Adult B2B Marketing CEO Bruce Friedman has been invited to be a featured speaker at the Asia Adult Expo, August 17 – 19 at the beautiful Venetian Hotel in Macao.

Besides speaking at the show, Friedman will be available to meet with potential clients for Adult B2B’s 3 divisions, Adult B2B Marketing, Adult Site Broker and Cage Payments.

To contact Friedman, leave a message on Adult B2B’s contact page

Adult B2B Marketing lead consultant Bruce Friedman will be at the Phoenix Forum March 29 – April 1.

“This is by far the best trade show in the adult industry”, said Friedman when asked about the Phoenix Forum.  ”We always enjoy the show and do a lot of business there”.

Adult B2B will be meeting with potential clients for their 3 divisions, marketing, merchant accounts and their newest division, Adult Site Broker, which brokers adult sites and affiliate programs.

To meet with Bruce at the show, contact us here.

You know that in order for your advertising to be effective, you need to think of your ads as an army of tiny salesmen that work on straight commission. In order for this to work though, your ads have to be properly structured – from a selling standpoint – to get the biggest impact. When you go to write an ad, you probably ask yourself, “What should I talk about? What selling points should I bring out, given my time or space restraints, and the competition I’ve identified?” The answer is – as much as you can – to build a case for your product or service.

Think about your marketing and advertising strategy this way: Your product or service is on trial. The consumer is the jury. You’re the attorney, and you must prove to the jury that they should buy from you – and it’s a life-or-death sentence. Your job is to come up with all the proof and evidence needed and then present it in a way that the jury believes you.

But if you look at the way most businesses advertise, they build no case at all. Instead, they just carelessly spout off the same old stuff that all of their competitors are saying. Here’s an example of ad for a franchised auto repair facility – it says,

WE DO IT ALL,

OUR HOURS ARE DESIGNED AROUND YOUR HOURS,

WE USE HIGH QUALITY PARTS,

WE HAVE FRIENDLY PROFESSIONAL TECHNICIANS,

AND WE GIVE FREE ESTIMATES.

Does that build a case? If you were in the market for auto repair, has their mail piece convinced you that you’d be an absolute fool to take your car anyplace else? There’s no claim, no proof that they’re any different or any better than any other place. Just the same old meaningless advertising babble. No argument, no evidence, no proof … no nothing.

Just Imagine what it’d be like if an attorney did as poor a job arguing a court case as most advertisers do in their marketing. I know it’s been awhile, but remember the OJ Simpson murder trial? What if OJ’s attorneys had said, “Come on…he couldn’t have done that! He’s OJ! The Juice! He runs through airports! He’s the 2,000 yard Buffalo Bill! He’s an actor! Everyone loves him! There’s no way he did it!” As ridiculous as that sounds, that’s about as good of a case as most advertisers ever prepare to defend and sell their product or service. “It’s better, we’re cheaper, we’re professional, we’ve got better service,” and so forth. Remember what OJ’s attorneys DID do? They researched and prepared all kinds of forensic reports, alibis, and expert witnesses…everything they needed to prove he couldn’t possibly have done it.

So here’s what you do in terms of your advertising strategy: Determine what points your case is going to be built on, then follow the three-step method for building confidence in prospects and customers: Step 1, find out what they want, step 2, give it to them, step 3, say it in a believable way. If you’re going to build a case, you need to know what points the case is built upon. Just like when an attorney begins a trial and he or she, addressing the jury, says, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in this trial, I will prove to you that so-and-so committed such-and-such crime. I am going to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that this occurred, and I’m going to do it based on the following evidence, 1, 2, 3, and 4. I am going to bring out three witnesses that all concur that it happened in this fashion. I will present 2 expert witnesses that will testify that these things happened this way. When you have seen this evidence, you will have no option but to conclude that he is indeed, guilty.”

Keep in mind the comparison. Your customers are the jury, your product or service is on trial, you are the attorney, and it’s a life-or-death sentence. So how do you find out what your customers need to know when doing business with you? How do you know what points your case should be built upon? Here’s how: Imagine one of your best friends is considering buying one of what you sell, and they’re asking you for advice on how to evaluate their various options. What kinds of things would your friend need to know to make the best possible purchasing decision? What things would you tell your friend to look out for? What specific pieces of information would your friend need to possess to make a fully-informed buying decision?

Whatever these things are…those are the points for your case. For example, I needed my fence rebuilt in my backyard. And I didn’t know a thing about fences, so the only thing I knew to do was open the yellow pages and call around using the usual ridiculous process – asking for bids. I got bids from 4 different companies, and the prices varied from about $2,500 to $3,300. So who would you go with? The lowest price, right? Well, that depends.

