Step #5
In this Lesson...
- The 5 crucial things you must have in your marketing message to make it successful
Hanging in there? Good, because here's where it all starts to come together.
Direct Response marketing is all about
- The right message
- to the right market
- at the right time
Now, I'm going to assume you know who your market is, for the moment. Your first and primary market is your existing customers, right? (Say 'yes Greg'.)
Timing is important. You wouldn't market Mothers Day offers at Christmas. That's obvious.
But what about your message? Here's where it gets tricky. Here's where most salon & spa owners fall down.
Most people find it hard enough to write a letter to friends, let alone drafting a powerful marketing message that persuades people to buy things. This process is called
Salesmanship in Print
Writing great marketing copy is not something anybody is born with. It's taken me 30 years to learn how to write copy that sells, and I'm still not perfect at it. But I'm better than most, that's why the letters, ads and fliers in the Toolkit (or Super Kit) work so well. And I refine, practise, and research every single day.
FACT: "Even badly written copy is better than none at all, if it's at least got a handful of essential elements in it"
So in this lesson I'm going to lay out the structure you need to follow - no matter what the content of your message is. (And it's the same whether you're marketing to your existing clients or to get new clients.)
It's a two-stage process:
1) developing the sales thinking that goes into the message - that's what I talked about in the previous Lesson, re-inventing what you sell so it matches what your clients want, not what you think they need (eg, 'smooth, hairless thighs', not 'waxing')
2) Actually crafting the message around that sales thinking.
Here's the process:
1) a Headline.
Despite what most business owners think, despite what 90% of ad sales reps will tell you, the name of your business is NOT a headline for an ad or sales letter. The only person who cares about the name of your business is YOU.
So dump your business name, logo, or letterhead from the top of the ad or flier or sales letter. Because the headline has one task, and one task only, to
Force the reader to keep reading
Here's the criteria for a good headline: It must offer an immediate and tangible benefit to the reader!
And it should be able to stand alone. Here's the test: get rid of everything except the headline, and your contact details. Does it still work on its own?
In the Toolkit, and the Super Kit for hair salons you'll find that all the pre-written ads, fliers and sales letters have headlines designed to both stand alone, if necessary, and force the reader to keep reading.)
2) an OFFER
I talked about your offer in the previous lesson. Discounting is NOT an offer.
Discounting is evil because
a) it simply kills your profit and it can literally put you out of business. "10% off" might sound good to your client, but it could actually be...THIRTY percent of your profit!
b) it conditions your clients to expect it!
Who in the salon business hasn't had the experience of hearing a client say 'But I got it for only $X last week! I'll wait, thank you, until you've got that special on again!'
What you SHOULD be doing is eliminating discounting completely, and instead, raise your prices! Before you go into a dead faint, hang on a minute! it's all about creating an offer with
massive perceived value.
A good offer is one that gives the buyer massive perceived value - but which actually costs you little or nothing to deliver.
Now, there's another trick to this: making sure that your customers know that even though you're 'throwing in' these extras, there is a value attached to them.
Here's the thing: what a product or service actually costs you to deliver matters not a damn to your clients. The only thing that matters to your clients is the value they perceive they are getting....and in almost all cases, the value they perceive they are getting is the value YOU attached to it!
You'll find that in the Toolkit, and the Super Kit, each sales letter or flier has an offer written into it, one that you can easily modify to suit your salon, because the Pack comes with all the letters and fliers ready-to-use, so you can simply make the changes on your computer, and hit 'print'.
3) a deadline.
No point in designing the world's greatest offer, and then saying 'Oh, and you can pretty well get it any time...' When do you want your customers to call? Yep, right NOW. Not next week. Or next year. So you've got to have scarcity - and stick to it. There are lots of ways to impose scarcity...time, or numbers available, for example, and in the Starter Pack all the pre-written marketing material has scarcity already written into them.
4) Testimonials!
As a consultant and coach, I'm continually amazed at the amount of stuff that crosses my desk for review...even from long-term Toolkit owners...that doesn't have testimonials!
FACT: "what your customers say about you is 10,000 times more effective, more compelling than anything you can say about yourself."
Notice something? Everywhere in this mini-course, I've used testimonials from our salon clients, people just like you - with their phone numbers.
Most salon & spa owners simply don't get this. Yet, during my seminars when I ask them 'where do you get most of your business from?', the sound of voices yelling "Referrals from clients!" is deafening.
What is a referral if it's not a verbal testimonial!!??
You already know how powerful referrals are. So why don't you simply ask your clients to write down what they're telling their friends and work colleagues? And then use those written referrals everywhere...on posters in the salon, in your letters, newsletters, newspaper ads, mailbox fliers?
(Why do you think the weight-loss industry keeps using photos and testimonials? Because they work!)
Now, let's say you've got all the above essential elements in your marketing message... and that's just the bare bones .... you'll still get people looking at it, almost picking up the phone...
...almost...but then they don't call you!
And the reason for that is - more often than not - your prospect is afraid!
Afraid of making the wrong decision. Afraid of making themselves look silly. Afraid of not getting what they paid for.
There's only one way to get around that last barrier to sale. And that's by reversing the risk. In other words, taking the risk yourself.
It's such an important point, I'm going to devote the whole of the next lesson to it.
"The AMAZINGLY simple - and zero cost - technique that will DOUBLE, TRIPLE OR QUADRUPLE response to your marketing!
That's in Step #6...
Continue to Lesson 6
Good marketing!
Greg Milner
CEO Worldwide Salon Marketing
