbusiness an edge. I hope you use the information contained within these pages because itdoes work, and can make your business and life more pleasurable.

I wish you every increased success in your life and business, and leave you with this onethought . . .

• The society in which we live is based on selling. All of us are selling something atsometime. And we only move, or fail to move, in direct response to our salesefforts.

• It does not matter what you are selling, if you present it to the right people, in theright way, you will have plenty of buyers.

Finally, happy reading, and if you are unsure about anything, or you have anysuggestions, give me a call, I’d love to hear from you. My number is 0414−726−271.

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Chapter 1

The 10 Marketing Mistakes That Are Fatal To Your Business And How To AvoidThem

The very first thing you must realise about marketing is that it is the bridge that allowsyour customers and your products to get together. Without marketing, yourcustomers might never know about your products, and so the two might never meet.

Because marketing is so vitally important to the success of your business, you mustmake sure it is doing the job it is supposed to do. And that simply is, to bring yourproducts and customers together. Do you want more convincing? Statistics show that80% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. This failure is blamed on poorbusiness sense. The businesses supposedly fail because the owners have no idea on howto run a business.

I say that sounds like a load of B.S. If you can set up a business from scratch, building itfrom the ground up, than surely you are smart enough to run the business. But this iswhere the problem is. Yes, you know all about your business and how to run it. If youdidn’t you wouldn’t have gone into it. But do you know how to market your business?The answer is probably ‘NO.’

Businessess don’t fail because of poor business sense or planning. Businesses failbecause the owners don’t know how to market the business and its products. Afterall, businesses don’t close down because of too many happy customers. They closebecause of too few customers.

And what brings your customers and your products together? That’s right,MARKETING! So businesses close down because the owners don’t know how tomarket their businesses. The following marketing mistakes are lethalto your business. Ifyou are making these mistakes stop now! They are killing your business.

After reading this chapter you will know what the most fatal marketing mistakes are andhow to avoid them. And knowing that will enable you to streamline your marketing formaximum efficiency. What follows are the 10 fatal marketing mistakes and how to avoidthem. Read them and see if you are making any of these mistakes. If you are, you have alittle bit of work ahead of you. If you are not making any of these mistakes you are eithernot marketing, or you are very rich already.

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The 10 Fatal Marketing Mistakes

Marketing Mistake #1: Not Monitoring.

Before you run any promotion whatsoever, the first thing you must do is have a way tomonitor its results. This will allow you to see what kind of results your promotions aregetting. Because if you don’t have a way to monitor the results of your promotions youhave no way to know whether or not they are working.

And if you don’t know whether or not it is working how can you improve it. After all...

You can’t improve what you don’t measure

Another way to look at it is, what you measure you can improve. Either way it means thesame thing. Let me ask you, would pay for an ad in the newspaper and not even check tosee whether or not the ad ran? No you would not. So why run an ad or promotion and notknow whether the ad or promotion is actually doing anything? That’s like paying forsomething without knowing if you’re getting anything for your money.

You must monitor all your ads, letters and promotions. There are no exceptions.

Start off by buying a ring bind folder and inserting clear plastic pockets in it. In thesepockets you put a copy of your ad, letter or promotion, and a copy of the promotionresults analysis form on the next page. Then every time you run any kind of promotionyou fill it in. No exceptions. You’ll imediately be able to tell if your promotion isworking, and very soon you’ll see a big difference between your promotions.

Eventually you will have a folder full of promotions, some good and some not so good.Remove all the not so good ones and put them in another folder. This will leave you witha folder full of promotions that work. Then any time you want or need more money youjust select the appropriate promotion and run it. It’s just like having a money tap.

That’s all very well, but I’m sure you’re wondering how to monitor your promotions.Actually it is very simple. Everytime you run a newspaper ad make it so the ad must bebrought in to take advantage of your offer, or have a cut out coupon as part of the ad. Dothe same with letter box drops. And when you send a letter, stipulate that the letter mustbe brought in, or send a voucher or certificate with the letter that must be brought in.

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And finally, just ask people. Whenever someone rings up ask them where they got yournumber. Or whenever someone purchases something ask them if they are responding tothe ad. It is very very simple. By monitoring all of your sales letters, ads and promotionsyou’ll be able to avoid . . .

Marketing Mistake #2. Not Testing.

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Whenever you come up with an ad, letter or promotion you should test it first to see if itworks. Too many businesses run ads and promotions that are at best pathetic.Yet theyrun these ads over and over and over again. Why? Because they feel they have to. Theyhave budgetted for a certain amount of money to be spent on marketing and so theyspend it.

Also, they saw other businesses running similar looking ads over and over. And theythought ‘that ad must be working because we see it all the time.’ Unfortunately theowner of the ad they are copying from also copied from a useless ad, and so on. And thereason they keep running these useless ads? They figure that eventually it will comegood. Itwon’t.

If you ask them whether their ad works, or how many sales their ad brings, they probablycouldn’t tell you because they don’t monitor. When you run an ad or promotion andmonitor the results, then make a change to the ad or promotion and monitor it again, youwill very quickly discover what is working.

And testing those two, three or eight different offers enables you to come up with thebest promotion. And because you monitored each test you know how much turnovereach promotion brings. Then next time you want to earn $X you simply run thepromotion that brings that much in.

Let me give you an example:

E.g. You decide you want to do a letter box drop to your local area of 15,000 addresses.So you go to the printer and get 15,000 flyers made up. Then you either deliver themyourself or use a delivery service to do all the work. Then you sit back and wait. Andwait . . . and wait . . . and wait.

And after four weeks you look at the number of flyers that were returned and you can’tbeleive it. You see 8 flyers. That’s 8 responses out of 15,000 flyers, or a 0.053%response rate. But look at the next example.

E.g. 2. You decide to do a letter box drop. So you sit down and come up with 5 ideas.You take each idea to the printer and get 1,000 flyers made up of each idea, 5,000 flyersin total. Then you get these flyers delivered and sit back and wait. After four weeks youcount the number of flyers that were returned and discover that flyer number four had thebest results with 180 people responding.

That’s a response rate of 18%. So then you take flyer number four back to the printer toget another 10,000 flyers made up to cover the rest of your area. And you know, because

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you monitored, that you are likely to get 1800 responses out of the 10,000 additionalflyers (the response rate from the test multiplied by the number of additional flyers).

In this case, testing on a small scale saved you a lot of wasted money, and, gave youthe flyer that worked. This same example can, and should, be used when mailing to yourdatabase. Mail to a small section of your database first and monitor the results. Thenwork out what that would mean to your business if you mailed your whole database.

Then test a different letter if you weren’t happy with the results of the first mailling.Then mail the rest of your database. But flyers and letters are not the only thing youshould test. You should test everything. Your newspaper ads, the headlines you use, theway you greet people when they walk in the store, the way you answer the phone, yourprices, your offers, the layout of your shop, the way you and your staff dress, everything.

