It’s perceived as being more ‘real’, more ‘truthful’ and more accessible - it’s not a one way street, you can comment and receive replies to your comment.  So does that mean that you can’t sell using blogging?

Not at all.  Just as unpaid 3rd party testimonials are perceived as more credible than a sales pitch directly from the seller, so blogging is perceived as being more credible than a sales pitch on a web site.

An example of this psychology is found in classic networking at social events.  Although you do get many people trying to sell aggressively at a social event, their efforts are often perceived as being a trifle tacky and irritating. Any friendship overtures they make are immediately suspect.  ‘Does he like me for who I am or is he just trying to sell me something?’

The person who attends a networking event and displays a genuine interest for the people they meet is far more likely to strike up a friendship that will eventually lead to a sale.  It’s like they always say, no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

Similarly, blogging gives you a platform to strike up friendships that will eventually lead to sales, by establishing common ground.  That common ground forms the basis for ongoing relationships during which you can prove your trustworthiness and knowledgeability.

Once you’ve made that first sale, blogging is a wonderful way to maintain that friendship and can be key in creating opportunities for future sales in addition to the original sale.

Can marketing and blogging co-exist.  Yes. Beautifully.

Please feel free to share your experiences with blogging by commenting below:

The reason I say that is because the industrial revolution was a time when ‘work’ and ‘business’ changed dramatically and forever. Things could never return to the way they were before.  Just as today, we’re seeing massive job losses, cut backs and re-thinking of business best practices, so then too the world saw an unprecedented shift in the way things were being done.

The industrial revolution was hated and feared by the working class - the main reason being that many saw it as the death of their livelihood.  Manual labor replaced by machines.  Slow, expensive production replaced by machines that could churn out widgets without lunch breaks and demands for better pay and benefits.

Today, we’re seeing something very similar occurring. Work is no longer the way it was.  Job security has long been not so secure, but of late, jobs are more scarce and less assured than they’ve been for decades.

Businesses across the board, both B2B and B2C are seeing a shift in the way sales are made. Sales cycles are longer and there’s a reluctance to part with money for even critical items.  There has been a significant change in the collective psyche. It is taking a lot more effort to persuade buyers and a lot more added value has be demonstrated.

So, how does one deal with this from a marketing perspective? We’re seeing that many of the traditional marketing practices are just not working as well as they used to.  Does this mean that we should drop them in favor of alternate methods?

As far as I can see from the broad range of clients with whom I work, it’s not so much a matter of traditional ways not working, as a matter of being able to have a clear plan and focus and sticking to this, understanding that there really are no silver bullets.

The basic psychology of sales is pretty simple and the fundamentals haven’t really changed – just the application and the ‘story’ need to be altered in order to gain maximum effect.

The fundamentals are:

• identifying what your market wants
• matching what you’re offering to what your market wants
• communicating this offer to your market frequently and consistently
• prompting your market to respond and giving them an easy way to do so
• delivering what you promise
• exceeding your market’s expectations in terms of customer service, value and quality

The most notable changes are:

• it’s more necessary now than ever before to get reliable market intelligence regarding how your market’s needs have changed in the light of this economy.  In some industries, we’re seeing a shift from buying, or manufacturing and storing inventory for resale  to just-in-time production and ordering.  This means that you, as a vendor, need to be able to deliver in this fashion, quickly, reliably and most of all, cost-effectively.
• there may be more opportunity for new entrepreneurs to provide services to companies that have laid off full time staff – and in this instance, knowledge of the specific company will stand you in very good stead
• regular and frequent communication with your market  is still crucial – management and business owners today have less time, less patience and less inclination to wade through rhetoric to uncover your fabulous, but understated offer – so your offers need to be laser focused, clearly articulated and opportune.
• relationships are of even greater importance.  Higher levels of risk in terms of the economy and general world conditions mean that buyers will instinctively move closer to the few suppliers they feel they can trust – up to a point.  This does not give you, as a trusted supplier, carte blanche in pricing or other currently very sensitive areas.

It’s more crucial now than it has been in living memory to be able to articulate powerfully, so this is something on which those responsible for marketing really have to focus.  Once again, powerful articulation can only be made when you have a good, in-depth understanding of the mind of your market.

By the same token, it’s even more critical to work with a professional to ensure that your articulation is the best it can be.  You don’t want to waste time, money or effort on sending out regular communications that fall flat because they are worded so badly that your market responds with apathy and indifference to your offer.

Whose writing seems so natural, so effortless that it moves the reader beyond being aware of the act of reading and into a state of experiencing what they are reading.

Does it come naturally?  Does it take talent?  Does it take years of practice?  I think it’s a combination of a natural or learned understanding of psychology together with an overwhelming heart desire to communicate.

When you think about it, the world as we know it has been profoundly affected by the written word.  Think about these very obvious examples:

1. The Bible
2. Martin Luther’s edicts
3. Martin Luther King’s speech “I have a dream…”
4. The constitution (of whichever free country you may call home)

From pictograms then cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia to the few characters of text messages and tweets, ideas are communicated in words. Those ideas take on a life of their own when acted upon.

The sword, on the other hand, is much more difficult to wield. It’s impact can be devastating and seemingly more powerful than the word at the time of its wielding… but its effect eventually dies.  Wars are fought, battles won, boundaries change, people die and forget.  But philosophies communicated by words change thinking, actions, nations and eventually the world as we know it.

Look at communism for instance. Initially a philosophy, then a state ‘religion’ and now, an obviously failed social ‘experiment’.  While the ‘sword’ enforced it, the ‘word’ overthrew it.

Which is why we should never underestimate the power of our words, especially our written words, to influence, persuade and motivate.

That seemingly effortless writing I spoke of at the beginning of this article comes only as a result of passion channeled through carefully chosen words that are precise, powerful and perfect to convey very specific meaning and emotion.  Master that art, that science and you have a weapon more powerful than any other ever invented by man.

If you’d like to test this for yourself here’s an exercise you can try:

Pick a subject. Preferably a controversial subject.  Now write 2 short articles about it.  Write one as if your the protagonist for the subject and the other as if you’re against it.  Put yourself in each role.  Imagine yourself feeling completely convinced of the righteousness of your stance in each case.  Argue your case.  Convince your readers that you are right and make them feel as you do.

Then, read your articles. Note how they move you.  Note how your own opinions are changed as you move from one viewpoint to the other as you seek to justify it.

I remember doing a similar exercise in high school.  The subject was a hobo being moved from their cardboard shack on a city street.  I’ll never forget the impact that exercise had on my thinking or how it opened my eyes to the power of words.

In this edition of “How to write for maximum return” we review “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins, we look at a toolbar you can use to market your business and we discuss “Is it wrong to use emotional triggers?”

Here’s the transcript:

Hello, my name is Jackie Cooper and this is  “How to write for maximum Return.”  I’m glad you could join me.

In this edition, we’ll be

• reviewing the Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins,
• then I’ll be telling you about a new toolbar that you can use to advertise your business
• and in our Q&A segment, we’ll be discussing ‘Is it wrong to use emotional triggers? ‘.

Let’s get started:

1.  Book Review: “Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins

Claude Hopkins  lived from 1866 – 1932.  He wrote “Scientific Advertising” and “My life in Advertising”. “Scientific Advertising” was written in 1923, but it’s still one of the most ‘scientific’ studies on advertising ever done.  I find it fascinating that even though this was written nearly a century ago, it’s extremely relevant today and that not a lot has changed since Hopkins was around.

Even today, I find very few businesses (except for the really large organizations)  are prepared to do the kind of scientific evaluation and tweaking of their advertising that Hopkins advocated.
Hopkins was probably the ‘father’ of testing.  He believed that you could not develop sound advertising without stringently monitored testing – and that without that, you’d be wasting most if not all of whatl you spent.

