Category: Consultancy

The 5.6 Billion Pound Sentence Change

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Liam Atkins

How adding just one sentence to a letter nabbed this organisation a 15% higher response rates, and a £5.6 Billion pound difference to their bank balance.

What would a 15% higher response rate to your next sales letter do for your business?

In real terms, what impact would it have on your bank account?

For this organisation, this 15% increase brought in whopping £5.6 BILLION.

And all it took was a slightly altered sentence and a piece of personalisation.

That was it.

That one sentence change was worth £5 Billon.

The organisation…

The tax man; HMRC.

Part of HMRC’s recent trials explored the impact of changing just one sentence, based on local comparisons.

It found that replacing the sentence “Nine out of 10 people in the UK pay their tax on time” with “The great majority of people in [the taxpayer’s local area] pay their tax on time” increased the proportion of people who paid their income tax before the deadline.

This clever one sentence trick, putting ‘social proof’ firmly into practice as a gentle nudge really worked.

(Social proof, from the idea of normative social influence, stating that individuals will conform in order to be liked by, similar to or accepted by society). (Normative social influence on wiki)

Most of us wouldn’t think that an organisation which takes £500 BILLION annually from us would need to work on their copy.

But, they, like you – need to find ways to encourage more cheques to come their way.

Which highlights the importance of measuring and testing.

If they weren’t measuring how well their letters to taxpayers where performing, they’d never know they had room for improvement.

While your businesses marketing may be plodding along nicely, could it be doing better?

Is a weak sentence in your copy acting like a hole in your bucket of leads?

Drop me an email for us to have a chat about your business’s marketing.

stages of awareness

Are You Pitching to a Cold Audience? Stages of Awareness

,
Liam Atkins

Wow, what a busy week.

2nd Birthday celebrations for the fantastic Archie, seeing both sides of our family, and then going away for a weekend break, the three of us are well and truly pooped.

…although I’m eager to get back into client work.

Some cold sales letters are heading for the post office this week (when I get this damn laser printer whirring up again!).

I know, another sales letter flogging my wares, for business owners to file over the junk mail bin…

Although, I’m not asking for a sale, just a conversation.

A quick chat to see if there’s any way I could put my copywriting and advertising skills to use in their business.

I’ve sent a couple of emails like this out to contacts already, and have had a positive response – so, fingers crossed.

Try doing this with your own marketing, push for an appointment vs a sale.

If you know your product, are passionate about it – and it solves a core problem, the prospect will be eager to sign you a cheque.

Going straight for the sale when your prospect has never even heard of you, let alone know then need your product is a sure-fire waste of money, time and effort, you’re pitching to a completely cold audience this way.

In copywriting, there’s a number of stages to consider when tailoring a sales message.

Stages of Awareness

stages of awareness

The stages of awareness, as taught by advertising guru Eugene Schwartz are:

1. The Most Aware: Your prospect knows your product, and only needs to know “the deal.”

2. Product-Aware: Your prospect knows what you sell, but isn’t sure it’s right for him.

3. Solution-Aware: Your prospect knows the result he wants, but not that your product provides it.

4. Problem-Aware: Your prospect senses he has a problem but doesn’t know there’s a solution.

5. Completely Unaware: No knowledge of anything except, perhaps, his own identity or opinion.

Using these stages of awareness as an example, used in reverse order, if a prospect is unaware of you, their problem, let alone any solution or product, it would be pretty difficult to convert them into a sale by talking about the whizz-bang features of your new widget.

Instead, you could send them something that highlights how people like them, may have XYZ problem, and invite them to call or seek further information about the problem – and if there’s even a solution (there is, it’s your new widget).

Think about your current advertising, what stage of awareness are the people you’re pitching to at and does it match your messages?

If not, mix it up, and test the results.

Need someone to help with your business message?

Whether it’s copywriting help, or full-blown marketing management – and everything in between, I’m here to help.

Drop me an email to set up a call: [email protected]

john carlton marketing sauce

The Magic Sauce of All Marketing

, ,
Liam Atkins

Straight back to the good stuff, another quote from an ace copywriter and how we can apply it to all of our businesses…

This time, John Carlton.

John Carlton may well be one of the best copywriters you’ve never heard of, but you’ve almost definitely seen something of his if you’ve spent anytime online.