You should test everything, and monitor everything

Because the only real true way to find out what works and doesn’t work is to put itto the test. Let your customers tell you by their decision to buy or not to buy. And whoknows, you may find that a 10% across the board price rise doesn’t affect your sales, butit will sure increase your profits. And don’t say ‘the customers won’t buy if I increasemy prices.’ Instead, put it to the test.

I’ll say it again because it is so important. You must monitor everything and . . .

TEST! TEST! TEST!

Marketing Mistake #3. Changing Your Marketing Even Though It’s Working.

The first thing you might ask is why do people change their marketing even though it isworking? There are three silly reasons why people change their marketing even though itis working.

1. They don’t monitor their ads and other promotions and feel it is time for a change.

2. They have become used to the regular procession of customers coming in and theconstant stream of money flowing through the register, and don’t realise it is onlybecause of their promotions that business is so good.

3. They are sick and tired of seeing the same ad, letter or promotion day after day andweek after week. Notice how all the reasons for changing marketing even though it isworking depend on one little concept − monitoring.

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Can you now see how important monitoring is to the success of your business? I hope so.What this means is, if you have any kind of ad, letter or promotion that is workingyou should stick with it.

The only three reasons that you should change your marketing are . . .

1. You are just testing a new ad, letter or promotion to see how it goes.

2. You have come up with something better after monitoring and testing a few differentads.

3. It doesn’t work. It has stopped working.

These are the only three reasons you should change your marketing. If your marketing isnot working, drop the promotion like a hot potatoe. But if it is working . . .

Don’t change anything!

Don’t change anything!

Don’t change anything!

The only exception is, if what you change it for is better!

Marketing Mistake #4. Listening To People Who Don’t Know.

Listening to the advice from your family and friends is wrong wrong wrong. Sure theymay mean well but the path to failure is paved with good intentions. And besides, are allthe comments you receive from your family and friends supportive? Some family andfriends can get very jealous, and being green with envy may just be enough for them totry and discourage you. And they will do this by giving you their unsolicited advice.

I’m not saying all your friends and family want to see you fail, or rather, don’t want tosee you get ahead of them. Or that they would intentionlly try to stop you from goingforward. You may have super supportive friends and family. What I am getting at is . . .

Never never never throw away any ad, letter or promotion just because afriend said they wouldn’t read it. You may just be throwing away a real gem

Before you throw something away, test it. Thisis the only way for sure to know whether or not it works.

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Marketing Mistake #5. Using Catchy Jingles And Nifty Slogans Instead Of Reasons ToBuy.

There is only one thing that catchy little jingles and nifty slogans accomplish. They stickin your mind. Sure ads are judged by how recallable they are, but that doesn’t mean theydo the job they were intended for. And that is to make the cash register ring.

Just because you can remember a slogan or a jingle doesn’t mean the ad is working.Unless all you wanted to do was make people remember your slogan or jingle. Everyyear there is a competition for ads. Do you know which ads win awards? The creativeones. The ones that can be remembered. Does that bring with it increased sales? In mostcases, NO.

On the other hand, the ads that increase sales and make the really big bucks hardly everwin an advertising award. Why? Because they didn’t have a lot of recallability, or theyweren’t entertaining or funny. Did they work though? You bet your bottom dollar theydid.

You have to make a decision right now. Do you want to be entertaining, creative andoriginal, or do you want to increase your sales? Because you definitely can’t have themboth. Need more proof? Are the Demtel ads entertaining or funny? No they’re not,they’re just full of information. But do their ads work? You bet they do. You wouldn’tkeep seeing them if they didn’t.

Want even more proof? Just look at the late night infomertials (information packedcommercials). That company has over 300,000 people on its database. Not badconsidering their ads are on at 2 O’clock in the morning. At the time of writing this theywere averaging about 273 new customers every day. And when you consider that theirproducts are all above $100, you can see the benefits of advertising like they do.

Their ads are full of information and give you reasons to buy. It doesn’t matterwhether you like them or hate them, the only thing that matters is, they work. This bringsus to the most important "Golden Rule" you must remember about all your advertising .. .

The More You Tell, The More You Sell!!!

The More You Tell, The More You Sell!!!

The More You Tell, The More You Sell!!!

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All of your advertising must be ‘salesmanship!’ Salesmanship in whatever form ofmedia your marketing takes. Let me ask you, would you send your best salesman to oneof your customers, or even a prospect, and tell him to "Sing our company jingle, say theslogan, mention our name and number, then leave"?

I bet there is no way on this earth you would do that. So why do it in your marketing?The only thing that you have to keep in mind is . . .

Yours ads and letters are your sales team

So fill up your ads, letters and promotions with lots and lots of reasons to buy. And don’tworry about saying too much. You can never say too much, unless what you say isboring. And as for saying people will not read an ad or letter with lots of copy (text),don’t beleive it. Research shows that a newspaper ad that looks like an article willhave a 500% greater response rate than an ad that looks like an ad.

And besides, people that say no−one will read an ad with lots of copy are just too lazy orincompetent to write good selling ads with lots of great copy. Why then do the bigadvertising agencies come up with ads that are catchy but say nothing? Simply because itis four times easier, quicker and cheaper to come up with an ad that says nothingcompared to an ad that actually works.

The only thing you have to remember is . . .

The More You Tell, The More You Sell!

Marketing Mistake #6. Not Selling To Your Existing Customers.

Most people like to buy the same products or similar products over and over. They dothis because their want for what you have has not been satisfied. They want bigger andbetter. And they want more of it. It’s just human nature. Knowing this can make andsave you lots of money.

Your best prospects (people most likely to buy) are people that have shown an interest inyour product or service. And who are the people that have shown an interest in yourproduct or service?

Your past customers.

Consider this, it is up to seven times easierandcheaper selling something to your existingcustomers than selling to someone who is not your customer. So if you are not selling to

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your existing customers then you are spending up to seven times more money than youhave to.

You should sell to all the people that have identified themselves as being interested andwanting your product or service − your existing customers. The best method for doingthis is with a sales letter. The letter should offer them excellent guarantees, fantasticservice, freebies, top deals, discounts and so on.

Basically, what you are doing is giving your customers a little incentive to come andspend money with you again. It’s like bribing them to come back.

Marketing Mistake #7: Thinking Your Customers Are Smarter Than They Really Are.

Most people don’t have a high reading ability. And most people don’t understand bigwords. And your customers just happen to be like most people. Whenever you design anad, letter or promotion, you must explain things in the simplest possible way. Nevernever never assume your customer will understand. Because if it is at all possible to bemisunderstood, it will be.

Just keep that in mind when you write any copy for yourself.

The best way you can overcome being misunderstood is to use short small words, andshort paragraphs. This makes your writing easy to read and easy to understand. Anddon’t worry that some of your more advanced customers will think poorly of you, theywon’t. In fact they will really enjoy reading your copy because it is easy to understand.And that makes it easy to read. Just remember to keep it as simple as possible becauseyour customers are probably not as smart as you give them credit for.

Marketing Mistake #8: Forgetting That People Have Been Stung Before.

