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Can you learn to paint like Rembrandt without experiencing how Rembrandt did it? The same goes for learning marketing and sales techniques that work.

I’m always amazed by the responses I get from many of my business coaching clients, and sales and marketing clients when I ask them to keep copies of the best and the worst ads and websites they’ve seen. I don’t think I’ve ever found a client that had been doing it before. And when asked them to start keeping copies and learn from what they see they are afraid of “copying.”

Let me take you back to my childhood. I can remember setting through art class year after year, and never getting any better. I never felt I had learned anything.

For the most part, I tried to learn from scratch, to do everything uniquely. That is what the art teacher kept telling me. However, one day I was watching TV and saw a program that was teaching how to copy some really good prints. They taught how to duplicate the strokes exactly as was on the print. We learned how to do a tree, a house, the grass, mountains, in “that style.” The next week we started with another print and another style.

Before that I was taught to never copy. I had a total fear of having anyone think I might be doing something like someone else. Once I broke through that fear, I started using a light table, tracing over the original prints. Suddenly I was able to understand what kinds of strokes and colors worked. Only then was I able draw and paint, and not too bad at that. This progress happened in a matter of weeks. It had taken me years to get to this point, but weeks once I caught on.

The best way to learn to paint, or to write good ads and marketing material is to study the masters. And the best way to do that is to learn to copy them first. Once you understand what it takes to make something look somewhat similar to their style, and understand why they have done it that way, only then can you start to develop your own unique style.

Even the best marketing experts and copywriters keep a SWIPE file. They save copies of the best and the worst examples, sometimes with notes on them helping them understand why they filed it. Some are filed by the marketing style, some by an industry. When they get ready to write their own marketing copy they go back to the files to remind themselves what the best of the best looked like, and what they should avoid among the worst.

As you build your own SWIPE file you will discover that you will be finding better and better copy, and probably will start to throw poor copy out and keep only the best. That’s how you’ll learn to get better. As you get better and start learning the intricacies of what makes good copy you’ll see that some of the copy you saved wasn’t really that good, but now you’ll be looking for copy that meets that new standard to replace the existing stuff.

Here are some quick guidelines for choosing good copy:

1)It must be presenting benefits, not product, services, or the person.

2)It should identify the target audience. (This should be the first thing you see)

3)It should have a measurable “grabber” line, bold, highlighted if not at the top, very near the top. (This should be the 2nd thing you see).

4)It should identify the key objections their audience has and deal with them.

5)It should have some testimonials. The testimonials should

a) backup the measurable benefit in the grabber line
b)overcome the objections

6)It should downplay or not use graphics. Graphics should only be used to support the grabber line. Far too often, the graphic becomes the center of attention instead of the grabber line. Graphics doesn’t sell, words do.

7)Make a very clear offer, and ASK for an action, don’t assume an action.

8)Have ONLY one clear action to be taken, not multiple. The more choices your reader has the less likely he will choose any one of them. You’ll actually lower your response rate.

9)Develop a sense or urgency around your offer. People are procrastinators. Give them a chance to say “Yes, I need to respond to this, but I’ll put it on my desk and answer it tomorrow,” and it will get lost in the pile and never answered.

Give them an offer they can’t refuse and tell them it is good for only … days, or for the first 10, etc. I hear the rumbling from the peanut gallery whenever I say that. Everyone fears that they are reducing their responses by not letting everyone have time. Let me say it again, “People are procrastinators.” They will put it down to do it tomorrow and never do it. Your response will be low to nil.

Use “Call me TODAY I will only take X number. Last month we filled in 3-4 days. SO CALL NOW!” and that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It will be gone in 3-4 days. Just make sure to live up to your limit or people won’t believe you next time.

Use these guidelines to review the ads and websites for your SWIPE file. Start keeping the best and the worst. Then use the ideas it generates to write your own ads and your own website the next time.

Alan Boyer, President/CEO of The Leader’s Perspective, LLC is considered one of the world’s leading breakthrough specialists. He has worked with some of the worlds largest companies, on projects in the multi-billion dollar area, and with single proprietor companies. He has worked on many hundreds of projects with companies that have resulted in multi-$100 million savings or gains.

With over 35 years of business, quality, and process experience, he has catapulted businesses lightyears ahead in weeks. Some have doubled and some have jumped 10 times. He claims the key to that is:

That is the question, you should be asking yourself. Many feel that it is I’m sure. But is it really!

Which scenario is better or best for your business, marketing and advertising everyday spending more than you marketing budget allows each month. Or marketing your business based on last years marketing cost for five months straight where after five months you market your business no more.

You will have no reason to, because your clients will be calling you at will. That’s right I’m talking about a campaign that will free you up to do business without having to pay one dime on marketing after a five month campaign that will in form your potential clients of your business or service.

