It will be the hottest marketing promotion of the summer — until it runs out of gas. Companies of all kinds are giving away tankfuls of free gas as long as you buy something: a new car, hotel room, even Calloway golf clubs. With $4 a gallon fuel prices and $50-75 fill-ups becoming part of our auto-oriented lifestyle, gasoline giveaways are a real attention-getting promotional idea.

Expect to see it a lot of them this summer, before they fade away by Labor Day, says a marketing professor at at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business.

But why bother with gas cards at all? Why not just take $50 off the product price, or give customers the cash as a rebate instead? After all, money is money, right? Shouldn’t consumers be just as excited about a $50 discount as a $50 gas card?

Aha, that’s where the psychology of marketing comes in! Any copywriter worth his thesaurus knows that buying decisions are primarily driven by emotion, not logic, no matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise. Suzanne Shu, a marketing professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, says:

“The more (a) purchase feels discretionary, like staying at a luxury hotel, the more the gas cards have impact because people can use them to justify something they might not do otherwise.”

So if you’re thinking of going down the “free gas” road for your next promotion, just remember those roads are going to get pretty congested. Link

photo credit: pixelnaiad

When is a complaint letter like a sales letter? When it gets the immediate, affirmative response you’re looking for. Take the letter “professional complaint letter writer” Bruce Silverman wrote to the Ritz-Carlton that ended up getting him a week, totally comped, at the company’s Kapalua in Hawaii.

As today’s Consumerist detailed, Silverman has been amazingly successful in getting companies to give him all sorts of free stuff: First class upgrades, hotel room upgrades (how does a free week in the Presidential Suite sound?), hundreds of dollars in cash — all from his way with words.

Silverman has now written a book filled with advice for complaining. The basic technique isn’t too far off from the way to write an effective sales letter. Basically his advice is:

1. Make the opening of your complaint letter personable and personal. Hook their interest.
2. Praise first before you explain why you’re dissatisfied.
3. Keep it brief. The reader is busy and easily distracted.
4. Be reasonable — don’t ask for the moon.
5. Make it clear you haven’t written them off, that you pl;an to be customers again in the future, and that you would welcome some sort of compensation.

As the Consumerist put it, “It’s really just an artful way of demonstrating the basic principle of “it will cost more to ignore me than to take care of my problem.”

Check it out. It’s a fun read. And it may get you what you want next time you’re wronged.

Well, for the search term “b2b sales letters” anyway.

It’s true. Of all the millions of copywriters in all the gin joints in all the world, my modest copywriting site shows up first when you Google that term. That’s way cool, I gotta admit. Even cooler is how I found out.

I got a call the other day from a guy in Austin. He’s seen my work and liked it, and wanted to hire me to write a couple of direct response sales letters for a new financial product his company was introducing in Austin. OK, great.

Like any good businessman, I always ask new clients, how’d you find me? A referral, perhaps? My blog? That outstanding warrant?

No, he said, Google. Do you remember what search term you used, I asked. I didn’t really expect him to remember. Half the prospects who find me via search can’t remember which search engine they used, much less what words they typed in the little box.

But he remembered: “B2b sales letters.”

I was a bit surprised. It’s one of my favorite kinds of copywriting — I love all forms of direct response — but I hadn’t optimized my site for that term. So I tried it myself, wondering how far down the listings I’d appear.

OMG, that’s me in first place, right at the very top of the results page! Whoa. That is very cool.

So remember what they say, folks: Don’t settle for anything less than #1. At least not when you need a sales letter or any kind of direct response copywriting.

(Unless you’re searching on Yahoo. Then you want to demand #3.)

PS: Not to brag, but (ahem) I also show up #1 in both Google and Yahoo for “Maine copywriter.” (SEO? I’ll show you SEO…)

If you’re hot for blogging and viral marketing — or any other narrow marketing channel — it’s easy to forget that many of the traditional methods are still thriving. It’s the old Nobody I know is still doing THAT mindset. Understandable, but often inaccurate.

Take Direct Mail marketing: postcards, sales letters, catalogs, magalogs, etc. Sure, it may be old fashioned, intrusive and environmentally uncool. It’s also thriving. No, make that BOOMING, according to a new study published in DM News, the industry trade journal.

As copywriter Bob Bly noted on his blog:

“If social media and other forms of electronic two-way communication are making traditional “dead tree” media obsolete, why hasn’t direct mail — perhaps the most intrusive of the paper-based marketing media — disappeared?

“According to the Winterberry Group, total U.S. direct mail spending in 2007 was $58.4 billion, an increase of 18.2% over the $49.4 billion spent in 2004.”

Since DM’s mantra is “test, test, test,” it’s safe to assume that the only reason that kind of loot is being spent is because it sells.

So why the perception that direct mail is dead and gone? Answer: Because so much of it is poorly done. Ugly design, lousy copywriting, wrong mailing list, etc. Like most things in life, DM is easy to do badly, and hard to do well.

To make your writing seem personal, write like a person, for cryin’ out loud.

That goes for most corporate communications as well as speeches and presentations, as Dick Cavett pointed out in a recent NY Times blog post. The former talk show host was referring to political candidates’ speeches, but the same principles hold true for effective copywriting and business writing.

First, contractions are OK except under the most formal circumstances. Cavett’s suggestion:

“Change all “I wills” and “I shalls” from the speech to “I’ll’; Also, “I haves” and “I ams” to “I’ve” and “I’m,” etc. You’d be surprised how much this cuts down on the oratory tone.”

Cavett’s second tip is the secret of all effective writing, speaking — even radio personalities.

“Tip #2. Pretend you are speaking to one person. One single person. Because that’s what everybody is. No one watching or sitting in the audience is an “all of you” or an “everyone” or a “those of you” or a “Hi, everybody,” and no one is a “ladies and gentlemen.” You, out there, are a “you.” So, speaker, think of yourself as being viewed by only two eyes. (Presumably on the same person.) The most magical word you can use, short of a person’s name, is “you.”

Hey, you — got that?

Strong, powerful, confident words communicate and convince. Lame, wimpy writing kicks the legs out from under your message, and waters it down.

The most common kind of wimpy writing are “qualifiers.” If you remember what your 7th grade English teacher told you, qualifiers are adjectives and adverbs that limit (”qualify”) your message — thus modifying it — and too often, undercutting it. You’ll find lots of them in your own writing — words like “sort of” and “I guess” and “I think.”

Obviously , there are places where certain adjectives and adverbs are appropriate. Take this sentence:  “The dimpled cloud drifted lazily across the blue sky.” In that example, “dimpled” and “blue” are adjectives, and “lazily” is an adverb. You can see how these words describe (and hopefully enhance) the meaning. Unfortunately, most of us overuse adjectives and adverbs, but that’s a topic for another day.

But too often we use qualifiers as a cop-out, as a way of softening or watering down a statement. Note the wimpy qualifiers in italics: “It’s a piece of junk, in my humble opinion.” “She’s sort of a monster if you ask me.” Maybe it’s a little over the top.”
Whether you’re trying to convey a marketing message or a marriage proposal, state whatever you’re trying to say strongly and clearly. Don’t lie or mislead, of course, but don’t water down your message with wishy-washy qualifiers.

I mean, how would you respond if someone wrote,

“I sort of love you. Will you perhaps marry me? I think I could make you fairly happy.”

Doesn’t exactly sweep you off your feet, does it? Now strip out those wimpy qualifiers and see how much stronger and more confidently it reads:

“I sort of love you. Will you perhaps marry me? I think KNOW I could make you fairly happy.”

Don’t feel bad if you find your own writing peppered with wimpy and unnecessary modifiers. That’s what revising and editing is about. Even professional writers and speakers fall into the habit, as Seth Godin admitted today:

“I noticed a little while ago that I was using the word “just” and the phrase “sort of” in my writing. All the time, in fact. In my last book, a search and replace removed more than 80 unnecessary ‘justs’. Just say it. Don’t hide behind waffling terms that don’t mean anything.”

The always-interesting Freakonomics blog in the NY Times recently cited a recent study that confirms the importance of providing lots of product information in your marketing and sales material.

The MediaPost headline says it all: “Majority Of Online Shoppers Check At Least Four Reviews Before Buying.” Take-away point: A solid 68% do their homework before making a purchase.

As a savvy marketer, how do you respond to this knowledge?

1. First, make sure you satisfy this hunger by providing all the facts and figures your prospects need to make a buying decision. The more complex — or expensive — your product or service, the more information you need to provide.
2. Differentiate yourself. Find something different, unique, special about your widget that nobody else can claim, and emphasize that in your collateral.
3. Make your product data available in a variety of formats to please every kind of buyer: Web page, pdf, print (e.g., spec sheets), free samples, etc. Give the people what they want, the way they want it.
4. Triple-check your facts. Make sure everything is accurate and complete. Fresh eyes find mistakes that eyes tired miss.
5. Add a case study or two. Customer “success stories” demonstrate how you’ve helped other, similar customers in the past. Pretty compelling and persuasive stuff.

Then, of course, you somehow still have to find a way to keep all these facts interesting — better yet, fascinating — to your prospect. After all, you can’t bore someone into buying. A few tips:

• Good copywriting and graphic design are essential. Here’s how it works: An attractive layout catches the eye and encourages further reading. The headline makes you want to read the first sentence. The first sentence makes you want to read the second, then the third, etc.
• Effective copy itself begins by addressing the buyer’s wants, needs, fears, etc. Don’t just start bragging on how great you are. Instead, tell me how my life is going to be better if I make your widget part of my life.
• Balance features and benefits throughout the copy. Don’t just tell me about the advanced anti-lock braking system (feature), for example. Tell me why I should care. Safety, peace of mind, better protection for my loved ones — those are benefits.

And benefits are why people buy.