Three Breakthrough Marketing Strategies to Skyrocket Your Sales

My friend and teacher Gary Bencivenga is a direct response copywriter acknowledged by leading A-list copywriters and direct marketing companies as “the best in the world”. This is because he’s consistently produced more sales than any other copywriter he’s ever been tested against. Here’s what he says about the state of marketing today: “Almost all copywriters and marketers today are using the same old-fashioned techniques. But the world has changed, and the consumers you’re trying to influence have grown increasingly immune to these conventional headlines and approaches. This is why most direct marketers are seeing their response rates decline every year”.

The Blizzard Economy… Another way of putting this is to say that we live in a ‘Blizzard Economy’. Our potential customers are lost in the ‘blizzard’ of the 3000 or more marketing messages they see every day. For this reason they’re almost forced to ‘defend themselves’ from being overwhelmed. They shake out the advertising inserts in the weekend papers. They delete carefully crafted emails with a trigger happy finger. And hang up on telemarketers almost as soon as they start their pitch. Don’t you do this too? So the big question for us business owners is: “How can we be a beacon of light shining through the blizzard to attract people to our business?”

Here are 3 strategies which Billions of Dollars of Direct Response Split testing show consistently produce breakthrough results.

• Use “Chameleon Marketing” to engage your target audience. Chameleon marketing is marketing which doesn’t look like advertising. Your marketing message is presented in such a way that the predominant ‘look and feel’ is that of valuable content. Practicing Chameleon Marketing boosts readership – and therefore sales- by up to 400% or more. Here’s an example: How a Business Owner Attracted 75 New Leads Through Chameleon Marketing … ‘Sally” wanted more leads for her professional services company. So she created a free info booklet full of valuable tips of interest to her target market. She included a strong call to action at the end. Sally then put an ad in the trade magazine of the profession she was targeting offering readers a free copy of the booklet. The Result: She got 75 new leads and generated $1.2 Million dollars in new business.

Here are some more practical examples:

• A “space ad” disguised as a magazine editorial will get up to 4 times the response of one which just looks like another ‘me too’ ad. For example, an editorial-style ad for Merrill Lynch editorial got a whopping 10,000 responses.
• When marketing online design sales pages to look like “special reports” or “video presentations”. Scientific direct response split tests show this approach can increase sales by as much 300%.
• You can take this approach a stage further and create a whole ‘magalog’ – a cross between a magazine and a catalogue. In a Magalog you combine valuable educational content with your sales message. Magalogs typically get double or triple the response of a conventional direct mail sales letter.

Lead with Hot Content to Engage People in your Marketing.  Your marketing should not only look valuable, but actually offer real value. This means you tips and solutions to your prospects’ burning issues should be incorporated into all your marketing. Why? Because this ensures your marketing will actually get read – not chucked out. And in the fragmented ‘blizzard economy’ this is half the battle! For example, in Sally’s example above her free booklet truly offered real value to her clients whether or not they were actively looking to buy at that moment. This was key to its success.

Choose the most effective medium to reach your target audience. Offline…Online…Social Media…Email….Direct Mail…Telemarketing… There are a lot of ways to reach your prospect – but which way works best? I’ve found that using a combination of all of the above in a multi-faceted campaign works best. Consider the awe-inspiring (and horrific) example of Blitzkrieg during the Second World War. The German military was able to storm through Europe overcoming all opposition by using a “unified multiple” strategy. Troops on the ground were accompanied by tanks with aircraft above. This focussed attack by multiple forces meant bigger forces such as the French army crumbled in its path.

Unleash the Unified Multiple Strategy in Your Business Similarly, in marketing, the combined effect of coordinated email, direct mail and telemarketing is awesome. Your response soars. Why? Because the combined effect of all of your messages is greater than the sum of each of them individually. You stand out and get noticed. This is so important because we live in a fragmented, noisy market place…and it’s absolutely essential to break through the blizzard which surrounds your prospect. That’s why while my company Conversion Masters specialises in online marketing –we also do offline marketing such as telemarketing scripts, direct mail pieces and even full magalogs. We know from experience the compounding effect of each element in the marketing mix, and how you can use them all together for breakthrough financial results.

To Summarise, Here are the 3 steps to Breakthrough Marketing Results.

• Don’t make your advertising look like advertising. Be a ‘Chameleon Marketer’ and disguise you’re marketing as valuable content.
• Make sure people read you’re advertising by leading with valuable content that’s almost irresistible to your target market.
• Don’t limit yourself to one marketing medium. Experience the compounded sales results of using multiple media- all at once!

John Anderson is the Director of Marketing Strategy with Conversion Masters one of Australia’s leading Direct Response Marketing Agencies. They’re responsible for online campaigns bringing in as much as $650,000 in a few short weeks. www.ConversionMasters.com.au