Showing posts with label business profits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business profits. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

How To Get More People To Respect Your Value

Doesn't it suck when people don't respect the price you charge?  When they always want a special deal?  Well guess what?  It's probably YOUR fault!  When people ring around for quotes on price, and it happens a lot with Yellow Pages directory ads, they'll ring 2-3 businesses usually.  That's what everyone has been 'trained to do as consumers, and it's the ads that force them to.  How?  All the ads look the same!

Just think about when you need a service, say your lawns mowed.  So you open the yellow pages and look up lawn-mowing, and there are dozens of ads with people wanting to mow your lawn.  So who do you choose?Whoever is cheapest, right?  And why?  Because all the ads look the same, so there isn't anything that makes one business different from the next.  And if that's the case, the only difference comes down to the price!

Makes sense really, because if all the ads look the same then PRICE can be the only difference between them, right?  So if the ads for each industry are virtually all saying the same thing, can you understand that you're educating your market to base your value on price?  Then what you need to do is create a unique selling proposition that will make you STAND OUT from your competition.

Now let me explain what a unique selling proposition is and how you can get one for your business.  Every day we are subjected to about 4,000 to 5,000 advertising messages, so we all need to do work a bit harder to stand out from the crowd, and that's what the USP will do for you.  It's that CORE reason that someone should buy from you.  And here's a great tool for finding your USP in half an hour.

Grab a piece of paper, and draw a straight line down the middle.  On the top of the left-hand column I want you to write "You know how...."  And here is where you write down all the things that your competitors do badly.  Now we are just building a list, so don't be critical of what you're writing, or how you write it.

At the top of the right-hand column write "Well what we do is..."  And here you write down all the things that you do that are great, basically laying out ALL your cards.  Once you've done this, you should have a list of what your competitors do, and all the things you offer which are different from them, and this is what you base your Unique Selling Proposition around.

And if you haven't come up with anything from this exercise, then you need to create something to be different!  Once you have a USP, then turn it into a statement everywhere your advertising goes, as a reason why someone should do business with you over anyone else!

Another great way to make sure your customer is happy to pay extra for your business is what's called 'dollars for cents' copy.  We all love a bargain, right?  What this means is to throw in so much value it's not funny.  Say for example you have a $99 product for sale, and you throw in $300 worth of free bonuses, you'll make sure the customer comes out way in front in terms of value.  So they are paying you just 'cents', but getting 'dollars' back in value.

The key with this method is to make sure the bonuses you throw in are low cost to you, but high perceived value to your customer.  You could offer a free report, cd or dvd, any type of information products like this are quite inexpensive to produce, yet the information contained within could be very valuable to your customers.  This makes the buying decision so much easier when your customer is getting much more value than what they are paying for.  This is one technique you should always strive to use, and it can literally set your sales soaring!

How To Get More People To Notice Your Advertising

HEADLINES are one of your biggest weapons for getting MORE PEOPLE TO NOTICE YOUR ADVERTISING, for whatever medium you choose to use.  Now you are using headlines, aren't you?  And NOT your logo - that's not a headline.  Only one person cares about your logo, AND THAT'S YOU.

Whereas a headline is something every single one of your prospects will be glued to like a kid on a cartoon.  Whatever you're writing, you've GOTTA HAVE A HEADLINE.  But here's the deal, there a are good headlines and bad headlines, so I'm going to give you an absolute killer template headline that you should use THIS WEEK in your business.

Remember, a headline's goal is to do one thing only - STOP YOUR PROSPECT IN THEIR TRACKS AND LOCK THEM ONTO YOUR AD, and some people say you only have 1.5 seconds to catch their attention, so you need to make it good!

Master copywriter David Ogilvy has said... "On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy.  When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar."  So if you're using your own logo at the top of your ad, you could improve your response IMMEDIATELY, just by sticking ANY kind of headline up instead!

So would you like to know one of the great secrets for writing headlines that literally slap your prospect in the face and demand they open their wallet?Good, well here it is for you... MODEL HEADLINES THAT ALREADY WORK!!
Don't try and reinvent the wheel, the best way to come up with fantastic headlines is to take what already works, and adapt it to your own business.Isn't that simple?

Here's an absolute knock-'em-dead blockbuster template for a headline:

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR HOMEOWNERS:
Don't pay another phone bill until you read this...

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR WOMEN:
Don't buy any makeup products until you read this...

IMPORTANT NEWS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS:
Don't run another ad until you read this...

Do you see how powerful this is?  And I've shown you 3 different versions, so all you have to do is apply it to your own business and you could easily double or even triple your responses!  How about these headlines:

Do You Make These Mistakes With Your Money?

Do You Make These Mistakes Playing Golf?

Do You Make These Mistakes In Bed?

Do You Make These Mistakes Baking Cakes?

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.  This particular headline works on your curiosity.  It gets the reader to say to themself, "maybe I'd better read on and find out."  The main thing you really want your headline to do is to get your reader to be interested enough to see what else you've got to say.  MAKE AN IMPACT!  Remember the old saying 'first impressions last'?  Well that saying still applies today.

And now that we are bombarded with up to 5,000 advertising messages each day, it is more important than ever to stand out and BE NOTICED!  If you have a headline that literally screams out, READ ME, then you'll be more than half way to having an effective advertising campaign that starts making profits for your business!  Remember the 80 cents out of each advertising dollar?  Well now you know how to focus your efforts to have the maximum impact!