Everyone at some time or another has been ripped off. And whether or not they wentback and complained or not, they all have something in common. They never went backto ‘that’ store again, and they become wary. What this all means is that there are threereasons why someone that has money to spend won’t buy your product or service. Andthose three reasons are . . .

1: They don’t see a high enough value in your product to bother parting with theirmoney. They want to hold on to their money more than they want to hold on to yourproduct.

2. They don’t trust you. They don’t believe your guarantee. They don’t believe your

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product will do what you say it will do. They may even think the whole thing is agimmick. A con.

3. They do not want what you’ve got.

This creates a problem. How do you convince them that you are genuine and that youroffer is real? You simply give them details, and be specific. Don’t say over 1000 tochoose from, say a choice of 1034. Give reasons why you are selling for the price youare. Even have testimonials from other satisfied customers. Explain everything in detailusing short small words. Even bribe them a little with a free trial. Tell them everything.Then tell them more. Remember . . .

The More You Tell, The More You Sell!

Marketing Mistake #9: Not Using Headlines.

Most businesses do not use headlines in their advertising. And yet 80% of the success ofan ad is dependant on the headline. So you can see how vitally important headlines are.

The purpose of a headline is to grab the readers attention and make them read the ad orletter.

Newspapers are great at this. You will never see a newspaper advertise a story with aheadline that says "Written by Joe Bloggs." No. A newspaper headline would gosomething like "Man Arrested After Killing Frenzy." So if they don’t advertise astory by using the writers name, why should you advertise your product or service withyour name, or business name? Research has shown that headlines can increase theresponse of an ad by up to 1200% or more in some cases. And that is from ads that onlyhad the headline changed. The rest of the ad stayed the same.

An ad for your ad

Your headline is an ad for your ad. People use headlines to help them decide what theyare going to read. In fact five times as many people read headlines than read the copy. Soyou must use your headline to grab the attention of as many readers as possible. Just lookat these two examples and ask yourself which one would get you to read the ad. Also askyourself which type of headline do you normally use.

How To Make $1200 a Week With Your ComputerEven If You Don’t Know How To Use It

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or . . .

Joe’s Computer Shop

If you thought headline number one would get more people to read the ad thencongratulations, you are correct. Of course number one would get a higher readership,after all it’s offering something that all of us want − money. And, you don’t even have toknow how to use your computer to do it.

Headline number two on the other hand would hardly be read at all. It’s headline offersnothing, and no reason to look at the ad. Both ads could be for the same thing, acomputer training course, but you wouldn’t read number two to find out would you? Soad number two would end up being a waste of money.

Look at these next two examples. The first one is a typical ad or flyer, and the second isone that will work. One has a headline and other information that encourages you to buy,the other one doesn’t. Which one do you use, and which one do you think would workwell?

Could you use something like this in your business? You bet you could. You simplyfigure out what you could offer and go from there. But remember, before you run anypromotion you must have a way to monitor it’s results. Then you can test it and analysethe results. Then test and analyse another one, and another and so on. And when you findthe promotion that works the best, keep using it until it stops working. Don’t use it oncethen come up with something else. Not unless what you come up with is better.

Anyway, here’s example 1, a typical flyer.

As you can see, this flyer has no headline, or rather a headline that says Joe’s Cafe’. Thisflyer doesn’t do anything to make you want to go to the cafe’. It just lets you know thecafe’ is there. Are you using this kind of advertising and marketing? This second flyer iscompletely different in look and content and is something that you probably never would

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have thought of. Or have probably never seen.

Example number 2, an attention grabbing flyer.

Which flyer do you think will have the greatest response? Number 2, that’s right. Ofcourse the offer is different, after all, number one didn’t actually offer anything. Did thesecond flyer cost any more to get made up? No it didn’t. Both flyers are exactly the samesize, would cost the same to get made up, and would cost the same to deliver.

And if you’re going to spend the money anyway, why not spend it on something that willwork, like flyer number two? Well by know you are surely wondering what to put in aheadline to make as many people as possible read your ads, letters and other promotions,that ultimately lead to more sales and more money.

Well, to make your headline effective it must offer your reader a benefit, the biggest oneabout your product or service. This lets the reader know what they will get if they readfurther. A benefit is something that your reader will get from your product or service. Asopposed to a feature which is something your product or service has or does.

Remember the computer headlines? Headline number one was telling the reader that ifthey read the ad they will find out how to earn $1200 a week with their computer even ifthey don’t know how to use it. That’s a benefit. A benefit that you will have if you do thetraining course.

You could also sum up your offer in your headline.

An example of summing up your offer could go something like this . . .

FREE $80.00 Outfit. Buy any jeans plus polo andget a FREE $80.00 jeans and polo outfit

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If you notice, this is the same as 50% off, half price or two for one, but it is far moreeffective because it uses the word free. You could even use your headlines as openinglines for your sales staff.

E.g. A shoe store could ask ‘How would you like to get rid of sore feet forever?’ thenfollow up with ‘Here’s a shoe that looks good, is extremely comfortable, will reduce footodour and is the most comfortable shoe you will ever wear.’ Do you think it would be ahard sale after that?

Here’s another example of how a headline for an ad can also be an opening line for yoursales staff. If you sell shaving gear why not get your staff to ask every man that walks in‘How would you like a closer shave without nicks or cuts?’

All you need to remember is, your headlines must offer a benefit to your reader, thebiggest one you can think of. You should also make your headlines easy tounderstand. Don’t be tricky or so clever the reader has to guess what you’re offering.And don’t design the headline so that the reader has to read the rest of the ad to knowwhat your headline means, because they just won’t bother.

And don’t worry about how long your headline is. If it’s good, it will get read whetherit’s 4 words long or 18 words long. Some good words to use in your headlines are,You... Your... New... Now... How to... Attention... Amazing... Easy... Money... Sex...14 Ways to... 14 Reasons why... Save... and the best word of all FREE!

The reason you and your are so good as words to use in your headlines is because theyspeak to the reader. They make the headline personal. It makes the headline talk just toyou instead of an impersonal appeal to the masses. Why not try a headline in your nextad?

Marketing Mistake #10. Not Asking For Help.

You should ask the advice of other successful people as often as you can. You just maybe surprised at their willingness to help. It gives them a chance to ‘show−off’ theirknowledge. Also, all successful people know that what goes around comes around. Theyknow that to give is to receive and they will love to lend a helping hand.

If you can’t figure out a problem or marketing approach, ask someone, me. You mustrealise that you are not alone, and that every problem you have has already beenencountered and solved by someone else. But you’ll never know unless you swallowyour pride and ask. You could say something like ‘I have a problem and I need yourhelp.’ And who knows, it may be the start of a mutually beneficial business relationship.

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Chapter 2

Fourteen Ways To Improve Your Customers’ Loyalty And Keep Them ComingBack Again And Again To Spend More Money With You!

Most business owners spend all their time going after new customers. In the process theyignore the person that just spent money with them. This makes the person that just spentmoney feel used and unappreciated. They may not actually think ‘they’re only interestedin my money’ but that is the feeling that imprints on their subconscious mind.

