Sparrow Marketing - The 16 Golden Rules of Marketing

The 16 Golden Rules of Marketing

Some of these 16 Rules are based on the results of marketing surveys covering over 60,000 advertisements and promotions. In other instances over 105,000 selling words and sentences have been tested on over 18,900,000 customers, to come up with the most effective sales principles. These rules have sold many millions of dollars worth of products. And they will sell millions more in the future.

No matter what you are selling, you are selling to people. Your customers all eat, sleep and have problems with their kids, wife or husband. They probably want to work less, look younger and need to lose a bit of weight and exercise more. In other words - they are human beings like you and I. Human nature doesn't change. That's why the rules below will apply today as they did 10, 30, or even 80 years ago.

So here it is . . .

Golden Rule #1 It is 5 times easier to sell something else to your existing customers than to get a new customer. The easiest way to sell something else to your existing customers is by using the telephone or by sending them a letter. I've been accused of focusing too much on selling by Direct Mail . . . but it is by far the most efficient way for you to get more business. Your past clients are a "hot buyers" list. All you have to do is ask them to buy something else. And it doesn't have to be your product either. You can offer them someone elses products. Thus an accountant can offer financial services. A restaurant can send invites to a clothing sale. A muffler shop can promote a motor mechanic. A plumber can refer an electrician. And so on.

Golden Rule #2 If you have an established business 70% of your advertising dollars should be spent on re-selling to your existing customers. Why? See Rule #1. And yet I see most businesses spend thousands of dollars in the media trying to get new business - only to forget all about those people after they buy. If you were to send out some thank you letters instead, or call your customers and ask them to buy again, you'd see an almost magic increase to your bottom line. Done correctly, this always works better than chasing new customers. Listen, next time you are going to run a full page ad in the newspapers promoting a sale or whatever, try this. Reproduce the ad and send it to your existing clients. Attach a note saying . . .

"I thought you may want to see this, come in the day before to get your best pick of the bargains. Regards . . . ."

This will work wonders if your sale has a genuine appeal!!

Golden Rule #3 Where possible sell only to "players". (People who want what you sell and have the money to afford it.) It is far easier to make money by selling half as much but at double the price!! I always advise most of my clients to increase their prices and improve their marketing and customer service. Rather than lower their prices and have no profit margin left for good marketing and customer service. Usually this results in less work and more profit for the business. The "players" don't really ask "how much" as they do "will it work and can I trust you" or "do I like dealing with this person and the business".

Golden Rule #4 If you need to get new customers, by far the best (and cheapest) way is to offer a free sample of your product or service. What I am saying is, take the money you would have spent on fancy advertising and give it to your best prospective customers (the players) in the form of a sample or trial of your product or service. Thus a restaurant can offer a Free Main Course or an open $5, $10 or $20 voucher. A clothing shop can offer a free shirt. A new car retailer can offer a free dinner with any test drive. Another way to get new customers is to create an Information Product such as a "FREE Report" which you can sell or giveaway. Create something that positions you as the expert and educates the customer on why they should buy from you. (Warning: Aim your free sampling only at the players - see rule #3.) You can easily test this rule if you monitor the results from your different marketing strategies.

Golden Rule #5 When promoting your products find the "right appeal". This is usually the biggest "reason why" your customers buy your products. The benefit they get by using your product. The wrong kind of advertising appeal can actually reduce sales. It has been tested that one advertisement can out-sell another by as much as 19.5 times. Even though they both look the same, cost the same and sell the same product. The difference is in the "appeal" used to sell the product in the ad. (Usually contained in the headline) The best way to find the right appeal is to ask your best salespeople what arguments they use to sell your products. Or, ask your best customers why they buy from you.

Golden Rule #6 The more information you give in your ads, the more you'll sell. As a general rule, 2 minute TV commercials will out-sell a 30 second commercial. And a 30 minute infor-mercial out-sells both again. Remember your ads are targeted at the `players'. These are the people who want what you are selling and have the money to pay for it. They will read your ads (or watch them) if what you say is interesting and relevant to them.

Some of the most famous long - copy ads include . . .

6,450 words for Merril Lynch Stockbrokers. One insertion in the newspapers brought 10,000 responses from interested investors.

5 pages of text for selling Schlitz beer. Within a few months Schlitz beer went from fifth in sales to first.

600 word ad for Puerto Rico by David Ogilvy got 14,000 readers to send in a coupon. Dozens built factories in Puerto Rico as the result.

800 word ad for Mercedes Benz headlined "You give up things when you buy the Mercedes Benz 230S. Things like rattles, rust and shabby workmanship" This ad increased sales from 10,000 cars a year to 40,000 a year in the U.S.A.

A copy-rich Yellow Pages ad got a $40,000 per month increase for the owner of a video repair shop the moment the Yellow Pages came out.

What more can I say? Except that Demtel built a $50 million dollar a year business virtually overnight with their 2 minute ads. And I could give you dozens more examples. Remember this saying . . . "The more you tell - the more you'll sell." This is the absolute truth for selling just about anything. And if you test and monitor your ads you'll soon find out it's true. This is also something that 99% of the ad agencies and people who sell advertising have no clue about. So, if you want to make some real money . . .

Don't listen to them. Test it out for yourself instead.

