The Secret of Physical Action
Issue #2115
- WEALTHY: Has the market run out of value stocks? (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: The craziest push-up I’ve ever seen (Suzanne Richardson)
- WISE: Alfred Adler on action
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- Why in the world would you ask your customers to pee in a glass? (Bob Bly)
- How to apologize without guilt (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Good to Know… about new features for your cellphone
- Add "dour" to your vocabulary
You Already Know Fortunes Are Made from Trading. The Question Is: WHAT Are "They" Trading Most? (And It’s Not Shares or Commodities!)
… Thirty times more trading going on than the stock market and mostly investment banks doing it. Ummm… Maybe "they" know something you don’t? Click here to learn more…
Value Investing in the New Growth Era
After seven years, the reign of value stocks is finally winding down. I’m not telling you that you should be giving up on investing in "value" and only investing in "growth" - but, as the economy slows, finding value stocks with a record of raising revenue will get harder. Plus, many of the successful value stocks have been taken out of play. As investors gobbled up these bargains, they boosted share prices and valuation so much that they’re no longer considered a good value.
Moving into the "growth" era presents some new challenges. Ex-value companies may not have the tremendous earnings growth upside to justify an investment, and many growth companies that were good investments a year or two ago are now prohibitively expensive.
But just because they’re harder to find doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of value companies out there that make great investments. Just go to one of the many free search engines available on the Internet and look for P/E ratios of less than 15 and PEG ratios of less than 1.2.
And, remember, value companies don’t have to wow investors with their earnings prospects as the more expensive growth companies do - which makes them more versatile investments for when the economy is going great… and not so great.
[Ed. Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR’s Investment Director, has authored several books on energy markets, global countertrade practices, and the hot growth sectors of China and Russia. A former professor of marketing and finance, he is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]
"Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement."
Alfred Adler
The Secret of Physical Action
By Bob Bly
In your marketing campaigns, it’s a good idea to encourage your prospects to take some sort of physical action.
For instance, a mail-order marketer of pipes (the kind you burn tobacco in) told his buyers: "If you are not 100 percent satisfied with the pipe, snap the stem off and mail it back to me in an envelope for a full refund."
One reason this worked is that it was dramatic and unexpected: The marketer actually told the customer to destroy his product if dissatisfied. But it also made the guarantee more tangible by linking it to a physical action: The copy creates a mental image of breaking the pipe in two with your bare hands.
Another example was in a successful mailing that sold an annual directory of drug information: Physicians Desk Reference (PDR). The challenge in selling an annual directory is to get your customers to buy it every year. To do that, you’ve got to convince them that (a) there are so many changes in the new directory that the old one they have is out of date, and that (b) using outdated information is bad.
The PDR promotion included a sticker that said, in bright red letters, "WARNING! This PDR is out of date and should not be used for clinical decisions." Copy in the sales letter told the recipients to put the sticker on their old PDR until they received the new book and could replace it. It was a clever and effective way of dramatizing the claim that the old directory contained dated and potentially dangerous material.
Another great use of physical action in marketing is to tell the prospect how he can test or demonstrate the product by himself at home.
One mailing for a nutritional supplement to sharpen vision said, "Measure your vision today with an eye chart. Take the supplement for six weeks. Then measure it again and note the improvement." To make it easier for the consumer to check his vision before and after taking the pills, the marketer enclosed a free optometrist’s eye chart.
Another mailing for a nutritional supplement featured a pill for "oral chelation," claiming that taking the pill could improve cardiac health by removing plaque from your arteries. The copy brilliantly described a simple test the consumer could do at home to prove that the supplement was working. It said that if, after taking the pills for several weeks, you urinate into a glass container and swirl it, you will see a "white tornado" of sediment in the urine… proving that particles of plaque have been flushed out of your body.
My all time favorite "take action" marketing campaign is a magazine ad for a fireproofing compound. The headline of the ad boldly stated: "TRY BURNING THIS COUPON." The copy tells the reader: "Hold a match to this ad. It will start to burn. Now take the match away. It will stop burning, because it is treated with our special fireproofing chemical." (The ad was an insert sheet coated with the chemical, not a regular page of the magazine.)
Now here’s the thing: These marketers had no idea how many people, if any, were giving themselves a urine test. Or an eye test. Or peeling off the sticker and placing it on the cover of their old PDR. Or lighting the ad on fire.
But it doesn’t matter. Whether or not people took the recommended action, these promotions were extremely successful.
The conclusion: Telling your prospect to take a specific physical action - whether to demonstrate or test the product, request a refund, or for any other purpose - can increase your response rates.
Why is this so?
The fact that such an action is given - and that you are inviting him to take it - lifts your credibility enormously… even if your prospect doesn’t do it.
It also gives him confidence to go ahead and order, because he knows he can test the product with your instructions (though he is unlikely to actually do so).
Finally, we know that exercise - even mild exercise - releases endorphins that improve one’s mood. Perhaps a small amount of endorphins is released by even a little physical activity… or even the idea of it… energizing the prospect and rousing him from the stupor in which he receives and reads most of his advertising mail.
Think about an action you can encourage your prospects to take - either to demonstrate how your product works (or that it works) or to boost their confidence in you in some other way, such as by dramatizing your guarantee.