All the customer knows is for some reason they don’t like that business, or shop, andwill never go back. So to make sure that your customers keep coming back and spendingmore money with you, you must earn their loyalty. You must become a friend tothem. After all, wouldn’t you rather have customers that are your friends as well, insteadof just customers?

Well, the solution is really really simple. If you want your customers to be your friendsyou must treat them like friends. And that means being friendly. You see, all yourcustomers are people who are just like you. They probably enjoy the same things as youdo, and may even have the same problems as you do. They may even own a business justlike you do.

So it stands to reason that they would like to be treated in the same way that you wouldlike to be treated. As a friend. When you treat your customer as a friend they willbecome more loyal to you and your business. And the more loyal your customers, themore money you will make. Because as you now know it costs up to seven times less toget your existing customers to buy from you., then getting a stranger to buy.

But guess what, the more loyal your customers the easier and cheaper it becomes to getthem to buy again. So go on, treat your customers like friends. Have fun with them, jokearound and make it pleasurable for them to spend money with you. And guess what?Before you know it, they will be your friends, and they will come back and spend moremoney with you.

But there is another bonus as well. They will talk about you to their friends. And theirfriends may become loyal customers as well. Then they will tell other people and so on,and so on. See how the good word can spread. If you treat your customers like dirt, thebad word can spread just as quick. So why not treat your customers with the friendshipand respect they deserve?

After all, your customers are your lifeblood, without them your business would die.But

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don’t go overboard with friendship and friendliness because it will come across asinsincere. Just be genuine and you will have no problem coming across in the right way.

14 Secrets Of Customer Loyalty And Increased Sales

1.Send Lots And Lots Of Thank You Letters:

The very first thing you must do after someone has purchased something from you is tosend them a thank you letter. Thank them for their purchase. After all, they just partedwith their hard earned money and gave it to you, so why not send them a nice thank youletter. It’s the least you could do. You can use one of the letters at the back of the book

Also send a thank you letter if your customer refers someone to you, pays their bill ontime, gives you their business, sends you a testimonial or passes on the name of someonethat you can get supplies from or something like that. Basically you should be thankingyour customers for everything you can think of.

2. Make Thank You Phone Calls:

Thank you phone calls are just a variation on the thank you letter. Instead of sending aletter to someone thanking them, you ring them up and thank them in person. You oryour staff could spend a few minutes each day ringing up and thanking your customers.You could say something like . . .

"Hi (their name), it’s (your name) from (the name of your business). I’m ringing becauseI just wanted to say Thank You for . . . etc."

3. Make How Are You Going Calls:

This is just a variation on the thank you call. But instead of picking up the phone tothank the person, you pick up the phone just to see how they are going and whethereverything is fine. You could say something like . . .

"Hi (their name), It’s (your name) from (your business name). I was just ringing up tosee how things are going?"

4. Send Your Customers Birthday Letters:

You like to be remembered on your birthday; so do your customers. So send themsomething to show that you are thinking of them. The easiest and cheapest thing to sendthem is a birthday letter. You could send them a little gift or a gift voucher along with it.

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If you don’t know what to write just use the letter at the back of the book.

5. Send Your Customers Christmas Greetings:

Every year people send out heaps of Christmas cards and eagerly wait by their post boxto receive cards from others. They then put these cards with all the others they have. Soif you send a card to your customers it will end up in the sea of cards with all the others.You must do something to make your Christmas greeting stand out.

The easiest and cheapest way to send a little good cheer to your customers is with aChristmas letter. You could send a letter with a piece of tinsel, or Christmas paper,attached to the top. You could even include a little bag of lollies, or just one lolly.

It will certainly make your card stand out.

Do you think your customers will remember it? You bet they will. They’ll even showtheir friends, and before you know it that goodwill snowball is rolling again. You can usethe Christmas letter at the back of the book if you don’t know what to write.

6. Ask Your Customers For Their Opinion On Your Performance:

Because your business is totally dependant on your customers, you must remember that .. .

Customer Perception Is The Reality!

It is what your customers think of you that matters, not what you think. Just because youthink that everything is fine doesn’t mean your customers will. And if your customersare annoyed, then you may lose them. The only way to know for sure whether or not youare doing a good job and whether your customers are happy with you is to ask them.

Every six to twelve months you should be sending out customer questionnaires, orfeedback forms. And based on the answers that come back you will know what areas ofyour business need improving. To get the most useful information simply ask thefollowing five questions or use the letter at the back of the book.

1. What do you like the most about our products?

2. What do you like the most about our service?

3. What do you like the least about our products and service?

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4. How can we improve our service to you?

5. What can we do to help you in your business? (if you are dealing with otherbusinesses)

Once you have this information you must analyse it. If there is a recurring comment, andthe comment is bad, you must act upon it immediately. Because you obviously have aproblem. You should try and act on everything you possibly can. That way when acertain customer comes in and sees that you have acted on their suggestion, they’ll bedelighted.

And remember to send thank you letters to everyone that returned their questionnaires.This will encourage them to fill out the next one you send them.

7. Send Your Customers Awards:

Everybody likes to be appreciated. And everybody likes to receive things as a token ofappreciation. Because it’s one thing to say well done or good job or thanks for being acustomer who spends heaps of money, but it is another thing to receive something foryour good job and for spending lots of money.

So why not send your customers awards and certificates for shopping with you. You canuse the letter at the back of the book It’ll make them feel good. And it’ll make them feelappreciated, and show that you really do care about them.

8. Hold Functions For Your Best Customers:

This takes the award certificate one step further. You can put on a breakfast or lunch,maybe even a dinner, for your top customers. You may even hold a seminar with a guestspeaker that will talk about something interesting. You can even turn it into a little awardceremony, but make sure that everyone that is invited gets some kind of award.

Ask your customers to bring a friend. Then send a thank you letter for attending thefunction and offer their friend a little bonus or free trial of your product or service. Thiscan lead to a lot more business because your customers’ friends probably have the sameinterests as your customers. And that means they will probably relate to your product orservice instantly.

You can hold the function for free, or charge a large or small amount of money to coverthe costs. And you can use one of the letters at the back of the book to invite yourcustomers.

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9. Let Your Customers Know How You Do Things:

You could produce a little booklet that lets them know your procedures on certainelements of your business. E.g. A hairdresser could hand out a little booklet that detailswhat a perm involves. If you have an office with lots of staff you could show yourcustomers around. You can explain what some of the duties of your staff are as you showyour customer around.

When you present a bill or send an invoice explain how you arrived at that amount.Explain why the bill is the amount it is. You will find that the more and more youexplain things to your customers the happier and more trusting they will be. They won’tquestion you or your bill. They will be happier with you and won’t even bother to lookelsewhere.

10. Educate Your Customers:

To build up your customers’ confidence in you, you should educate them. This will showthem that you know what you are doing. And it will highten the way your customersthink of you. It will establish you as the expert, in their eyes. Your customers will trustyou more. And they will trust your products, service and advertising more.

