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So you’ve tried direct mail, advertising, you’ve got a web site, maybe you’ve even tried networking as a marketing strategy. These and many other marketing strategies are all good and if performed properly will most likely bring you favorable results. A word to the wise here though, some of them can run you a fortune in marketing costs. And in my experience, cost has a lot less bearing on effectiveness than one would like to believe. Now being a fan of Jay Conrad Levinson and his concept of “Guerrilla Marketing”, I am always on the lookout for innovative and inexpensive ways to market. And what I have for you here certainly fits that bill.

I believe Napoleon Hill in his 1930’s classic book “Think and Grow Rich” was the first person to coin the phrase “Master Mind” and he defined it as: “Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.”

Hmmm So basically it’s building a team that leverages their collective brains and brawn to help one another get what they want.

So let’s not beat around the bush here. Are you ready for the secret marketing strategy? Well here goes It’s quite simple really there is strength in numbers. Two minds are exponentially more capable than one mind alone. In this equation, one plus one does not equal two, it more closely resembles eleven. We’re talking about leverage here. The secret is simply to gain leverage by creating your own mastermind. Not just any mastermind though; One that specifically focuses on marketing - a “Marketing Mastermind” so to speak.

So my proposal to you is to take that exact concept of a mastermind as Napoleon Hill defined it, and niche it to focus primarily on marketing.

So real quick what should this mastermind look like? My suggestion would be 4 to 8 members from different, non-competing industries, meeting weekly to discuss how they can help each other market their respective businesses - Plain and simple.

Now it’s not my intention here to educate you in any detail on how to set up and effectively participate in a mastermind group, as there are plenty of resources out there already that can do that for you, it is simply to share with you what’s possible by leveraging this concept to support your marketing efforts.

Personally, I see this strategy as a phenomenal way for organizations, especially smaller ones with little spending money for marketing, to use the power of leverage to broaden their capability and effectiveness.

While the benefits of doing this could be endless, let me just share with you five of my favorites:
1. Plain and simple, it keeps you in the conversation of marketing.
2. It can provide you with unbiased feedback, brainstorming, and marketing advice based on experiences of what has worked, or hasn’t worked for your mastermind teammates.
3. You will significantly expand your reach and go beyond who you know and tap into who your teammates know. Now depending on what the group agrees to, you may gain access to the client list and/or mailing list of the other members. Additionally, you can explore the possibilities of joint marketing initiatives and joint venture arrangements where multiple parties share in the results.
4. You’ll be held accountable to get done what you say you will get done. This alone inspires people into action and action ultimately leads to results.
5. The list can go on and on and on however, best of all, masterminding is free!

So need I say more? I sincerely hope you’ll take this strategy on and try it on for a while. What do you got to lose? - It’s free. Remember, there’s power in numbers so build your “Marketing Mastermind” and reap the rewards today!

© 2006 Online Marketing Muscle — All Rights Reserved.

Online entrepreneur Dean Mercado, “The Motivational Marketer,” is creator of the acclaimed ‘Pumped Up Networking’ system geared to explode your business through professional relationships. To learn more about it and to sign up for his FREE eZine the ‘Marketing Minute’ - a weekly multimedia eZine designed to give you a jolt of marketing wisdom in less than 5 minutes, visit http://www.OnlineMarketingMuscle.com.

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Meet the five W’s: Who, What, When, Where, Why.

Oh, them, you say. Inverted pyramid and all that journalism stuff. The five W’s are old-timers, old news.

Well, yes. But there’s a reason they’ve been around a long time.

Plus, I’ll let you in on a secret: They’re not just for reporters writing breaking news stories or publicists cranking out press releases. You can apply the 5 W’s to marketing pieces, even advertising. Let me show you how.

Beyond PR

The five W’s have long been the mainstay of PR professionals who must write newsworthy press releases to get media attention for their clients. By effectively using the five W’s, they’re speaking the language of journalists and the news business.

However, marketing, advertising and sales promotion are undisguised selling. How do the five W’s apply? Let’s run through them. Think about an ad, Web site, brochure, or sales letter.

Who - Who is the audience, customer, or prospect? Who are you?
What - What is the product, service, offer?
When - What is the time element? Why is it important or urgent now?
Where - Where is the market(s) or company (yours and/or theirs)?
Why - Why should they respond or buy? What are the reasons or benefits? Why you instead of your competitor?

I’m not suggesting that the five W’s are a marketing cure-all.

You still need to stick to marketing basics: presenting products and services as solutions to problems; showcasing features and benefits; providing proof with testimonials, opinions and statistics; and having a strong call to action.

Simply use the five W’s to help flesh out all aspects of your message.

Stress-free Interviewing

With a firm grasp of the five W’s, I believe you can adequately steer your way through any interview. The five W’s give you the question-asking framework to approach any person, subject and project.

Ideally, you prepare for an interview, considering the focus of your piece, gathering background information and preparing questions in written form or in your head.

The five W’s are a good starting point, but you’ll find them absolutely indispensable in those instances when you have little or no time to prepare for an interview. The five W’s will help you ask some decent questions and come away with what you need to write the piece.

Don’t Forget ‘How’

Not widely publicized because it doesn’t begin with a “W,” “how” is a frequent sidekick of the 5 W’s.

How important is “how”? It’s of prime importance in every rags-to-riches story. We all want to know how they did it. It’s critical to new technology, as in how it works. You can probably think of other examples. Lean heavily on “how,” for it can be just as important as the five W’s.

Copyright (c) 2006 Neil Sagebiel

Neil Sagebiel is a veteran copywriter who has served clients such as Microsoft, The Seattle Times, Lucent Technologies, March of Dimes, Airborne Express and Unisys. To sign up for his FREE expert tips to help you write better and sell more, visit http://www.neilsagebiel.com.

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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: