Abused Great Dane Teaches Me a Lesson

This weekend me and my wife had the unique experience of adopting a 4 year old Great Dane named Reuben (we call him Roo).

As you can see he is a magnificent animal. Sadly he had a hard life. He had a life that makes most of our problems look like a winning lottery ticket.

He was saved from a place where the dog is not considered a part of the family. He was nothing more than a burden.

Roo has abandonment issues because he found his home as being locked in a garage. Alone in the dark without very much contact, and that contact not being much better.

This horrid human being decided to crop Roo’s ears, himself. Looks like with a scissors as they are different shaped and have ridges like little stairways going down them.

He arrived at the rescue extremely underweight and showing signs of abuse with fresh wounds on his snout. He had a tumor a little bigger than a softball on his chest. The tumor was outside the ribcage so it was VERY obvious.

He is a loving animal but is aggressive with strangers at first. Danes are not known to be like this so it shows what his life must have been like.

Now he follows us everywhere and plays with our other 2 dogs. Well, he plays with our other Dane as the smaller dog is not interested in getting stepped on.

Roo is an amazing dog. At times as I stare in his eyes I can feel the pain he has been through. Both physically and mentally. Part of me wants to cry and the other part wants to beat the crap out of someone.

As I sit here with my daily issues, I only need to look over at my giant friend and know this is nothing. I just imagine what a day must have been like in his 4 years there. His only break from solitude was pain.

As you wake up tomorrow and think about all your problems, remember Roo and what cards he was dealt. Then get off your ass and do what he could not.

Go get some

Paul

Scarcity: Are You Scaring Them into Buying?

For Whom The Bell Tolls

"I like this offer. I could really use that right now. I will bookmark this page and come back to it later…"

Do you ever think about that? Do you know how often that happens in all forms of advertising? Think about how you handle interesting product or service offers.

How many times have you ended up with 50 expired grocery store coupons in the junk drawer? (aka Drawer Monster). How many times have you got a flyer or postcard for a local service and filed it somewhere to call later?

How many times do you stumble across something online and click away even though you are interested?

Far too many businesses pussyfoot around closing the sale

So many of us worry about the graphics or the presentation that we overlook an immediate reason for them to not wait another second. How do we avoid the bookmark or the drawer?

Scare them!

You have seen the deadlines on ads, normally buried and unnoticable. Sometimes they are bold but uninteresting. If the deadline does not get their attention or the freebie for acting sucks, you’re sunk.

A believable deadline is something that makes the offer the most important part of the ad. Think about the stuff you wanted before and shelved it to come back to later. I bet there are MANY of these.

Life is happening. Not only do we have a nationwide crisis we also have our own personal crisis every day. I am astounded that we think that people will be dreaming about our offer. Most have forgotton it totally 10 minutes after it is out of sight.

Again, look at your own past behavior.

Get them to act now

• Time- Put a real date the offer ends and make sure they see it
• Dates are good, but quantity is effective also- "Only 47 ebooks will be given out", "We will only be able to offer this service to 25 people due to time constraints, act now"
• Tell them what they will lose if not acting by that date. Give a dollar value to each item

Make the deadline sound authentic by giving a reason, not just a date. Why are you only giving out 47 ebooks? Maybe you are keeping the saturation low so more money can be made with a bigger market. If you offer a service, this is easy. Could you handle 1000 calls and give them immediate service? Not likely.

It may also be very possible that even 50 calls at once would be a lot to deal with. State that! It makes sense on the other end.

You can do this with any product or service, just make it bold and believable.

Go get some

Paul

Email Marketing vs Direct Mail

Are you thinking about adding or switching to a heavy dose of online email campaigns?

Likely you are trying to "keep up with the times" and at least flirting with email marketing. For those of you who don’t know my background- I LOVE DIRECT MAIL!

Direct mail is on the decline due to costs and environmentally conscious consumers. Let’s not fool ourselves, direct mail is getting the brush off more so because of $. It is far cheaper to rent/buy a list and sign up with an email service like iContact and start blasting out your offers.