You educate your customers by providing them with information. Stacks and stacks ofinformation. You could produce a newsletter, write articles for the local newspaper,write reports and send them information letters. You could even hold a seminar andinvite all your customers − for a fee.

Your information letters could just explain all about some new product or breakthrough.E.g. A nursery could send a letter that just explains about a new grass seed and how itwas developed etc. Although, if you’re going to send a letter anyway, why not includesome kind of sales effort, as well as the information.

But these aren’t the only ways to educate your customers and make them happy. Youcould also . . .

11. Become An Information Centre:

This takes the education process one step further. You simply become a source ofinformation on all sorts of topics that affect your customers. You may even become asmall scale library and have books, videos, audio tapes and reports etc.

E.g. A health food store could develop some small booklets or reports on things that

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effect the majority of their customers. They might produce a booklet on how to havehealthier skin using products from nature. Once you have these products you can lendthem to your customers. Or you may want to sell them for a small fee. If you manage toget a really really good deal on a book or something similar, you may want to pass on thesavings to your customers.

And if a customer rings you up and wants help solving a particular problem, you couldsend them some information for free − or charge them. It depends on how muchinformation they are getting. Or you could give them the information over the phone.

Whether you give all your information away or charge for it, is up to you. The purposeof having this information is to create a dependency. Make your customers dependent onyou. Then they will turn to you always. And you will have a regular stream of income.

12. Give Your Customers Recognition:

The idea is to flatter your customers and get them to talk about you to their friends. Andin the process build your credibility which in turn will lead to more sales. The first thingyou must do is get testimonials from your customers. Testimonials about the results yourcustomers got from using your product or service.

You then put these in your sales letters, your reception area, on the wall of your shop andanywhere else that your customers might see them. When the customer that wrote thetestimonial sees it they will feel flattered and talk to their friends about it. And this willbuild great goodwill.

It will also increase your credibility which will lead to more sales. Because newcustomers can see that people use you and your products or services and are happy. Thisworks very well because everybody has been stung before. And showing a testimonialtells your new customer that you can be trusted.

How do you get these testimonials?

You Ask For Them!

You can ring your customer up and say something like this . . .

"(their name), It’s (your name) from (your business). I’d really like to get a photo of youand your business, and a testimonial if possible. If they turn out well, we may even putthem up in (our shop, reception area) where people can see them, (and promote yourbusiness at the same time. − if dealing with another business)."

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Or you could ask them to send you a photo of them using your product or service. Youcould then display that in your shop or reception area. You can get them to agree byrunning a competition and entering them in it when they say yes. You could ring themup, or send a letter, and say something like this . . .

"(Persons name), It’s (your name) from (business name). I’d like to tell you about areally special competition we have going. (explain the competition). All you have to doto go in the draw to win (whatever they can win) is send us a photo of you using ourproduct.

It can be zany, wacky, totally way out or serious, and all entries will be displayed in(where you will display them). If you don’t have a camera or film don’t worry. Just let usknow and we’ll come around and take the photo ourselves . . .etc." You can use similarapproaches to get written testimonials. Run a competition. To enter the draw all yourcustomer has to do is write a testimonial.

When you display these, your customers will come in just to see them and they will feelflattered. They will almost feel famous. Give it a go. You’ll be surprised how willingyour customers are when you ask them.

13. Give Suprise Gifts:

Everybody likes to get gifts and suprises, even your customers. So why not make theirday and surprise them. Next time you make a sale include a little something extra. It maybe a little gadget or a small bag of lollies or something. It doesn’t matter what, as long asit is something.

You can also instruct all your staff to do the same. Whenever they make a sale, take anorder, do a delivery etc., they should include a little something extra. You could includea small bag of lollies (one of those small ‘not for retail sale’ bags that you get in biggerbags) with a note that says . . .

"I thought you might like these, they are my favourites." or "Here’s a little something Ithought you might enjoy." You just willnot believe the positive impact this will have onyour customers. Man, will they be impressed. Will they remember you? You bet theywill!

14. Get Your Staff Involved:

After all, they are part of your business as well. Ask your staff for their ideas. Ask themhow they think the customers could be served and looked after better. But that’s not all.

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Give them recognition for their ideas. Develop some kind of incentive scheme thatencourages your staff to put in that little bit extra.

You can let them have their own personalised little notes that they give out with surprisegifts when they make a sale. Make your staff feel like they are part of something insteadof someone that’s just getting paid to do ajob. This will actually make them happier andthey’ll work harder. They’ll be more willing to please the customers (because they getrecognition for it). And in turn your customers will be happier.

All the ideas in this chapter willwork. But you must do them. You must put them intoaction. You can even make one of your staff responsible for making sure that whateveryou decide to do actually gets done − everytime. These fourteen ways to improve yourcustomers’ loyalty are not the be all and end all. I’m sure that you or your staff can thinkof your own unique ways to make your customers feel special and appreciated. And I’msure you and your staff can think of ways to make your business more fun and enjoyable.So just do it!

More interesting information on customer feedback.

Most unhappy customers tell about 9 or 10 people about you, your business and whythey are unhappy. Nine out of ten unhappy customers will not complain to the businessthey are unhappy with. They will just never come back. For every customer thatcomplains to you about something, 26 other customers have the same complaint butdon’t say anything.

Over three quarters of customers who complain, in person or over the phone, willcontinue to come back if you fix up their problem. If you fix up their problem reallyquickly, without making a big fuss about it, 95% of the complaining customers willcome back and do business with you.

When you fix up your customers problems quickly and without fuss, they are soimpressed that they will immediately tell an average of five people about it. This isbecause no other businesses treat their customers with the respect and appreciation theydeserve.

To help improve how you relate to your customers you and your staff should write downeverything you don’t like about other businesses and how they deal with you.

Write down things like; "Don’t like shops that want to look in my bag." "Don’t likebeing asked − can I help you − cause all I’m going to say is, no just looking." "Don’t likesales staff that just hover around you, looking over your shoulder." "Don’t like waiting

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to be served whilst the person behind the counter just chats to someone else about theirpersonal and social life." "Don’t like it when the sales staff keep asking if you’re right,do you need a hand, how’re you going in there etc., when you’re in the change roomtrying something on."

Do you get the idea?

Once you have this list of dislikes, analyse your business and see how many of these youor your staff are doing. When you find some, stop doing them imediately and change tosomething else.

E.g. Instead of saying "Can I help you?" and getting the standard "No I’m just looking."Why not say "Have you been to the store before?"

That is only a minor thing but research shows that this small change can increase salesby up to 16%. Why go to all this trouble? you ask. Because if there is something that youdon’t like, what makes you think your customers will like it? And besides, friends don’ttreat each other that way, do they?

Chapter 3

The 3 Most Important Fields In Your Database And How To Use Them To MakeMore Money

Every business, and that means yours, whether large or small should have a database. Adatabase is a list of customers. But not just a plain ordinary list of names and addresses.What makes a database so special is all the extra information it contains, plus being ableto select customers using this extra information.