When it comes to writing for any kind of promotion, you’ll find the principles in Scientific Advertising to be pertinant and powerful. Hopkins explores all aspects from psychology to strategy.  He talks about the specifics of how to craft offers, how to use samples, coupons and testing to make your written communications pay off handsomely

This book is now in public domain and is freely available.  If you’d like a FREE pdf copy, email me at jackie@jackiecooper.com and I’ll be happy to send one to you today.

2. Useful widgets:

There’s a really useful widget offered by conduit.com in the form of a customizable tool bar.
Customizable tool bars for your browser are not new, but conduit’s version is quite different in that it’s quite a nice little marketing tool as well as a useful widget.

How it works is that you sign up for a free account and you build your own company tool bar with links to your site, your RSS feed, dynamic content tickers and your own company chat room for you to chat  live with your clients.  You can also add email notifiers, radio stations, weather checkers and a host of other fun things.

Once you’ve built your company tool bar, you advertise it with ready made banners you’ll find on the conduit site which allow visitors to your site to download your company toolbar and plug it effortlessly into their browser.  The beauty is that now you can be constantly in front of your clients whenever they open their browser and you encourage easy dialogue as well as repeat visits to your site.

It’s really easy to do, no html required and you’ll find it at:

http://www.conduit.com/

3. Questions and Answers: “Is it wrong to use emotional triggers in sales letters?”

Q: Is it wrong to use emotional triggers when you write direct mail or ad copy? It feels like manipulation and I’m not sure it’s ethical.  What do you think? – Karen from Galveston.
A: Thanks Karen.

Well, on the surface of it, it may look like manipulation, Karen, and I have to say that it’s one of the things that I investigated when I first began in this business.  In fact, when I was a kid I used to hate advertising and think it was pushy and usually a pack of lies.

Later, once I became involved in marketing and in copywriting, I realised that the copy used to advertise things CAN be misleading, but more often than not, it isn’t.  In fact, it’s a service that allows busy people to find things they want a lot quicker.

As far as the emotional aspect is concerned, here’s what I’ve discovered and how I use it:

1. people are really busy and it takes a lot to get their attention
2. just as when you meet someone, you decide emotionally whether you’ll be friends or not, the same thing happens with products and services.
3. if you have a need and I’m offering you a solution, you’ll choose the solution that appeals to you emotioally – the solution that eases your pain i.e. solves your problem.
4. if I don’t articulate your pain and specifically deal with how my solution will ease it, then how do you know that I understand your pain, and if I don’t understand your pain, how can you be sure that my solution is specifically geared to treat it?
5. by making an emotional connection, we get our audience’s attention long enough to explain how our product will be of use to them.  No more, no less.

There are times when we use a logical step by step ‘prove it’ approach to promote something and to all intents and purposes this is ‘solid logic’ and not emotional at all.  However, when you examine this approach carefully, you’ll see it does have an emotional persuasion – in that it speaks to the person’s intellect and makes them feel that they are making a logical decision based on ‘facts’ – which makes them feel in control and therefore happy that they’ve made the right decision.  That’s emotion at work, don’t you think?

To answer your question, Karen, I believe it’s impossible to sell anything without emotional triggers – it’s a question of using them ethically rather than whether using triggers is an ethical practice.

Hope that helps you!  Please keep your questions coming – email them to jackie@jackiecooperwriter.com

4. Words of wisdom:

Have you ever wondered why the vast majority of people, perhaps even you, never seem to get what they want in life?

Bob Proctor’s comment on this is that most people don’t have a clear, fixed idea of what they want.
If you don’t have a clear, fixed visual in your mind of what you want, you don’t have a strong motivation towards it and you’ll continually be drawn off course by other things.

To get what you want in life, first decide what it is, be passionate about it.  So passionate that you can’t help thinking about it all the time.
Then you’ll find that you begin to do the things necessary to achieve it.

Thanks for joining me!  Until next time, I’m Jackie Cooper Writer and this is “How to write for maximum return”

www.jackiecooperwriter.com