Example: You promise customers that if they try your stress-reduction program, their blood pressure will be reduced. Give them a simple log where they can record their daily BP for a month. Tell them they will see a definite improvement or you will give them their money back.
By the way, if they say their BP has not improved, take their word for it and issue the refund. Do not ask or require them to send you their completed log. Consumers dislike and distrust conditional guarantees that require them to jump through hoops before getting their refund.
[Ed. Note: Master copywriter and best-selling author Bob Bly is the editor of ETR’s ETR’s Direct Marketing Masters Edition. a program to help you start your own successful direct-mail business. Sign up for Bob’s free monthly e-zine, The Direct Response Letter, and get more than $100 in free bonuses.]
What If You Could Pile Up Profits Without Busting Your Hump?
Suppose you could live your DREAM life… have plenty of time to indulge yourself, play golf, dine out, hang with the family, have fun… and get steadily richer in about 10 minutes a month?
These investors are living the DREAM. Because I showed them this incredible secret myself. Now it’s your turn. Check it out here.
So You Made a Mistake? No Need to Grovel
You blew your stack and said something to your spouse that you shouldn’t have - and it wasn’t the first time.
So how do you apologize without looking as if you are weak/insincere?
There’s only one way: You have to resolve - in the most serious way - that you won’t behave like that again. You have to think about what you said, why you said it, and try to recognize what signaled your unwanted action.
Get that signal clearly in your mind. Feel it. And then imagine yourself reacting to your spouse in some other, more effective and less harmful, way. Imagine your preferred behavior over and over again until it feels natural.
Once you’ve trained yourself to have an instinctively good response to the imagined situation, you’ll feel surprisingly confident that you’ll be able to handle the real thing. And the truth is… you probably will.
After you’ve done all this work - and not before - make your apology. Don’t humiliate yourself and don’t grovel. You made a mistake - one you’ve made before - but you’ve also taken the time to correct it. You are no longer the person you were. Your apology should reflect that fact.
Cast your apology in the past tense. Say, "About our argument yesterday. I have given it a good deal of thought and realize my behavior was wrong. I have thought about better ways I could have handled the situation, and will act differently in the future."
If you mean it, it won’t hurt so much to say it.
ETR Insider Report: What REALLY Goes On in the ETR Office
You might expect to hear ideas about business building, investing, and health being bandied about at ETR headquarters. And you’d be right. But it goes WAY beyond just talk. For one thing, ETR staffers snack on the things we recommend in ETR, including almonds, sardines, shakes made with whey powder, and the occasional square of dark chocolate. For another, we share exercise techniques with each other.
For example, during my recent visit to ETR headquarters , Jessica Kurrle, ETR’s Marketing Associate, mentioned that her arms were worn out from all the Spiderman push-ups she’d been doing as part of ETR’s fitness and weight-loss challenge. Naturally, I was curious. So she got down on the floor and demonstrated for the whole office.
These unusual push-ups are not only good for strengthening your shoulders, upper arms, and chest, but, as Jon Herring pointed out, "They provide an added element of resistance for your core." And strengthening your core can restore flexibility and protect your back from injury.
Here’s how you can do these Spiderman push-ups on your own:
- Get into push-up position, making sure your hands are lined up with your chest.
- As you’re going down into a normal push-up, lift your right leg up to the right side, bending your knee. (Make sure your leg is parallel with - not perpendicular to - the floor.)
- Draw your bent knee up to touch your bent elbow.
- Repeat with the left leg.
- Do 10-15 repetitions on each side.
For variations on this exercise, search for "Spiderman push-ups" on Google or YouTube. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about another unusual push-up you can try.
[Ed. Note: If you’d like more information about getting fitter and healthier and burning fat, check out Coach Yari’s "Get Fit in 6" program. And if you’d like to learn more about nutrition, exercise, diet, health and healing, pain relief, natural remedies, and more, sign up for ETR’s brand-new FREE weekly Natural Health Newsletter.]
It’s Good to Know: New Features for Your Cellphone
Tired of shooting pictures or video on your cellphone and having to wait until you get home to upload them to the Web? Samsung is set to release a phone with software that allows users to edit images and video, add background music and captions, and then upload the results directly to user-generated websites such as YouTube. Unfortunately for U.S. users, the phones are currently available only in South Korea.
(Source: IDG News Service)
Turn A Single $100 Investment Into A $2,000-A-Week Profit Machine
In the next seven days, 4,589 people will leave their jobs, never go back… and have all the money they will ever need.
I would tell you that these people are “very lucky,” but the fact of the matter is that there is no luck involved.
It’s happening everywhere. Ordinary people - including people who never finished school - starting their own businesses…and making in the neighborhood of $40,000… $60,000… even $100,000 or more a year.
Even though all these people are “ordinary” in some ways, one thing is certainly “out of the ordinary” about them:
Many used the same secret to start a business on less than $100. You can do it, too. Here’s how.
- Patrick Coffey
Word to the Wise: Dour
"Dour" (DOO-ur) - From the Latin for "hard" - means, harsh, sullen, or inflexible.
Example (as used by Tim Hilton in John Ruskin: The Later Years): "John James Ruskin’s dinner table was far too lively for the dour John La Touche."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker … build your self-confidence and intellect … increase your attractiveness to others … just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR’s new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007