Extra information such as what your customer has bought from you in the past, howmuch they have spent with you, when they bought, their birthday, the birthday of familymembers, aniversary, favourite colour, shoe size, dress size, favourite meal etc.

So what’s so good about having this information?

You can section off your database for target marketing; you can market to the peoplemost likely to respond; save money by avoiding mass mailings; save money on yourmarketing costs; your competition never knows what offers you are making to yourcustomers; and when it comes time to sell your business you have solid proof of goodwill.

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However, a database is only as good as the information you have in it. And how cleanthat information is.

You database is said to be clean − and therefore efficient − when it is . . . 1:accurate . . .2:current and up to date . . . 3:free of duplicate names . . . 4:maintained with completedata.

And to keep your database clean you should regularly ask your customers if theinformation you have about them is correct. You do this by sending out questionnaires,ringing them up and asking them, or asking them whenever they come into the shop.Your database should contain as much information as possible about your customers.

Firstly you will need their name and address. This is so you know who they are andwhere they live. After all, you need to know their name and address so you know who tosend your sales letters to, and where to send them. But names and addresses are not theonly bits of information you want about your customers. You’ll also want additionalinformation.

Information such as, when they first became your customer, when was the last time theywere sent a sales letter and what it was, their birthday, spouse’s birthday, childrensbirthday, hobbies and leisure interests, income, occupation, property info such as type ofcar − lowset/highset house etc., and anything else that might relate specifically to yourbusiness.

Such as shoe size for a shoe store, bra size for a lingerie store, favourite meal for arestaurant etc.

Plus. Your database must have a field for Frequency, Recency and Monetary Value.Because it is these three fileds that will decide how valuable your database is.

Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value are thethree most important fields in your database!

Without these three fields your database is worthless. Before I explain what Recency,Frequency and Monetary Value are you’re obviously wondering what ‘field’ means. Afield is simply an area of your database that stores a certain type of information. E.g. Thefield for ‘first name’ contains your customers’ first name.

O.K. lets move on.

So what information do the fields of Recency, Frequency and Monetary Value contain?

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1: Recency:

Quite simply, recency means the last time your customer bought something from you, orresponded to your offer. This could simply be a date that shows when they lastpurchased. It shows how recent their purchase was.

2: Frequency:

As it’s name suggests, this field contains information that shows you how frequentlyyour customer has bought since becoming a customer. Or the number of times they havebought in the last twelve months, or six months, or whatever time period you decide on.

3: Monetary Value:

This field shows you the amount of money your customer has spent with you sincebecoming your customer. Or in the last twelve months, or six months, or whatever timeperiod you decide. I would recomend you keep track of their total lifetime purchasesinstead of a set time frame. Or keep track of their lifetime purchases as well as theirpurchases over a set period of time.

So now you know what to put in these fields how do these three fields to determinewhether a customer will buy again? The more recently a person has spent money withyou, the more likely they will again. This is because you are still fresh in their mind −and they are in a buying mood. The more frequently someone spends money with you,the greater chance they will again. They develop a buying habit with you.

And generally speaking, the more someone spends with you, the more they will continueto spend. They obviously like your products and they like dealing with you. As you cansee, these three fields, recency, frequency and monetary value, go hand in hand witheach other.

However, all three are not equally important.

The order of importance for these fields is − recency; frequency; then monetary value.

This is because the more recently someone has bought something the greater the chancethey will buy again. They are in a buying mood. E.g. Someone buys a computer. For awhile they will be looking for programmes to install, printers to buy and otherequipment. And the best time to sell them this stuff is as soon as they have bought thecomputer − even better, whilst they are buying the computer.

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On the other hand, someone that bought a computer 2 years ago isn’t as interested in thenew programmes because they are used to what they have, and they get by with it. Sohow do you use these three fields to increase your profits and sales?

Firstly, to make sure you can use the information efficiently you need to store theinformation in the right way. The field for recency should contain a date. The date yourcustomer last purchased something from you. The field for frequency should hold a listof dates. The date of each time the customer bought something from you. Or you mightjust want to have a number − representing the number of times your customer has spentmoney with you.

And the field for monetary value should contain the amount − in dollars − of yourcustomers’ purchases. And what they bought. You then combine frequency andmonetary value to have a list of dates that show what was bought and for how much.Even have a section that shows the total amount spent with you.

Organising your database this way will enable you to use your database for maximumefficiency.

So how does it work?

You decide to run a promotion. So, being a smart business owner you decide to marketto the people that have already shown that they are interested in your product − yourexisting customers. You come up with a great idea. But before you rush out and mailyour whole database, you check it out to see who is most likely to respond.

What you find is that only half your customers would be interested, and so you mail onlyto them. If you had 2000 people on your database you have just saved yourself the costof mailing 1000 letters. That’s over $450 you just saved.

Let me give you a few examples:

E.g. 1. You own a local restaurant. All of your customers are kept on a database on yourcomputer. Your records have their names and addresses, the date they were last mailedto, the date they were last here and what they had, when they had it and how much it cost− over the last 12 months. As well as whether it was a credit card payment or cash.

You decide that you are going to have a special theme night in two weeks. It will be aMiddle Eastern night with entertainment provided by a Belly Dancer, Harem Girls(waitresses in disguise) serving the food, and a set menu of Middle Eastern dishes.

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Plus, you will be selling the set menu for $50 per head. And that just happens to be $20per head above the average price − even though it won’t cost you $20 extra per head toput the night on. So you go to your database to see who dined with you within the lasttwo weeks and spent $50 or more, per head, on their meal. And whether they regularlycome to the restaurant.

You find that 100 people that regularly come to the restaurant have spent $50 or moreper head within the last two weeks. So you mail your promotion to them. And presto.You have just targetted your marketing to the people most likely to respond − pastcustomers who regularly spend a certain amount of money with you.

This means they are used to spending that amount of money and so would think nothingof it to spend that amount again. This type of idea was used by a restaurant on the GoldCoast. They sent out 20 letters and gave 100 leaflets to people dining in the restaurant 10days before the night. The result was, 41 people booked at $30 per head ($8 above theaverage sale per head). And 21 people were turned away at the door. And everyone thatcame asked when the next one was. The letters and leaflets cost $50.

E.g. 2. You own a hairdressing salon and are having a special on perms for next month.You go to your database and find a list of regular customers who have had a perm andare due to have it redone. You mail your promotion to them.

E.g 3. You own a carpet cleaning business and are having a special on carpet cleaningand pest control. You go to your database and find a list of past customers who havedogs and cats. To them you send your promotion for a combined carpet clean and pestservice. And you sell them on the fact that it is Summer and flea season is here.

In each case you can see that by going to your database and looking for regularcustomers that have spent close to an amount that you want them to spend, or havepurchased something identical or similar to your offer, you have targetted yourmarketing to the people most likely to respond. Better than trying to get your wholedatabase to have a perm, don’t you think?

But that’s not the only way you can make money from your database.