I called back one of the contractors – the lowest priced one – to ask about their time schedule, and told them that I had gotten bids from 4 companies, and that I was strongly considering using them. The contractor then proceeded to give me a short but thorough education about what I needed to know about building a fence. The contractor said, make sure when comparing bids that the price includes pressure treated rails and posts, that the rails are 2 by 4′s instead of the standard 2 by 3′s, and that the gates have 4 hinges each instead of just 2 or 3. So I called back each of the other 3 companies and found that none of them had quoted me on pressure treated rails or posts, 2 by 4 rails, or 4 hinges per gate. They all wanted an extra $300 to $400 for those “upgrades.” Guess who I bought the fence from?

The company that has the ability to delineate what things are important when buying, is the one that gets the business. Or in other words, the company that builds a case. Unfortunately, the fence contractor had not communicated this in any of their advertisements. They had to wait until a second phone call from a prospect to educate him. So you’ve got to figure out what’s important for your customers to know when evaluating their options. Once you determine what the important points are, the next thing to do is SAY IT WELL

So think about your advertising strategy: What kinds of evidence can you produce that would give credibility to your case and make people want to buy? Once you have evidence, which pieces should you use, and when? In advertising, you always use your biggest piece first. If you have the murder weapon, the smoking gun, so to speak, pull it out immediately. This would be your main selling advantage. Whatever your individual points are, just remember to BUILD A CASE! 

The Key To Their Success isn’t necessarily based on how good they are (Inside Reality), but rather on massive advertising repetition. General Motors, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola advertise for the sole purpose of building distribution and BRAND awareness. They do Image Advertising. Their ads attempt to marriage a lifestyle feeling to their product so you’ll get that same feeling when you buy.

For example, in 1997, Pepsi spent $1.24 billion in advertising, while Proctor & Gamble spent $2.743 billion. McDonald’s spent $1.041 billion and General Motors spent a whopping $3.087 billion! That’s why Chevy could hum the tune “like a rock, like a rock, like a rock” and it worked. If you spend over a BILLION dollars, you’ll get stellar results too! Here’s a stat that might surprise you: Do you know how many billboards Coca Cola had along American Roads way back in 1930? A thousand? 10,000? 100,000? Try 300,000! That same year they also had over 20,000 building walls painted with their logo, over 5 million soda glasses with their name printed on them, and over 400 million newspaper and magazine advertising impressions…in 1930! See, it takes time and money to really build that kind of brand awareness and it can work great for your advertising and marketing if you are fortunate enough to have a marketing budget of over $100 million a year.

99% Of Most Advertising Is Nothing But A Huge Jumble Of Hyperbole, Fluff And Unbelievable Platitudes With Black-Hole Nothing Words!

You’ll hear words like: best service, biggest, most professional, highest quality, most reliable, speedy, convenient and lowest prices. And you’ll hear phrases such as: “We’re number one”…well, Whoop Dee Do. Number one in whose eyes? These mindless words and phases do absolutely nothing to communicate why you’re the best deal. Why you’re an exceptional value. Why or how you solve the problems that nobody else solves.

But most businesses go on year after year yawning these verbal platitudes that do nothing more than get their name out there, if that. Why would anyone want to waste marketing dollars that hardly says anything to anyone? It’s because the majority of us have been obediently trained (from the wrong sources) on how to advertise.

In the past 50 years, providing for the needs of people has been split into three groups. We now have three types of businesses that give people what they want.

Level ONE Business, surprisingly, is the biggest provider of services and products in this country – our government. Some of us would adamantly argue that our government has taken over our education system, transportation, safety & protection, our savings for retirement and distribution of food and clothing for over 15% of our population. Even many of the medical and legal services are closely controlled/provided by our government. Average business owners cannot compete in these markets, which control as much as 40% of our gross national product.

Level TWO Businesses are what we call the Fortune 500, which includes the top 1 to 5 thousand companies in the country. They’re comprised of premier global majors with diverse growth portfolios such as General Motors, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, etc. Some of the top Fortune 500 companies have portfolios of high quality assets and capabilities, and financial strength to generate enhanced value for their shareholders. We’ve been indoctrinated by years of advertising and social acceptance to buy from these companies. Any product or service that can be standardized and distributed to 80% of the population without changing the design or concept has been converted to a national brand name over the last 50 years. They have the financial resources to advertise all over the place; a million dollars here, half a million there. It takes a lot of money and time to build that kind of brand equity.