I am all for smart email marketing, but there is nothing harder if you are not contacting people who know and want to hear from you.

Direct mail has a far greater chance of reaching the target (if done right) than email. It is not likely to piss them off either. I have opted out of a lot of people I admires email lists because I get sooo much crap. I got something in my mail box from Dan Kennedy (dankennedy.com- marketing genius) a few weeks ago and I was so happy. I read it and acted upon it. They sent me an email and I ignored it.

The USPS is reporting that 12 billion pieces of mail were delivered this fiscal year. Meanwhile 210 billion emails were sent yesterday!

With email all we have is a tiny line of text to get them to open it. With direct mail getting them to look is fairly easy. If we cut down or cut out direct mail and utilize only the cheap email campaigns, does that make us more or less money?

Last time I checked an unopened email is worth nothing. They don’t even get exposed to anything

There is no doubt that extreme caution needs to be taken while doing email campaigns. It will be a very short time before you become labeled as SPAM. Next thing you know that is the only folder your emails show up.

Nobody reads SPAM.

Build a relationship or peak interest using direct mail. Keep in mind how much less mail is going out these days. Create a good letter with a good offer and lead them to you. Once you got them it is up to you to keep them.

Go get some

Paul

The Drawer Monster Ate My Ad

The dreaded drawer monster is on the rampage...

If you use offline marketing like direct mail, flyers or some other kind of physical ad, do you know what happens to it?

I deal with a lot of small businesses selling locally on a small budget. They send out mailers or they get in a Val-Pak or some other ad that gets delivered to their target market.

I am amazed how some of these business owners show happiness in saying "we are still getting calls from our ad from 8 months ago".

My first question is always- "how many calls did you get when you delivered the ad?". Whenever we create ads and have them delivered there absolutley needs to be accoutability. More so if there is a small advertising budget.

People that call months after an ad is put out are incidentals, not response that can be counted. Direct response devices like direct mail are to do what? CREATE A DIRECT RESPONSE! That response tells you what you need to do for your advertising so you can get on track, fast.

If you mail 2000 postcards and get 5 responses you know exactly what you have. Those 5 customers may have been worth it depending on what you are selling and the lifetime value of the customer.

Ideally you want at least a 1%. Let's face it, if you can get 20 new customers out of an ad you got 5 from in a previous attempt, wouldn't you do it?

There is only one way to get that percentage higher, immediate and trackable results. The faster you get the results the quicker you can asses your marketing.

Here are a few things you can do that make tracking easy:

• Deadline- Every ad must have an offer with a deadline (I like 2 weeks from delivery)
• Use a code if you have several ads. i.e Call now and use "summer slowdown" for special
• Write/type the results! Too many of you take mental notes on results. Almost always 100% wrong

I can't tell you how many times a business will mail an ad and get a rush of calls from their Google ads. The business owner assumed that the mailing was the source. I have had this happen several times to me.

We are resistant to find out the real results sometimes. I know it sounds counter intuitive but we do not want to know the real results (unless they are great).

Why do you think small companies put out terrible ads over and over? You have seen the ads, you see them all the time.

Nothing will help your business grow faster than marketing smartly. Instant results are your best friend. Instant results help you to make more money. Instant results help you demolish your competition.

These results are your future

Go get some

Paul

Onslaught Marketing

Contact me today if you need some help on your marketing

You Don't Know Your Competition, Do You?

I bet you look at Google ads, websites, yellow pages, direct mail and any other ad your direct competition has out. I bet you think that is your main competition, and you would be wrong.

Sure, your competition is like products or services for people actively looking, but not those not looking.

When you utilize direct response vehicles such as mail, space ads (on and offline), flyers or whatever... your competition is massive.

Now you are competing with everything from a new car to a new pair of shoes. When these people get your offer they were not sitting there thinking about it, they were thinking about something else. Something they want.

You have the incredible task of blasting through those other wants and replace it with your product or service. You literally need to scramble their thinking.

Most of my clients (and it is safe to say almost all business owners) never go beyond getting their product or service in front of people. Most think that people seeing their name over and over creates customers down the road... which is horse dung.