You can rent your database to other businesses. You may charge $100 or more for every1000 names on your database. Of course you would make sure that you only rented yourlist to non competitive businesses.

E.g. A hair salon might rent their list to a clothing store. Or a health food store might renttheir list to a gym. I’m sure that you can think of a business that might be interested in

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your customers.How to get names for your database the quick and easy way.

If you already have a database you can market to your customers now. But what if youdon’t have your customers on a database? How do you get them on to your database?Ask your customers to fill out a questionnaire, like the one at the back of the book. Handone to everyone that comes into your store. To encourage people to fill it out and giveyou their details run a competition with it. Every questionnaire goes in the draw to winsomething.

Place an ad/coupon in the newspaper to win something. All you do is fill the ad/couponin and put it in the box in the store, or send it in. And suddenly you have a whole list ofpeople that are interested in something from your business. I’ve seen this ploy used bynew restaurants. And everytime without exception they get flooded with letters to win afree dinner for two.

And you know what happens after the promotion. You hardly see an ad from them again.Not until they run the promotion again. Why? Because they are sending sales letters toall the people that entered the contest to win a dinner for two. They offer them deals andgive them reasons why they should come in and eat.

And the best part is that . . .your competition never knows what sort of offers you aremaking to your customers. It may be years before they find out. Another way is toproduce a small report or booklet and give this away through a small ad in the paper.

For instance, a landscape business could produce a booklet "The 12 easy ways to keepyour grass lush and green during summer" or "The all natural chemically free wayto treat your grass for grubs" They could advertise this FREE booklet in the localpaper and send it out to anyone that asks for it. They then have a list of people interestedin lawncare. They can then market to these people.

Another way to quickly and easily get names on to your database is to rent somebodyelse’s list of customers. Because you are renting the names you cannot just put all ofthem on your list, that’s illegal. But you can market to them. Then anyone that respondsto your promotion can go on your list. They are now your customer.

Marketing using your database is smart marketing

Because when you regularly ask your customers to buy from you, they eventually will.Plus, when you realise that it costs up to seven times as much to get a new customer tobuy then to sell something to your existing customer, you can see why marketing to yourdatabase is smart marketing.

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If you don’t have a database yet I’m sure you’re wondering what you should include init. You should include: date they first became your customer, their name and address,phone number if possible, date they were last mailed to and what it was, date of their lastpurchase, every purchase they have ever made − when they made it and how much itwas, their birthday and other family members birthdays if possible, plus anything elsethat relates to your business such as shoe size, bra size, favourite colour etc.

The first thing you should do when you get someone’s name on your database is sendthem a thank you letter. Thank them for spending money with you. It’ll knock theirsocks off. You should mail your customers atleast8 times a year. And you should haveno problem doing this because you can use the letters at the back of the book. Plus, itwill only cost you about $4.

Certainly not a lot of money to spend. Especially when you consider how much profitthat $4 could make you.

Chapter 4

Direct Mail Guidelines To Follow To Increase The Response From YourPromotions

Direct mail, or direct marketing is marketing directly to your customers and prospects.While that sounds easy enough, be warned. If you do a direct mail campaign the wrongway you will lose your money.

How much money? Well, each sales letter you send will cost you 45c for the stamp, 3cfor the envelope, plus the cost of the letter itself, plus the cost of grabbers (grabbers willbe revealed later). So all up you are looking at a cost of atleast 48c for each sales letter.

So you would be looking at a cost of $48 minimum to market to 100 people on yourdatabase.

Now you might be thinking "I can reach a hell of a lot more people with a $50 ad in thelocal paper." Yes that’s true. Your ad will be seen by more people. But you can’t say asmuch in a $50 ad as you can say in a sales letter, and most of the people that see your adaren’t interested in your offer. So you’d actually be wasting money advertising to peoplewho are not interested, in the hope that your small market will see the ad.

On the other hand, when you market with direct mail, you are sending sales letters to thepeople that are most likely to respond. Your past customers. And because they are your

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customers and therefore up to seven times easier to sell to, you can quite honestly expecta good response to your letter. But before someone can respond to your great sales letterthey must open it. Now I know you’re thinking "what a stupid thing to say" but wait.

What envelopes do you throw away without opening? That’s right, junk mail. Oranything that looks at all like junk mail. So obviously you don’t want your sales letter tolook like junk mail.

The Envelope and how to make sure it gets opened

The following seven steps are concerned with the envelope and how to get it opened.

Because if your envelope does not get opened the offer won’t be seen. If it is not seen, itwon’t be read, if it is not read it won’t be acted upon, and if it is not acted upon youwon’t make a sale, and you know what that means.

1: Use real lick and stick stamps, or peal and stick stamps.

Avoid using a postage paid symbol as it immediately identifies your letter as somethingcheap and not important − probably junk mail. And if your customer thinks that, they’llprobably throw it away without opening it.

2: Hand address all your mail.

Use blue female writing if possible. Because in general, female hand writing is a lotneater than male hand writing. The only alternative to using hand writing is to directaddress your letter − type directly on to the envelope. Your computer may even have afont that looks like hand writing. Never nevernever use address labels. Because itscreams at the person receiving it "JUNK MAIL!!!" And they’ll probably throw it in thebin.

3: Use the person’s name.

Every time you address the envelope you should use the recipients name. Avoid usingonly their title and surname. You have their full name in your database so use it.

4: Avoid using graphics on the outside of the envelope.

The last thing you want to do is make your envelope look like some kind of carnival.

If your envelope has pictures on it or teaser copy (writing designed to get the person to

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open the envelope, such as − see inside for the quickest way to get fit), it will alert theperson receiving it to the strong possiblity of junk mail. And so they are likely to toss it.

5: Use envelopes that can’t be seen through, and use white paper inside.

If the person receiving your letter can see through the envelope and see a headline orcoloured paper, they will instantly know it’s junk mail, and may toss it.

6: Put the return address on the envelope only, no name or business name.

And when you do put the return address only, put it on the back or top left on the front.You avoid putting your name or business name with the return address because if theyknow who it’s from they may not open it. Because if they know who it’s from they maythink it’s a sales letter and so toss it.

7: Use an envelope large enough to comfortably handle your letter.

Don’t try and squeeze an eight page promotion into a tiny envelope. And don’t use ahuge envelope for a one page letter. Use an envelope that is just right. You’ll probablyfind the best envelope is one that can take A4 paper, folded twice. These DL (110 x 220)size envelopes are available everywhere. And most mail seems to go in this sizeenvelope. Which is good, because it means your mail won’t look out of place.

The whole idea of addressing an envelope this way, is to make it look like it came from afriend. Or at least somebody that knows you. The last thing you want to do is make yoursales letters look like junk mail. This way of addressing the envelope is the best way tomake sure your letter gets openned. The next most important step is the letter itself, andyour offer.

The Offer and how to make sure it gets read

The letter, and the offer it contains, is designed to bring the customer back to spend moremoney. But just because they opened the envelope doesn’t mean they will read the wholeletter. So you have got to entice them to read the letter. And you can do this in anumber of ways.