Level THREE Businesses include everybody else. Everything from start up businesses and mom and pop’s, all the way up to companies that do hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales. Level 3 companies cannot rely on broad based repetition-oriented advertising that builds brand awareness. It’s not that Level 3 businesses can’t or shouldn’t build brand awareness. And it’s not that they can’t spend a lot of money on advertising. They just can’t do it nationally on Fox, ABC, NBC, and CBS at $50,000 to $500,000 per 30-second spot. Level 3 businesses need to be more frugal with their marketing budget in order to create successful action-oriented advertising.

Because of the integration of advertising into our daily lives, we are constantly exposed to Level 2 advertising. And everyone assumes, based on years of passive observation, that’s how marketing and advertising is done. That probably explains why so many people consider themselves advertising experts. People say, Hey, I’ve been submersed in it my entire life, so I certainly must know something about it. If you go to college and learn how to do advertising, you will be taught Level 2 advertising. And that’s fine if you’re working for a Level TWO business.

But Here’s The Problem: most of the students who graduate with all these degrees in advertising and marketing don’t know how to make money in the real world. You stick them in a Fortune 500 company’s marketing department, and they might do okay, but if they don’t have the 20, 50, or 100 year history of the company backing them up, along with the multi-million dollar or billion dollar advertising budget, it’s more of a challenge for these young graduates to make money for the company. They don’t know how to attract prospects in such a way that they take action. And that’s crucial in getting the prospect to crossover the “Confidence Gap.” They need to realize you offer a superior value. You need to make them come to this one conclusion,”I would have to be an absolute fool not to do business with anyone else but you regardless of price.”

You Need To Be Able To Craft Your Business, And Then Advertise Where Prospects Can Take Action That Will Lead To A Purchase.

That action could be anything – maybe it’s to call in and place an order or to request an information kit. Maybe you want the prospect to send in a reply card, or call a toll-free hotline, or visit your website. That’s different than Level 2 advertising, where you’re trying to create a feeling/a lifestyle and attach it to your product. You’ve got to manipulate your advertising so the prospect will take ACTION!

The Bottom Line Is that you have to spend your marketing dollars more intelligently whether it’s hundreds, thousands, or even millions of dollars – more wisely than the Level 2 businesses. The way you do that is by using action-oriented advertising. There are many benefits of action-oriented advertising. The main one is that you know almost instantly how profitable or unprofitable your ads are…based on the number of inquiries, orders, hits, or leads you receive, DIRECTLY from the ads. You’ll hear a lot of people in the advertising industry say you can’t quantify the results of your advertising like that and in some cases they’re right. But that’s only because many businesses don’t understand the fundamentals of how to make their advertising make money. Some people will bark that you can’t do action-oriented advertising in certain media. Again, you can, if and only if, you know how to do it properly. There are a lot of factors and components that will affect your response. Again, you’re not General Motors, McDonalds, or Coca-Cola, so don’t emulate their advertising. Spend your dollars more intelligently.

Bruce Friedman, lead consultant for Adult B2B Marketing will be at three of the upcoming European Adult Forums, Webmaster Access – Amsterdam, The European Summit in Prague and the XBiz EU Summit in London.

Those wishing to meet with Bruce at any of these three events should contact us through our “contact us” page.

Bruce is looking forward to seeing everyone at the upcoming shows in Europe.

In advertising, it’s important you know exactly who is buying what you’re selling, and then talk ONLY to those people. It’s inevitable that no matter what medium you choose for your advertisements, there will be a percentage of people who see it or hear it who will NOT be prospects for what you’re selling. So make sure your message is directed and targeted at only those candidates who are qualified prospects.

For instance, if you’re in the market for a new car, there’s a good chance you’ll see all the TV commercials, hear all the radio commercials and see all the newspaper ads for cars. If you’re not in the market for a new car, however, chances are you won’t see or hear those exact same ads. They’re still there but you just don’t notice them. You’ll either “tune them out” mentally, or physically change the channel or turn the page. So what’s a car advertiser to do?! Talk directly to people who are interested in buying cars, instead of wasting time trying to get the attention of those who aren’t.

Some advertisers feel like they need to put something catchy, cute, weird, sexy, colorful or bold in their ads to make sure that every person on earth pays attention to their ad. Then, they figure, if everyone’s looking, they’ve got a better chance at selling to more people (hence…a numbers game). There’s a real trap in introducing your advertising in this manner. Because when you try to speak to everybody, inevitably your message will get diluted to the point where it says nothing to anybody. You can’t be all things to all people.