It can be done; I will prove it to you with a brief example of it happening to me. I own a pick-up truck with a snowplow on it. To show you that this works I am going to talk about last years snow storm where my clients from over a year ago,
called for my business this year.

What makes this so amazing is that I only plowed for these businesses once, during the entire winter season. Never made contact again until they picked up the phone for service this year.

Now that to me is marketing, you can achieve the same thing by marketing your business all the time. It does not matter where you are or who you come in contact with you must always market yourself or your business.

This would mean promoting your self all the time with flyers, business cards, ads and what ever else you could think of within your means. When you go to the store, hand out a card. When you are in the supermarket put up some flyers on the community board. Take one day a week during your campaign handing out your business cards to local businesses that will benefit from your service.

At the doctor’s office hand out your cards to other patients, and staff. They may not need your service at that particular moment but they will remember you. Depending on the type of business you are in, offer samples or show pictures of your work while you are handing out your marketing materials.

How will you get calls if no one knows what you have to offer? You have to show them, tell them and let them see what you do. Use people around you as well friends, family and co-workers alike. Let everyone you know, what you do and how they can contact you.

You can go a step further, send letter or email local businesses about your business along with some business cards or flyers or a brochure if you are
mailing a letter announcing your service. It will pay off in the end, you will see.

In conclusion, you can get to the point of having you clients call you for business. This is nothing new nor is it something is impossible. My example above should be proof enough that it possible. This was a total of 3 clients I had no contact with for over a year, they remember my little slow plowing service like it was yesterday. You too could experience the same effect ten fold.

Michelle has been online for about 7-years now. She started out on ebay which she still does some work on occasion. After doing the ebay thing for 2-years Michelle moved over to Internet and Affiliate Marketing. She has not stopped since. Build your own home business now visit http://home-making-money.com for more information today.

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How important is the layout of a print ad? Well, considering that most small businesses spend the majority of their marketing budget on display ads (aka print ads), the layout is critical. This is especially important because display ads almost never bring the anticipated and much needed results desired by business owners and marketers. There are many “industry secrets” you need to know to get the response you need to make a profit from a display ad.

What does that mean to you? It means if you are going to run an ad in newspapers, magazines, event programs, or anywhere else, you want to know how to maximize your opportunity and investment by designing the ad for maximum response. You also need to know how to place an ad for maximum response.

The following tips will prove VERY valuable to you…

ALWAYS use a dark black thick border around your ad. It will draw the reader’s eye to your ad without the expense of two colors and without paying for larger ads

Whenever possible, on the outside of the thick dark black border, use dashed lines like those typically seen around coupons. At the psychological level, this border implies a value or savings in your display ad.

And speaking of coupons, use a coupon or other direct offer (free special report, free consultation, etc.) in every display ad; this is active, direct marketing - USE IT EVERY TIME!

DON’T LET THE PUBLICATION’S STAFF DESIGN YOUR DISPLAY AD OR WRITE YOUR COPY! Typically they have sales people do this work — and let’s face it, they are sales people, not Brilliant Marketers. Use the ad layout you create in this course.

Commit to running the ad a MINIMUM of seven times - in the same place… and don’t change it up much. That is the most effective way to get the maximum number of new customers and return on your investment. IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO RUN THE DISPLAY AD SEVEN TIMES… DON’T RUN IT AT ALL… use your marketing dollars on other activities.

Although larger ads statistically pull better response rates, if you design your display ad as recommended in this lesson, you can get the higher response rates using the smaller, less expensive ads

Run your ads on the days you are open and/or the days that will target your market; for example, Wednesdays are typically the day food is featured, Monday is sports, and Fridays are entertainment focused

Every ad should contain your benefits and features, a coupon or other direct call to action (yes, I know I am repeating that - but it is important), borders (same), contact information, a map or major crossroads, your URL, headlines, testimonials, picture or graphic (if space allows), and rapport messages

INSIST that you ad is placed in the front section of the newspaper on the right-hand side, on the top half; for the same money this statistically pulls a higher response

Do not use ALL CAPS in your ad; they are hard to read. If you absolutely have - and I mean just have to - use them, do so sparingly

Ads with people in them typically pull a higher readership rate; photographs are statistically more effective than drawings or clipart graphics and photographs of babies pull the absolute highest readership rates

Okay - there you have it… a good number of really valuable tips to immediately improve your response rates when using print (display) ads.

Alex Barrington, author of Brilliant Marketing! specializes in providing micro-businesses and start-ups the most practical, valuable marketing information available. To maximize this opportunity for all, Alex has created The Brilliant Marketing! System; to get a copy of the free ebook by the same title, click into http://www.brilliant-marketing-for-small-business.com/brilliant-marketing-free-download.html

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