Golden Rule #7 Research clearly shows that ads that look like editorial articles get 500% more readership than ads that obviously look like ads. Unless you haven't heard a word I have said previously, no more needs to be said here, does it?? O.K. I'll explain a little. People don't buy magazines or newspapers to read the ads do they?? Of course not. You, I and everybody else, buy the papers, the magazines or watch the TV for the stories. By making your ads informative and looking like the stories in the publication you'll get more sales. When writing your ad, pretend you are the editor of the magazine writing about your company or product. (See Rule #6.)

Golden Rule #8 Never ever run any advertisement without monitoring the response. In other words, if it doesn't sell your products get rid of it. FAST!! 99% of ad agencies, newspaper and radio reps hate the idea of monitoring. Their advice is "Repetition is the key to success!!" The only trouble is, they are referring to . . .

Their success - Not yours

Since they get paid by the quantity of advertising you place, it's not always in their best interest to teach you how to halve the amount of advertising you do and double the effectiveness.   And that's exactly what is possible.   Once you find an ad, sales pitch or marketing strategy that works - - keep doing it. Remember, the market place is constantly changing. You may get tired of seeing the sames old ads but your new and existing customers will not. Remember at least 100,000 new people are born each year in Australia and 100,000 (or so) die. If it's working don't change it!! If your ad sold baby clothes to new mothers this year, it'll probably work just as well with new mothers next year!!

Golden Rule #9   Monitor everything you do to promote your business. Start yourself a promotion analysis folder. Inside have details of each promotion or ad you run and the results it brought you. You'll at least double your advertising results by doing this!! Never use reverse type (black background with white type) in your ads. Research clearly shows that this is difficult to read and will reduce response by at least 50%. However if you look in many magazines lots of articles and ads are designed this way.   What a waste!!

Golden Rule #10    Don't try to be creative or original. Pretty ads don't sell products. The most appealing (to look at) and artistic ads seldom make people buy the products they are supposed to be selling. The ads that win awards for the advertising agencies who create them rarely win sales awards for the clients!! During a survey of ads that won a "Clio" award. (The advertising industries highest recognition) it was found that agencies that won 4 of the Clios lost the clients business . . . Another client refused to even run his ad and . . . of 80 TV classics picked by Clio, 36 of the business owners involved had either sacked the agency or had gone broke.

Not a real good record, is it?

In fact, the owner of one of the biggest direct response advertising agencies once said to a client . . . "Do you want creativity and originality? Or do you want to see the darned sales graph going up?? Because you sure as heck ain't going to get them both!"

I guess the point I am making, is don't be creative for the sake of being creative. Finding a new twist for a proven sales approach is fine, but only as long as it works better than the previous one. Let your sales graph be the judge.

Golden Rule #11    Use benefit headlines in all your ads. On average 5 times as many people read the headline as read the rest of the ad. If reader's attention is caught by the headline - they read on. Unless your headline sells your product or service you've wasted 90% of your money. The best headlines are those that promise the reader a benefit - - lose weight, meet new friends, less tooth decay, easy to maintain garden, make more money, get relief from arthritis, increase your sales and so on.   The headline is the "Ad For Your ad."

Golden Rule #12    Client testimonials increase credibility - - and sales. Like a referral, a testimonial is a third party endorsement and therefore is much more believeable. If you say something about your product or service it may sound like boasting. If someone else says it, it's believable.   Hardly anyone (except mail order companies) uses testimonials. Use them in all your ads, letters and brochures. They work.

Golden Rule #13    Nobody has been able to show a relationship between advertising recall and actual sales. The standard form of measuring the effectiveness of an ad by mainstream advertising agencies and media reps is by recall. Or how many people actually remember the ad after it runs for a set period. This is really stupid. The only thing that should count from your point of view, is not how many people remember your ads - but how many actually went and bought your product. If all you want is recall, just run ads featuring chimpanzees dressed in a swimming costume. Sales is where it's at, so don't get bamboozled by fancy words and advertising jargon.

Golden Rule #14    Test every ad, sales letter or marketing campaign before betting your house (or your business future) on it. Don't be seduced by the media reps or the list brokers with promises of huge readerships and hot buyers lists. Test everything on a small scale before you commit large amounts of money to it. What the large (and successful) companies always do is test a campaign in one region, city, suburb or newspaper first. If it works they expand it. If not, they change it until it does work. This way even failures can make you rich.   Because when the 8th test you run is a winner, you just keep on repeating it. And it more than makes up for the the first seven tests that did not work. Is that too much trouble? Not if you want to make money.

Golden Rule #15    Don't listen to opinions and advice from well meaning friends, family and business associates. Time after time I've seen a perfectly good ad being discarded because someone close to my clients said "Oh, I would never read that" or "This would never make me buy".   Here's a golden piece of advice. Don't listen to anyone who hasn't proved to you they can sell better than you or I can. Test the ad instead - you'll make a lot more money that way.   Well meaning advice is a dime-a-dozen. Don't let it cost you thousands!!

Golden Rule #16    If you are really serious about increasing your profits make sure you do something with the information you get.   No matter how much information you have at your disposal, it won’t make any difference if you don’t put it into practice. So make sure you use whichever of these marketing gems you can, then you will find yourself on the road to acheiving the wealth and lifestyle you deserve.

Sparrow Marketing Agency. For extra copies of this report please write to 32 Ventura Court Kirwan QLD 4817              or call us on 0432 149 803
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