This is what’s called the TIGGER syndrome. In the cartoon, Winnie the Pooh, there’s a character who is a hyper-active tiger named TIGGER. Tigger has a spring for a tail and his talent is bouncing. He’s the best bouncer of all but his main goal in life is NOT to excel at bouncing, but rather to be liked by everyone else. So he always tries to do what everyone else is doing just so they’ll like him. Someone asks him if he can ice skate, to which he replies, “That’s what TIGGERS do best!” and goes on to crash into a tree and ruin everyone’s fun. Someone asks him if he can climb trees, to which he replies, “That’s what TIGGERS do best!” and then promptly gets stuck at the top of the tree. He does this time and time again until finally, demoralized, he realizes that his efforts are best spent and most appreciated when perfecting his own talent…which is BOUNCING.

There are a lot of TIGGERS in the business world. For example, a video production company wrote an ad to sell corporate videos. They were using e mails to send out their message and quite frankly, the message was extremely confusing. They made about 4 different selling points, had 2 different offers and 3 headlines scattered throughout a ONE-PAGE letter! This letter had a little bit of something for everyone in it. With this particular company, their main selling advantage was low price. Normally, you don’t want to promote low price as the main selling advantage but in this case, they really were lower, and it was mainly because competitors had not lowered their prices over the last 5 years, even though technology had significantly reduced the costs involved with producing these videos. That’s what this TIGGER did best – LOW PRICE.

In their situation, out of the 30,000 businesses on their list, only 10-20% would even be in the market for corporate videos. Take into consideration that out of those 10-20%, they were all on different levels of readiness to buy. Some qualified prospects may not even realize that video is an option for them at this point. Some may have investigated it and found it to be too expensive. Some may have only thought about it. Some may be making videos now, or have made some in the past with another production company. Some of those may be perfectly satisfied; some may be ready to find a new company to produce their video. There are a lot of different situations. You can’t try to sell to all of them at once! You’ve got to make your message focused like a laser beam in order to effectively reach YOUR real target market.

Another example is a specialized box company. While there are not too many things more mundane than cardboard boxes, this company runs an extremely exciting business. They have streamlined production to such an extent that they can design, produce and deliver custom boxes in 4 hours or less. Their fastest competitor can get the same type of custom order designed, produced and delivered in about two and a half days! Most take one to two weeks.

Why would anyone need a box designed, produced and delivered in four hours or less? If a company is manufacturing goods and doesn’t have any boxes at the end of the assembly line to put those goods in, it stalls the whole line and costs the company money. It happens more often than you’d think. So this particular company’s ability to get boxes out quickly not only helps a company out when they get in a pinch, but it could actually save some purchasing agent’s job.

So what does this have to do with knowing your target market and only talking to those qualified people?

They started out filling short-notice, four-hour orders for their big customers. They could actually do it ANY time for ANY customer and hold the pricing to a reasonable level. But they hadn’t promoted it that way, so most customers had no idea they could do this.

Since that was their company’s strength, and it differentiated them from their competition, they needed to put the 4 hour ability towards the forefront of their marketing. They needed to promote it all the time in all communications. The owner’s response to this strategy was, “Well, not everyone needs four hour boxes. In fact, 90% of all companies won’t need that service at all in a given year. Why would we want to promote that?”…Think about it. Why would they want to promote that?

By promoting the 4 hour service, they would let everyone know that they had created an absolute breakthrough in the box business. They would be saying something that purchasing agents would most definitely store in their mental banks.

So a series of oversized postcard mailers was put together and sent out systematically every 3 weeks to a targeted list, along with some promotional products that were imprinted with their new logo, Custom Boxes On Your Dock In Just 4 Hours…Guaranteed. The results? They went from doing one or two 4 hour orders a month to doing as many as seven a day. Many of those were new customers. Who do you think those customers ordered their regular, non-rush boxes from after this company bailed them out of a major jam?

That would easily explain how this box company went from doing $880,000 a month to $1.7 million a month less than a year later, despite losing two major accounts to bankruptcies. They knew their target market, talked directly to them and communicated the exact message their customers needed to hear.

In summary, first identify what you’re selling and who will buy it. And then ONLY talk to those people. People who aren’t within your target will not buy regardless of what you say. It’s imperative that you don’t waste your precious marketing dollars making general statements that may get attention but don’t sell. Pinpoint your message. Pick out your prospects. Talk to them individually. And forget everyone else.

Surprisingly few people can even tell you the purposes of marketing, let alone how to achieve those primary purposes.