I know Budweiser very well, yet I never drink it. I know Ford very well but never owned one in 40 years. Why is that? If Ford and Bud can't get me to buy spending billions on ads how is your teeny ad going to convince me?

To eliminate the ego ads and redirect your ads from comparing yourself to similar products or services, you should be more worried about Nine West.

In this economy people do think more than they used to. Most control their splurges. You need to make your offer very appealing from a point of view they can relate with.

To illustrate the point I found this massively successful ad (it has not been beaten in more than 25 years!). It shows a different angle on how ads can be created. It is an ad that brings people into the the thing being sold.

When creating ads keep it in mind. Here is a snippet of the very successful ad for a newsletter about offshore real estate-

You look out your window, past the gardener, who is pruning
the lemon, cherry and fig trees...amidst the splendor of
gardenias, hibiscus and hollyhocks.

The sky is clear blue. The sea is deeper blue, sparkling with
sunlight.

A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and
refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.

Go get some

Paul

Direct Mail Gone Wrong

I do a lot with offline advertising. Most of my clients get customers through direct mail, fliers or space ads.

I have noticed that most of my clients are a little over confident in their direct mail. Some figure that if they send out massive amounts that even a small return would be profitable.

Then there was Mike in Minneapolis

Mike runs a service business and he has done pretty well. He has a good relationship with his customers and his service is top notch.

Mike decided to upgrade his usual mailers (postcards mailed bulk) to a sales letter mailed to specific demographics. Mike decided to create the letter himself. Mikes only experience with writing ads has been his postcards (which averaged .5% return).

Mike went big. He put all of his chips on the table and looked the dealer in the eye and said; "hit me".

He mailed 10,000 letters at a cost of $30,000 (notice I said cost). Two weeks after sending out the letters he got 1 phone call. That was the last call.

I have in my years rolled the dice and got burned. I have never been scorched like Mike but I had second degree burns.

Mike thought that because his postcards got around .5% that if he did close to that he should make $60,000 after costs. He made zero. The one call he got had to cancel for some reason.

Mike should have done what almost no small business does- TEST! If Mike mails out a 100 letters and gets no calls something is wrong. So now he finds out for $300 rather than $30,000.

I believe that before sending out any mass ads, you should test it first. Even postcards or fliers. It is not only the cost of the piece you need to keep in mind, it is the money you are losing that you could have had if the ad was better.

Your service or product may sound great, but your offer may be crap. Maybe your offer is great but you poorly described the benefits of your service. Maybe you mailed a great piece to the wrong people. I promise you that you do not know without testing.

Direct mail is a wonderful form of advertising (my favorite), but it can eat you alive if not handled with care.

Go get some

Paul

Are You a Sinner? Part 2

Thou Shalt Not Think He Will Be Remembered

A LOT of small businesses think their company name will be imprinted on the readers brain if seen over and over.

Name all of the ads you seen yesterday. Hmm, that is tough. Name the ones for a service or a product that interested you.... Come up with any?

There is a strong theory that we see 2000 ads a day. When we mix in those ads with our daily life almost all is forgotten. Back a few years ago with the beer commercials and their many funny, cute and expensive ads could not get separation from the other beers. Most people when polled could not name the right beer for the ad. Millions and millions of dollars wasted.

Institutional ads (getting your name out their) suck. Small businesses try like hell to create these meaningless ads to look bigger. Meanwhile the bigger companies are trying to look smaller by being more personal.

Do you want to know how you can be remembered? Turn the reader into a customer. Your company slogan, song or logo are not reasons to buy from you.

Your ads are to create sales, not recognition. Have you tried to deposit false recognition in your bank? It's worthless.

You want to create a buzz. Get people talking so you don't need to. Create ads that solve peoples problems and you will destroy competitors. If you all just do the same thing than it is winner by attrition, last man standing or a coin toss.

Screw that, I play to win. Don't you want to win? Damned straight you do.

I have kicked my competitors asses many times with actionable ads.

If you really want to be remembered for something; you must do something to be remembered for. 'Here we are" is not one of them.

Go get some

Paul