One way to get your customers to read your letters is to use grabbers. Grabbers are smallitems that you attach to the top of the letter that relates to your opening paragraph.

E.g. You could attach a coin to the top of the letter with the words . . . "I’ve attached acoin to the top of this letter for two reasons". Firstly I wanted to grab your attention.

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And secondly, because what I have to say concerns how you can make more money inyour business, I thought that attaching a little financial eye catcher was especiallyappropriate."

You could attach a tea bag to the top of the letter and underneath . . . "Sit back, relax,and have a cup of tea on me"

You could attach a $10 gift voucher with the words . . . "My bank manager willprobably close my account when he/she finds out I’m giving away something that’s asgood as a crisp clean $10 note hot off the press"

I’m sure you get the general idea. But if you can’t think of a grabber to attach to yourletters why not ring me up and ask me. I’ll give you a couple of suggestions that shouldhelp. When you use grabbers it makes your letters stand out more. It commands thereaders attention.

And encourages them to read the letter to find out why you’ve attached something to thetop. And once they start reading they just continue, right till the end. Another way to getyour customers to read your letters is to add headlines to them.

E.g. A nursery could send a letter to their customers with the headline . . ."How ToHave The Most Beautiful Garden In Your Street!"

A fishing tackle shop could use . . . "How To Catch The Really Big Fish And MakeYour Friends Jealous!!"

And to make your headlines even more effective you can personalise them.

"How Joe Bloggs Caught The Really Big Fish That Made All His Friends Jealous!"

"What Made Joe’s Garden The Best In The Street!"

Or you can combine the grabbers and headlines together.

You could have a grabber at the top of the letter (lets say a $10 gift voucher). Andunderneath in big bold writing "My bank manager will probably close my accountwhen he finds out I’m giving you something that’s as good as a $10 note hot off thepress"

I’m sure you get the idea. Try different grabbers and headlines in your letters. You’ll beamazed at the difference something like this can make to your response. Now that the

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top of the letter is taken care of, and your customers are starting to read, you need tofigure out what to say to them. And how to say it so they won’t stop reading.

The most effective way to keep your customers reading is to make your offer easy forthem to read. And you make it easy for them to read by writing the offer in everydayplain English. And that means using little words. And write it as though you werewriting to a friend. Or as if you were telling someone about it across a table. One to one.

Write how you speak

If you have trouble writing this way, then tape yourself talking about the offer tosomeone. Then transcribe your recording onto paper. Just write your letters as if youwere writing to a friend. Also, try and keep each paragraph to four lines or less, just likethis page. If you have to go over four lines, go over. But try to keep your paragraphs tofour lines or less.

And throw out all the rules of writing you were taught at school. Start sentences withAND and BUT. And don’t be afraid to throw in sayings like . . . "cold as ice" etc.Because this is how people speak. And don’t worry about having a flush right margin.Leave that to the professionals like Doctors and Lawyers. Just leave your right marginsragged like this page.

You can even indent the first line of each paragraph if you want. Or leave it flush. Tryout both ways. Monitor the results. Then go with what works the best. The purpose ofwriting like this is to make it easy for your customers to read it. And to make sure theletter doesn’t look intimidating.

By having short paragraphs that are not lined up on the right, the letter looks easy toread. It almost invites reading. After your signature at the bottom of the letter alwaysinclude a P.S. Two if possible.

In the P.S. you should remind them again of your offer. And restate any time limits youhave. This just encourages them again to take advantage of your offer. When you sendthis offer don’t send it to your whole database. Instead test it out on 100 or 200customers and see if the offer works.

If it works − great. If it doesn’t, you just saved yourself a whole heap of money.

When it does work you can mail your whole database. But before you do, make sure youcan handle the estimated response. You can estimate your response by multiplying thetest response rate by the rest of your database.

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E.g. Your test response rate from two hundred customers was 17.5%. Or 35 customers.

If you have 2000 people on your database and you mailed them all at the same time andgot the same response, you’d have 315 people knocking on your door. That’s 17.5% of1800 − remember we tested 200. So you’d better make sure you can handle that manypeople before you go ahead and mail your whole database.

As you’ll see in the example letter that follows this section. One of the letters got such agreat response that the shop owner lost business because people couldn’t be botheredwaiting to get served. He mailed 4700 letters and took in over $65,000 in two hours. Healso estimated that about $20,000 worth of business walked out because the people gotsick of waiting.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Simple maths tells you his investment in the sales letters of around $2350 got him areturn of 2770% on his money. Better than any bank − don’t you think.

But you know what the best thing is about using direct mail to market to yourcustomers? The best thing is that your competition will never know what sort of offersyou are making and so they can’t copy. They will just scratch their head and wonder whyyour business is doing so well. After all, your best customers are your existingcustomers. And direct mail is the best way to reach them.

It is also the most economical form of marketing because you can target your advertisingdollar, and promotions, to the people most likely to respond − your own customers.

Part Two − Letters

The letters that follow can be used to get your customers to come back and spend moremoney with you. They are all based on successful sales letters that have worked. Theonly difference is that these have been made general so you can easily adapt them toyour business.

As you look at each letter you will notice that next to the word ‘Your Letterhead’ isanother word − just like the word ‘Letters’ above. This other word is the file name thatthe letter is stored as on the floppy disk. Also, at the bottom of each letter you’ll seewriting like this. This isn’t part of the letter but gives you some tips on how to use theletter.

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Before you mail your customers with these letters make sure you have a way to monitorthe response. Otherwise you wouldn’t know whether or not they were working. Anyway,I’ll leave you know to have a look at the different letters that you can use to get morebusiness and increase your profits.

And when you do use them, make sure you don’t make the mistake of the $65,000 letterbelow. That could so easily have been avoided if only he’d tested. If you have anyquestions about any of the letters, or how to put them into action, just give me a call. Mynumber is 0414−726−271. Or Email me at miros@ozemail.com.au.

You can download all of the letters that are below in RTF format that can be read byMicrosoft Word or WordPad by Clicking Here

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Summary

The information and techniques contained within this manual work. And they work well.However, they will not work unless you use them and put them into action. Sure thisinformation is great. And sure it can make you more money. And sure it can reduce yourwork load. And sure it can do it all in the blink of an eye.

But increased profits and turnover will only come your way if you use the information.So use the information and the letters in your business. Give your customers little bagsof lollies. Thank your customers for their business. Monitor and test everything you do.Find what works then stick to it.

Just do it and watch your business grow.

Then give yourself a pat on the back for getting the information that made you all thatextra money. And when you have made all that extra money, and turned your businessfrom a money drain into a money tap, give me a ring.

My phone number is 0414−726−271. Ring me up and tell me how well things are goingfor you. I love to hear stories of success. Or if you are having any difficulties putting thestrategies into action give me a call. I’d love to help you succeed (you can email me atmiros@ozemail.com.au).

This is not some idle comment. I really want to hear how things are going for you. Sogive me a call.

And remember . . .

You can succeed!

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