If your marketing is plagued with even one of these profit-killers you are bleeding profit and don’t even know it. You work too hard to miss business that can easily be yours. Your costs are too high and your risks are too great to get anything less than maximum benefit for every dollar you invest in your marketing. Don’t let these profit-killing mistakes rip the heart out of your money-making potential.

Profit-Killing Mistake #1
The Wrong Message: Most advertising is company or product-focused, not customer-focused. No one cares about logos, slogans, jingles or pictures of a building a dog or a duck. You know this for a fact because YOU don’t depend on those things to make buying decisions. No one cares about awards you’ve won, how great your employees are, how you always put your customers first, or about how long you’ve been in business.

Your customers assume you are in business. They assume you’re good at what you do. And they assume you will appreciate their business. You get all that carte blanche. If all your sales letters, brochures and Web copy do is drone on about ‘quality, service and dependability’ - you sound exactly like everyone else making the same shallow, self-serving claims anyone with any product can make. And if you sound like everyone else, YOUR MESSAGE HAS MADE YOU A COMMODITY, where the only thing that matters is price.

• A strong message distinguishes you from your competitors. With the right message, people will drive past a dozen competitors, stand in line and pay more to do business with you... because the right message demonstrates you understand them. And demonstrates you have a superior solution that is perfect for them.
• A strong message establishes your authority in a credible way... and presents an air-tight sales argument for doing business with you.
• A strong message details the problems your prospects face because they don’t have your product or service – and explains how their life will better when they do.

Why is weak advertising so common?
Weak advertising is common because they are not created by people direct marketing – MAKE A SALE NOW – experience. Most ads are created by talented graphic artists with off-the-chart design skills but no direct marketing experience... or by advertising sales people - who are skilled at selling advertising - but have no training, no experience and no idea how to create persuasive direct response advertising... that grabs attention and gets people excited and ready to buy.

Profit-Killing Mistake #2
Weak Copy: Having weak copy that fails to engage the prospect, fails to hold attention, fails to stimulate emotion, and fails to sell, is a terrible mistake that can cost you a fortune. The purpose of direct response sales copywriting is to SELL SOMETHING NOW.

Direct response copywriting is not about telling stories, although stories may be told. It’s not about describing the product, although the product may be described. And it’s not about how great the company is, although that may be discussed. Direct response copywriting and advertising is about SELLING. And in order to sell, you need strong copy that connects with your prospects and presents a case so compelling, your prospect WANTS to do business with you, and feels like it’s THEIR idea.

The difference between strong copy and average copy, is like the difference between a top sales pro who sells every day - and an average chump who sells just enough to not get fired. Weak copy is like weak coffee or powdered eggs or bland oatmeal. Or like a timid salesman who will talk forever about kids or football, but is scared to death to ask for the order.

And by the way, STRONG copy does not mean braggadocios, over the top, loud, or in your face. Strong copy feels like a conversation with a friend - who understands what you want, understands the pain of not having it - and has a solution you come to see as ‘perfect’.

One problem you face in evaluating your copy needs and deciding if you should write your own copy, or work with a pro is you don’t know what you don’t know. So unless you know what makes great copy great - and have experience writing high-octane copy that sells, you have no standard to measure one piece of copy against another.

And even if you recognize great copy the second you see it...recognizing great copy does not magically convey the ability to write it any more than recognizing Itzhak Perlman is a great violinist - gives you the ability to pick up his violin and leave audiences spellbound in Carnegie Hall.

Profit-Killing Mistake # 3
Not recognizing EVERY Touch-Point is a selling opportunity & every piece of copy is a business asset with the potential to deliver extraordinary value for years.

From a SALES perspective...
Sales letters, email marketing campaigns, funnel copy, evergreen sales presentations, lead magnets, audios, videos, white papers, Web copy and so on are tools. Sales tools. Their only purpose is to engage your prospect. Get you on their radar. Answer questions. Get them excited about what you can do for them. And make a sale. Having the right tool makes the job easier. So if your sales letters, Web copy, special reports, email marketing campaigns and so on are not converting as well as you’d like, better tools may be the answer.

From a BUSINESS OWNER perspective...
Sales letters, marketing campaigns and so on, are BUSINESS ASSETS capable of generating leads, telling your story and making sales 24/7 and 365. A good sales letter can sell more of what you sell, including high-ticket products and professional services, in a shorter time than a team of top-gun sales pros ever could. An effective evergreen sales funnel can deliver your message to more good prospects in a day than a dozen full-time sales people can in a month.

Strong copy is a powerful tool that gives you a HUGE business-building advantage.
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”

Copywriting elements that support direct marketing strategies include:

• A Master Sales Presentation to engage your prospects. Tell your story. And get them to WANT to do business with YOU. Your Master Presentation can take the form of a long-from sales letter delivered offline and/or online, a video sales letter, Magalog, Special Report, audio, script for in-person sales or selling on stage.
• Strong Web Copy to engage prospects and lead them through an Invisible Sales Process that results in action. They join your list. Download a special report. Watch a video. Call you. Email you. Fill out a form. Set an appointment. Or just buy your product or service right there on the spot.
• Lead Magnets – something you give away or sell to get a prospect involved. Special Reports, videos, an interview, an audio, a Consumer Guide all qualify – but regardless of what form it takes – done correctly, your lead magnets are powerful selling tools that engage your prospect and move them closer to buying.