What is the purpose of marketing? If I ask 100 business people this simple question, I’ll get 100 different answers. Some people would say marketing’s job is to get your name out in the marketplace. Others would say marketing positions your company or builds your brand name. Most hope marketing generates sales. Others would say that marketing’s job is to generate leads that are then handed over to the sales department. Still others would say it’s to build brand awareness, hoping people remember the name when they go to buy. And there’s always the group that just says marketing’s job is “to make money.”

All of these answers are partially right. All of the answers are results of what happens when your marketing and advertising does what it is supposed to do.

Marketing is supposed to do three things:

Objective #1: Capture the attention of your target market (prospects). Although this seems straight forward, there are right ways and wrong ways to do this. Our method that ensures you always do it the right way. Unfortunately, it’s done the wrong way 99 percent of the time.

Objective #2: Facilitate the prospect’s decision-making process. Teach and train people how to make the best purchasing decision. Give them enough information to facilitate their making the best decision possible when buying what you have to sell.

You have prospects who need to buy what you sell. There are plenty of people who are starving and craving information and solutions you can provide. Because they’re not experts at what you do, they don’t know the benchmarks or the relevant issues surrounding the decision. They don’t know how to make the best decision, which gives you an opportunity to guide them through this process. Your job is to share information to help them make the best decision possible. If the best decision is to buy from you-and it should be-then that’s all the better. You should think of yourself as the “fountain from whence all knowledge flows,” at least knowledge relevant to what you’re selling.

All business owners and stakeholders want the same things: They want more new customers and less competition, more profitability and less waste, more retention and less turnover among their best employees, better results from their marketing and advertising, more loyalty from their customers, and higher conversion ratios for their salespeople. In short, they want to make more money.

Your prospects and customers want the same things. They want to feel confident that their money is well spent and their purchasing decisions are wise. They want to get the best deal in terms of both price and value. You never hear anybody say, “I shopped eight car dealerships and negotiated the best possible price, then decided to buy where I got the third best deal.” No! People intuitively want to make the best decision possible, for them, and not feel like they have to second-guess themselves all the time.

So, we have two sets of values: The business wants more customers, more loyal customers and higher margins. Customers want to feel confident that the get the best possible deal in terms of overall value. The process and principles that govern the matching of those two sets of values are the same for every business.

As the marketer, “all” you have to do is figure out what’s important to your prospects, educate them about what constitutes the best deal in your area, and then provide quantifiable proof that you provide that best deal in terms of price and value. If you communicate that message properly, your prospects and customer will pay attention to the message, believe you, and then take action. They will then get what they want from you: the best deal in terms of price and value with the confidence that they are making the best decision possible for them.

The problem is most businesses don’t hold up their end of the bargain. Instead of using marketing to build a case that facilitates the decision-making process, most companies fill their marketing with self-serving hyperbole, fluff and platitudes that are only a thinly veiled way to say, “Buy from me because I want you to give your money to me instead of somebody else.” That’s why people become jaded and resist marketing. They tend to either dismiss it or become skeptical of the messages. But you don’t want to breed skepticism! You want your prospects to say that they’d have to be absolute fools to do business with anyone else but you, regardless of price!

Objective #3: Give your customers a specific, low-risk, easy-to-take action that further facilitates their ability to make a good decision. Lower the risk of taking the next step in the buying process so you can further educate them.

You can’t cram everything that a person needs to know into one advertisement. You have to find a way to give them more information-and you do this via marketing tools-reports, websites, audio CDs, and CD ROMs.

Have you ever bought a new home from a builder? They have lots of ways to advertise and promote, one being the Sunday paper in the New Homes section. But if you look in that section of the newspaper, you’ll see that none of the ads there accomplishes the three objectives of marketing: 1) to capture the attention of the target market, 2) facilitate their decision-making process by educating them about what they need to know, and 3) give them a low-risk way to become more educated and take the next step to further the buying process. Those ads don’t do this. Instead, they feature beautiful, happy, smiling people, pictures of houses and floor plans, price ranges of homes, and maps to various neighborhoods.

The ads all look virtually identical and contain similar pictures and words. From the prospect’s standpoint, they are the same. There’s nothing to get their attention, no acknowledgement of what the customers needs or problems might be. And, there’s nothing in any of the ads to educate the prospect. There’s nothing to facilitate their decision-making processes. There’s nothing to show them what they need to know or tell them what issues to consider. How many things do you need to know when buying a new home? Are you an expert on lumber, plumbing, masonry, electrical, insulation, flooring, framing, roofing, finish out, and the 613 other relevant, pertinent issues involved with building a home? Of course not. And you won’t be after reading those ads, either.

