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

Are You a Sinner? Part 1

Thou Shalt Not Try to Sell a Half Eaton Sandwich

Solutionless Advertising: Any ad including Web page, direct mail, fliers, space ads, PPC phrases- any ad needs to address a problem.

You may be saying to yourself- "duh, I know that". Do you? Do you talk about your commitment to quality and customer service in your ads? Do you talk about years in business? Do you talk about why you are better than everyone else?

What problem did you address? You did not advertise a solution, you advertised YOU. I don’t give a squirt if you have great customer service as I would need to be a customer first. How would that entice anyone? Has anyone ever called and said "I seen your ad about high quality and how much you love your customers, SIGN ME UP!".

I will guess 0

This happens both with people selling online as much as offline.

If I try to sell an ebook and talk about me through the whole sales page and end with BUY THIS NOW! What happens? click and goodbye (normally the click happens way before buy now). Many onliners need to learn the rules of direct response as much as the offline companies.

That smells good, who’s barbecuing?

You have likely heard the old advertising phrase "sell the sizzle, not the steak". People don’t usually arbitrarely buy stuff without some reason. There is an exception and that is in retail. There is a reason why items are placed in certain areas. There is a reason why tabloids litter the checkout line. Did you notice the easy to grab candy and gum for the kids to hound you about?

Every minute you are in that line the chances of grabbing something you had no intention of buying increases 10 fold.

That does not work when selling a service or a product outside of retail. I can easily look past your postcard and long winded boring Web page. If you add some sizzle buy addressing a problem I have or did not know I had and have a solution, that’s gold.

Your ONLY goal in an ad is to turn that need into a want. People will pass on stuff they need all the time, but they buy what they want. You do not need to be a master copywriter or ad wizard. You need to be a problem solver and state it that way.

People do not need or want YOU. They may need and want what you can do for THEM

You don’t want to miss Sin #2. Bookmark my blog or follow me on Twitter and I will alert you when a new post is up.

Go get some

Paul

Vampires: Your Ads Are Sucking the Life Outta Me

You likely own a business. You likely do your own advertising. You are likely driving me nuts with your crap ads. What is a crap ad you ask?

A crap ad is a sales letter, postcard, website, flyer, banner towed around by a plane or any other device shoved in my face without meaning.

You spend money to bother me and all I get to see is crap.

Do you know why you bug me? Because you don't spit out anything I care about. I have posted in my blogs many times about not generalizing and realizing what your service is not what I want to buy, the result is.

Do you listen? Why do I still get business owners who read this still sending me scratchy toilet paper? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

(deep breath) It's okay, you can still change your blasted ways quite easily. I will take you by the hand and walk you through a basic concept.

Let's say I hire you to do whatever it is you do. You show up and do it very well. Now tell me what the customer is seeing/thinking/feeling after you're gone.

Have you ever really thought about what happens once you are out of the picture? There is no doubt you focus on things like doing a great job or having integrity and pride with what you left behind... that is not what they are feeling. They likely are not thinking about you at all if you did well.

They are in the moment. They are enjoying the fact that their carpets don't smell like dog. They feel more comfortable financially after meeting with an adviser. They love that their lawn is plush and greener than their neighbors.

They are not thinking about you, but that is good. What they will do is connect that plethora of positive emotion to what you did for them. Those are what you use in your ads. Take the focus completely off of your company.

I am not saying don't mention any specifics about your company but you need to get them emotionally involved with your ad first. Get them to want to know who you are.

When your ad shows up NOBODY wants it. They were not getting ready to contact someone offering your service on the way to the mailbox. Simply announcing you and your service will waste massive amounts of possible revenue over time.

You know the processes of your business very well and that is why you normally focus your ads on that. Nobody cares at first about how you do whatever you do, they care about what they get from what you do.

You need to convey that IMMEDIATELY. 80% of people read the top of an ad without reading the rest. If that headline, caption or image does not connect, they are gone.

If you are not quite sure how people feel about what you do, find out! ASK THEM. I know it is a strange concept but if we don't take in new information we don't learn.

Simply ask your customer/client what they liked about your service. Try to get as many as possible and then start creating your ads using those insights as the theme.

Keep in mind if you are using images; make sure they convey the same emotional connection as the rest of the ad. If you do a home service don't plaster a picture of a home as that is meaningless. If they feel it is meaningless what happens? Yep, they're gone.

Once you start to know your customers this process becomes easy and you make more money.

Here is a final mental image I wish to leave you with-

You are asleep in your coffin in cold dark cellar. You wake to hear creaking boards but know that no one dare challenge you. The creaking stops and total silence once again puts you at peace.

WHOOSH! the casket flings open to see me standing over you. You mutter "Paul Van Helsing!" and I yell "TO HELL WITH YOU IRRITATING DEVIL! I'LL FINALLY BE RID OF YOU ONCE AND FOR ALL!"

Before you can react my stake centers over your heart, with a massive smash of my mallet I drive it into you.

Go get some


Paul