Reading Junk Mail Can Improve Your Website
My simple and inexpensive way to improve the advertising and website of your small business is to read your junk mail and "steal smart".
Professional direct mail copywriters are some of the most influential writers in the world. It is their job to personally motivate others and get potential customers to purchase a particular product RIGHT NOW. Everyday, you probably receive more than your share of direct mail. If you are like most people, you probably recycle the bulk of it. But inside that waste bin are treasures of ideas and copywriting points that you can effectively swipe from the best minds in the business.
Now, I am not suggesting that you plagiarize copy written material. Rather, I am recommending that you find gold nuggets of creativity and modify these ideas into your own advertising campaigns and website designs. Headlines, body copy, and graphical elements are all fair game that can become the inspiration for your business. This is not uncommon practice in the advertising business or Fortune 500 companies. The old saying, "there's no such thing as an original idea" is actually true. Major corporations and top-notch ad agencies steal ideas from each other everyday. I know this is accurate because I have worked on both sides of the client-agency relationship and I have done my fair share of idea modifications. The trick is to take the "good ideas" and make them your own.
The top notch direct marketing companies offer their best work everyday in your mailbox. Companies like Dell, American Express, and Bed Bath & Beyond, send out millions of junk mail pieces. Even if your business is not related to computers, credit cards or household wares, you can apply the proven methodologies and copy writing that make these companies great into your small business. For example, take a headline for a credit card and tweak it to fit your automotive business. Though the two seem unrelated, it's actually the motivational words depicted by the professionals that can get your small business noticed.
Look for the action words or the way an offer is presented to the reader. Examples are the CAPITALIZED WORDS, --- dashes ---, bold or italicized words, … dots … and starbursts filled with copy that you'll want to pick up on and change them to fit your business. The more junk mail that you read, the more ideas you'll get and the more you'll notice the similarities. That's probably because, at one time, they stole from each other. That's ok, nobody is looking and the customer doesn't really care. Just so long as your advertising and website do not blatantly plagiarize others and also provides the benefits that you promise.
Related Tags: internet marketing, direct marketing, online marketing, website copy
With over 20 years of direct marketing experience, John Pfeiffer helps small business owners and home business entrepreneurs find success through his "UnPublished Secrets", a series of marketing tips and articles which can be found on his blog. http://unpublishedsecrets.blogspot.com/ John is a graduate of Lehigh University and The University of San Francisco Graduate School Of Business. When he's not skiing or coaching his kids' soccer teams, John can sometimes be found working his home business (http://www.money-business.biz) from either San Francisco or Tahoe.
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