I’m not saying every buyer wants to know all that stuff; I am saying that all buyers would like to at least be aware of the relevant issues that are at stake. With these ads, all you know is that smiling people supposedly live there, and they all have floor plans and maps to neighborhoods. All of these ads are ineffective because prospective buyers want and need to be educated-so they can feel confident when making their decision. Nobody is providing this information. The first one who does, wins.

Then there’s no low-risk way for the prospect to take the next step in the buying process. The only option these ads give is to come into the model home. You say, “That’s low risk.” The heck it is! If you’re just thinking about buying a new home, and the only option is to come to a model home that’s 45 minutes from your house, and you know that it will stocked with starving salespeople who will do everything in their power to force you to buy that home on the spot, is that low risk?

All of the ads fail miserably on this level; as a result, they get lost in the shuffle of all the other ads.

There’s a better way to handle this situation.

Why do you think that marketing people always feel forced into a price-competitive situation? If you feel like that’s the case in your business, it’s your own fault. Your lack of marketing ability has led to a situation where there are no distinctions between you and your competitors. You haven’t introduced the proper parameters or educated your prospects on the relevant issues. You’ve made no offers to lower the risk of taking the next step.

Effective marketing accomplishes all three objectives. It causes your prospects and customers to conclude: “I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else but you regardless of price.”

If you feel that you’re always competing on price, it’s because price is the only relevant variable you’ve given your prospects to consider, and from the prospect’s perspective, all things are equal, so they would be fools not to demand a lower price.

The most critical element of advertising sounds pretty simple – have something good to say. But, if you don’t get this right, you can just forget about everything else … because your advertising will fail miserably without something good to say.

The great business philosopher Jim Rohn probably summed it up best in his lecture about communications. He was talking about personal communications, not about advertising, but the principles are identical. He said, to be a master communicator, all you’ve got to do is follow this simple three-step process:

        1. First, have something good to say.

        2. Second, say it well.

        3. Third, say it often.

In terms of advertising, having something good to say means that you’ve innovated your business sufficiently so that you’ve got something unique that’s worth advertising. Saying it well has to do with advertising in such a way that it gets people to notice and take action. As for saying it often, that refers to executing your advertising and follow-up marketing in a systematic format that allows you to build brand equity and cost-effectively turn prospects into customers.

Before you can worry about how to say it well or say it often, you must first understand step #1 to successful communications: “Have something good to say.”  You probably didn’t expect to hear that you may have to actually innovate your business to be successful. But it’s hands down the best strategy you can use. You’ve probably heard the old saying “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” That may be true, but here’s a strategy that consistently fails: Using catchy advertising, tricky words, and fast-talking to try and sell the same old boring mouse trap that everyone else is offering. Whoever said that line about the better mousetrap just didn’t understand the principles that govern successful marketing and advertising.

Once you’ve created something people want – advertising becomes infinitely easier. Rosser Reeves was one of the most successful advertising men in the early days of the business. You probably haven’t heard of him, but it’s likely you’re familiar with lots of things he created; even way back in the 50′s and 60′s. His most famous slogan was for M&M’s: “They melt in your mouth, not in your hands”

Anyway, Mr. Reeves pointed this out way back in 1965: Have something good to say. Here is what he said about writing good advertising:

“The business should bring the copywriter a product or service that deserves to be on the market. It should have significant points of difference from other products. Then the idea behind the advertisement is very, very easy to find.”

                                              – Rosser Reeves

For Example, if a manufacturer brings you a car that can go 500 miles on a gallon of gas, you don’t have to look far for an idea for the ad. The idea is right in front of you. If, on the other hand, you have an Edsel that’s not very different from any other car, you are doomed to failure in advance. It’s unlikely any advertising brilliance could have saved the Edsel.

In case you’re not familiar, the Edsel was the greatest embarrassment to the Ford Motor Company in the 50′s. They spent record amounts of money promoting it, hyped it to the ends of the earth, and then … nobody wanted it. Spending money on marketing, advertising, and the greatest advertising copywriters of the day didn’t compensate for the lack of confidence, or lack of perceived value in the consumer’s mind.

So Think About This Right Now: Do You “have something good to say?” Are there things that you do that make you a better value for the money than your competitors? If not, then why is it that you expect to win in business? If you played the local high school varsity football team against the reigning Super Bowl champs, would you expect the varsity to win? Of course not. You’ve got to create something so unique, so good, so unparalleled that it makes your prospects say, “I would have to be an absolute fool to do business with anyone else.”

So, take a moment and write down on a piece of paper everything about your business that is “good to say.” Keep this handy as you work on your advertising campaign. You may find your list will change, but that’s ok because this is a great place to start. Evaluate your business, and find what it is that makes you unique. Why should prospective customers choose you?