He even refers to himself as “the most ripped-off writer on the Web” for this very reason.

john carlton marketing sauce

Personally, in my quest to become the silver bullet businesses here in Sussex need to conquer their own marketing woes, I have bought every single book, course and private membership of his.

Why? Because it’s how we all learn, even the pros have coaches and, although from a distance, John is definitely one of mine.

Think Andy Murray, whether it was his Mum or Ivan Lendl (or whomever it may be now), he’s a tennis superstar – but still has a coach.

Anyway, back to John – he has worked with huge copywriting superstars such as Jay Abraham and Gary Halbert, so he’s definitely someone worth listening to.

Value nugget’s coming, I promise…

“Understanding how to find, persuade and win over customers is the magic sauce of all great marketing.” – John Calrton

This quote was taken from his book The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Getting Your Shit Together which I recently read.

It sums up everything I am hoping to provide for my clients, and is exactly what you need to be striving for with your own business.

Way too many marketing ‘experts’ (sigh) focus religiously on perhaps one platform, or technique, or system – which, in their own ways may well be amazing, but…BUT, you need the whole package to really be successful and take your sales to the next level.

Marketing is such a general BS term really, John’s quote instead explains the process way better…

You need to be able to find prospects, e.g. where they hang out online.

You need to get your messages read, and then convert these prospects enough so they actually GIVE YOU MONEY.

Do all three of these things, and – in John’s words – you’ve uncovered the ‘magic sauce of all marketing’.

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Need some help with your own marketing?

I’m a copywriter with a marketing and business background.

When I say a business background – I mean, I have done almost every job in the marketing and sales business. From making scary cold calls, to selling advertising space, to marketing management and everything in between.

In addition to working for clients, I’ve also done it myself. Growing a cryptocurrency business to over a million in turnover in just six months (from July 2017 to January 2018).

So, when you’re working with me, you’re working with someone who’s not just a copy junky – you’re unleashing years of real life business experience, which has actually made me money, not just a collection of blog posts or attendance figures at networking meetings…

Fancy becoming a client? Drop me a message and we can chat.

Stop Making It About You

, ,
Liam Atkins

I did this, we do that, I’m the bee’s knees’ at XYZ…

Take a step back, look at your own website, your own social media profiles and your latest advertising pieces. How many often are you talking about yourself?

I mean, you may well think that’s what you need to be doing when promoting your business and services. Your spending money on promoting yourself…so make it about you, right?

Take a minute and have a good look at printed adverts and online promo’s that do this and ask yourself – ‘who cares?’

Who cares?

Genuinely, who gives a flying f-bomb, if your business has been around for 100 years, or that you’ve invested tonnes of cash in super-duper machinery, or your team are trained to XYZ standard.

The average reader is only interested in how any of these things that are essentially just features of your business or service, actually impacts or interests them – their own lives, their business or their pocket.

Within the copywriting and marketing world, many of the top experts ensure every single statement published by their clients pass the ‘So What..?’ test.

They demand their clients are honest and brutal with every sentence published, asking them – ‘So what?’

So what…your business has been around for 100 years?

So what…you’ve invested heavily in machinery?

So what…your team are highly trained?

If your reader finds themselves saying ‘so what’ to a statement, you’ve lost them. Instead, try accompanying a statement (if it’s really needed) with a clear, tangible benefit to the reader.

So, the above features behind your business can easily turn into clear benefits which pass the ‘So what’ test…

Clear benefits

You can relax knowing that, with 100 years of expertise behind everything we do, your widget is in safe, capable hands.

Get your products produced faster and for less with us. Thanks to our investment in the latest, quickest and most efficient machinery in the industry.

Don’t let technical queries slow down your production. Solve your post-production questions immediately by calling our highly trained staff.

Most of the time, we couldn’t care less about you…especially if your advert / cold call / email is interrupting our day. We all only really care about ourselves, so keep it about US.

P.S. Weirdly, as I’m doing my own research on copywriters and competition across the UK, so many copywriters just talk about themselves vs. their client, or how they can solve the clients problems.

Baffling really, but if it works for them and they’re bringing in the clients they need – good for them.

Next up, more research – I’ve been reading loads into John Carlton and Dan Kennedy’s work. I really enjoy the more ‘Americanised’ direct response side of copywriting, so I’m hoping to be able to adopt it, and perhaps tone it down / hone it more to a UK audience for my own clients.