We’ve all heard of press releases, but how many of us actually know what they are or when and how to use them to our advantage?

A press release is a newsworthy story about your business that you submit to various media – newspapers, radio, television, magazines, etc. If they are interested in your story, they may call to interview you or just run your press release in their particular medium.

Since most people may be more receptive to a news story than an ad, a press release may be the key to getting people to read about your company or services. It’s like having the media endorse you, your website, and your products. Most importantly, sending out a press release is far cheaper than purchasing an ad.

It is important to remember that a press release is not an advertisement about your business. It is a newsworthy story that the media might be interested in picking up.

A formal press release needs to follow a specific format and is sent to solicit interest in your business.

1. 1.    Date Instructions

“For Immediate Release”
“For Release Before [date]”
“For Release After [date]”

Use one of the last two if your press release is of a time sensitive nature. For example, if you are holding a public speaking event, you will want to use the “For Release Before [date]” and make sure you input the final date for registrations. If you are using the “For Release Before [date]” ensure you are aware of media deadlines. Send your release well in advance.

2. Headline

Write an attention-grabbing headline. Make it benefits-oriented (why would it be of interest to people?) and descriptive. Avoid hype and promotional language – remember this is a news story.

3. Contact Information

Include as much information as possible here. Make it easy for the media to contact you. Include your phone number, address, company name, fax number, e-mail, and URL. Include the hours you are available at the listed phone number and add an after-hours phone number if applicable.

4. Summary

Before you get into the body of the release, write a sentence or two to summarize your press release. Make it interesting; you want the recipient to keep reading. Also, include the area to which this release is relevant.

5. Content

This is the meat of your press release. Again, write a benefits-oriented story. Think of the target audience as you are writing. Your target audience is partly the editor or reporter who will be reading the release. Ultimately, however, your target audience is that editor or reporter’s readers or audience. You need to write a story that will be of interest to them.

The first paragraph should answer all the important questions – who, what, where, when, why, and how. Make sure that you keep it succinct and to the point. Mark Twain said, “If I had more time I would have written less.” So edit and then edit again. Then when you’ve finished editing, edit again. The common optimum length for a press release is 400-800 words with 400-600 words being a good target length. In many cases a 500 word release is “just right” because it ensures you get to the point.

Once you get a reporter interested they may ask you for more information. Then you can give him or her more information. Most people hate doing research and this holds true for reporters as well.

6. Signify the End of Your Press Release

The end of your press release is shown by a few simple characters. Place ### at the end of your release.

Other General Formatting Tips

• Keep your release to about 1 page (or a maximum of 2 pages).

• Number your pages 1 of 2, 2 of 2, etc.

• Use active verbs.

• Do not use excessive adjectives – they sound like hype.

• Use bold headlines.

• Break up your paragraphs for easy reading.

• Tweak your release accordingly when sending to different media outlets. If you are sending it to the local paper, your content may be slightly different than if you are sending it to a trade journal.

• If you are sending your release by mail, use 8½” x 11” letterhead. Use only one side of the paper. If your release is more than one page long, please indicate at the bottom of the first page that it will continue to the next page.

• If you are sending your release by e-mail, never send an attachment. Copy and paste your release into the body of the e-mail.

Here is a sample template that can be used to create your press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Attention-Grabbing Headline Goes Here

Contact: name
Address: address
Phone: phone number & availability
Alternate Phone Number: phone number
E-mail: yourname@yourdomain.com
URL: www.yourdomain.com

City, State – quick summary

First Paragraph – Grab the reader’s attention here. Answer the important questions like who, what, where, when, why, and how.

More information and facts.

Add a quotation to break up the release and make for easy reading. Quotations can be from you or a testimonial from a customer.

Direct the reader to the page on your website where he/she can find more information on your announcement.

# # #

Once you’ve written your press release, who should you send it to? Well, you can either contact local media outlets yourself to find out who to send your release to or you can use an online company that specializes in sending out press releases. 

Evidence is defined as that which makes evident or manifest; that which furnishes, or tends to furnish, proof; any mode of proof; and the evidence of the truth or falsehood of a statement. As marketers, it is our job to communicate the evidence for our products or services.

As we like to say in our literature, “Your business is on trial. Your customers and prospects are the jury. You’re the attorney. And it’s a life or death sentence. What will you say that will convince them to buy from you? What kind of evidence can you produce to PROVE beyond any reasonable doubt that they’d be a fool not to buy from you? You’ll learn in this step-by-step system, how to build that case. You’ll learn how to create over 20 kinds of irrefutable evidence that will allow you to win every time.”

Powerful stuff! The question then becomes how do you, as the marketer, tap into that evidence, how do you determine whether the evidence is valid or even useable? Let me use the attorney analogy again.

Here’s an example. Your client is on trial and it is a life or death decision. You have at your disposal an investigative team that has furnished you with information and you have to determine what you will produce as evidence for your case. Here is a short list of what you have:

• 200 photos of the home and scene.

• Blood samples from 340 locations in the home. Some as small as 0.05 mg.

• Testimonies from 35 people including, neighbors, colleagues, and the wait staff at the restaurant.

• Fingerprint work with prints from 12 different people.

• Several timelines for the different witnesses.

• Psychological studies and profiles of your client and the victim.

• Lab work from the medical examiner.

• Lab work from the forensic department of the city.

• Several hours of video from the ATM machine across the street of the location.

• Interviews done with your client. Three hours’ worth of video compiled the day of, five hours’ worth compiled 3 weeks later, and 12 hours’ worth you personally gathered 1 month later.

And this is just the preliminary work. That’s a lot of data; it’s too much information! Without a systematic approach, this lawyer would flounder amidst all this information. So as a marketer, how do you determine what evidence works best for your product or service? What will make your product’s case “manifest” to any prospect that comes across the marketing you develop? Remember, you have access to a tremendous amount of information at your disposal.

Here is a list of the types of evidence you should use:

• Articles/press stories

• Associations

• Awards

• Books

• Charts & graphs

• Client lists

• Comparisons

• Compliance checklists

• Earnings reports

• Endorsements

• Examples of savings

• Expertise tests

• Facts & figures

• Performance audits

• Photos/videos

• Product demos

• Quotes

• Standards lists

• Statistics

• Technical drawings

• Test/lab results

• Testimonials

As a marketer, you are your own investigative team. When you sit down you have to gather that information. But do not rely solely upon the business for the evidence; no attorney ever gets all of the evidence from his client. There’s more intelligence gathering that needs to be done. The business can point you in the right direction but then it’s up to you to get additional information that you determine would best portray the business you serve.

We have defined 6 industry models and the sales points associated with businesses within these models. Your first step should be to define which of these industry models your business falls into. This will point you in the right direction and help whittle the above list from twenty-two types of evidence to the 12 or 13 most effective for your company. The attorney does the same thing. If he is working on a murder trial, physical evidence will be more important; with a white-collar crime, the paper trail is tantamount, eclipsing fingerprint work all day. By defining an industry model we will then know what type of evidence we should concentrate on gathering. More energy will then be spent gathering the most effective kinds of evidence, not wasted on spinning our wheels.

Even after an industry model has been chosen, you are still left with process of gathering information through research. I would suggest that you try and get as much information you can on the front end and deal with the mountain of paperwork later. As a marketer, there is a process of creativity you can follow that would assist you in researching and deciding what types of evidence are useful and appropriate. It is the Directed Creativity Cycle, (Creativity, Innovation, and Quality, Plsek 1997), and here are the steps that relate to the research of evidence:

Observation → Analysis → Generation → Harvesting

Observation: This entails all of your initial work. The discovery questions and business evaluations will greatly add to your understanding of what the business offers. These questions will also render clues as to what types of evidence would be appropriate. An attorney will have a good idea of the type of case to present after talking with his client. Observe the foot traffic in the store, “observe” by conducting surveys, really try and see what is going on.

Analysis: As a marketer you need to think, ponder, and reflect over the information you get as a result of the initial stages of your work on the project. You need to look at this from every angle, from your own understanding, putting yourself in John Smith’s shoes as well as the business’ perspective. These differing perspectives will come with their own sets of evidence.

Generation: The results of your thoughts and reflection will be ideas. There will be a time in every project where your ideas will far outweigh the information you are putting in. Record all of them. They will indicate as to what evidence would give purpose and power to your case.

Harvesting: This is the stage that entails the greatest work. From our topic of evidence, you must become a selector; you need to decide what evidence to include. The process provides you with a framework to get and encapsulate all this information. The information should have been directed by the other two levels: sales points and the next level. The other two levels were analyses of the frustrations and problems prospects deal with. The information is what the business does to solve those frustrations. This information reflects the inside reality of the company. The inside reality can – and frequently is – measured in many different ways.

This is why it’s important you get all the information that you can. The compelling story you are trying to tell is useless without the facts. So here is a partial listing of resources available to you to gain information on your project:

• The Internet

• The library

• Business groups, BBB, et al.

• Consumer research firms

• State licensing organizations

Start with these. You need to gather as much evidence you can so that the case you build is strong and will produce results.