Make More Sales and Build Your List With This Low-Cost Marketing Method
Archives: Daily Issues
Issue #2615
- WEALTHY: Stock dividends and the Dogs of the Dow (Alex Green)
- HEALTHY: An important ingredient for fitness as you age (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: MaryEllen Tribby on multi-channel marketing
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 3 steps to selling with classified ads (Paul Lawrence)
- Is it time for some expert advice? (John Carlton)
- It’s Good to Know… how much first-class postage is today
- Add “nimiety” to your vocabulary
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Eliminating the Reasons Your Investments Fail
By Alex Green
Believe it or not, when it comes to the stock market, most investors prefer glamour to profits.
Why do I say this? Tell the average investor about a company with a cutting-edge technology, an exciting Phase III drug, or a new gold strike, and they’re all ears. But tell them about a blue-chip stock with steady sales, a big order backlog, and rising dividends, and they’re likely to stifle a yawn.
That’s unfortunate. Because what really makes money for investors over time – and without the hair-raising volatility of growth stocks – is steady businesses paying stodgy old dividends.
Regular payouts impose fiscal discipline on a company. And history reveals that dividend-paying stocks are both less risky and more profitable than most stocks.
As Dr. Jeremy Siegel (Professor of Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) points out in his book The Future for Investors: “The constant pursuit of growth – through buying hot stocks, seeking out the next big thing, or investing in the fastest growing countries – dooms investors to poor returns.”
Dr. Siegel’s research shows that high-dividend payers have outperformed the market by a wide margin over the years. That’s the reason for the popularity of the Dogs of the Dow strategy. You simply buy the 10 highest-yielding Dow stocks and then replace them a year later with a new list. This simple strategy doesn’t produce the best results every year, but it has delivered excellent long-term results, beating the broad market handily since 1973.
If you’re going to buy individual stocks, do your homework. See how long the company has been paying its dividend. Gauge how secure it is by looking at the company’s cash position, sales, and expenses (especially debt service).
Trust me, a dividend from a highly leveraged company with declining fortunes and low cash levels will not be maintained. (This is especially true today in the banking and brokerage industries.)
Conservative investors may want to take a diversified approach by buying a dividend-oriented fund like WisdomTree Total Dividend (NYSE: DTD), currently yielding 5.3 percent.
[Ed. Note: Alex Green is Investment Director of The Oxford Club and Chairman of Investment U - a free source of impartial, no-nonsense advice on how to build long-lasting wealth. Get more of Alex's powerful wealth-building ideas right here.
Investing in dividend-paying stocks is a safe way to profit as an investor. But you can make plenty of cash simply by seeking out "non-traditional" investment opportunities. ETR's liberty Street League offers its members dozens of contrarian strategies for making money "off Wall Street." Sign up today, and you could recover your recession losses by 9/30/2009.]
“The more channels you use to reach your target customer, the better your chance of reaching him right when he’s ready to buy.“
MaryEllen Tribby
Make More Sales and Build Your list With This Low-Cost Marketing Method
My partner and I felt we had a great product idea: specialty sports videos. However, we didn’t want to risk a lot of capital to market it.
We investigated what it would take to rent some lists and do a test mailing. What we found out was that list rentals are usually for a minimum of 5,000 names. Plus, to get reliable results, we should test at least five lists.
That meant a minimum test mailing of about 25,000 names. When we added up the cost of the list rentals and the printing, processing, and postage for the sales letters, we realized it would take about $30,000.
You might be thinking, “Who has 30 grand to spend on a marketing test?” Believe me – that’s exactly how my partner and I felt.
We had to come up with another option.
Scanning through some sports magazines, we discovered that a number of products similar to ours were being sold through small, inexpensive classified ads (some under $100). So we placed a few ads offering to send people free literature about our videos – and, to our delight, they were successful. Not only did we begin to acquire names to build our own in-house mailing list, we sold enough of the videos to pay for the ads and make a nice little profit.
As our list and revenues grew, we began to do larger scale promotions. And, over time, the business grew into a company that netted us more than $250,000 a year.
Any product or service that will appeal to the niche audience of a specialty magazine can be sold through magazine classifieds, including information products like “how-to” programs or e-books.
The cost of advertising in magazines varies, with the rate usually determined by the size of the publication’s circulation. Display ads can be several thousand dollars, but many magazines with large circulations still have very affordable classifieds.
The best way to get a good response to your classified ad is to offer free information on a subject related to your product.
For example, I market a video that helps people relieve back pain with stretching exercises. There’s not enough room in a classified ad to go into detail on the benefits of the exercises – so, instead, I offer a free report on the source of back pain. The report is full of useful information. But it also includes sales copy that does a good job of selling the video.
Another example: When I was selling a course to help people market their movie scripts, I took out classified ads in magazines that I believed my target audience would be reading. In the ads, I offered a free list of movie producers who buy movie scripts from “unknowns.” When people responded to the offer, I sent the list, along with a sales letter for the course.
Even if the people who request your free information don’t end up buying your product, you’re still able to capture their names and addresses and begin building your own mailing list. Then you can continue to market products to that list – which will be full of qualified prospects who have shown an interest in your area of expertise.
Here are the basic steps to building a mailing list with small classified ads:
1. Find magazines that are read by people who are likely to be prospects for your product.
If a magazine has ads from other companies selling similar products, it’s likely to be a good one for you. If you don’t see anything like the product you’re selling, forget it. Chances are that publication has been tried by others and it hasn’t worked for them.
I’ve successfully sold my sports videos through sports magazines and my script marketing course through scriptwriting magazines. I’ve marketed electronic stun guns in martial arts magazines and instructional business courses in entrepreneurial magazines. In every case, there were other ads selling something similar.
2. Write your ad.
Get some back issues of the magazine you intend to advertise in and look at what your competitors are doing. When you find ads that have been running for months, you can be pretty sure they’re working. Don’t copy those ads verbatim, but use them as a model.
Classified ads are very small, so you must grab your prospect’s attention with a great headline that either spells out a huge benefit or piques their interest. Then, in the body of the ad, make your offer.
End the ad by telling people how to respond. For example:
• If you’re offering to send them a free report, provide an address they can write to or a telephone number they can call to request it.
• If you’re offering free information that they can download directly from your website, give them a Web address that will take them to a page that first captures their contact information and then links to the information you promised.
3. Make the sale.
When people respond to the free offer in your classified ad, you now have their mailing addresses or e-mail addresses. And now you have the luxury of making a sales pitch for your product… without being limited by the space restrictions of the ad. You can do it as part of the free information you’re sending (as I did with my special report on back pain) – or you can do it in the form of a cover letter (as I did when I sent the list of movie producers).
To become a master at writing strong sales copy, I recommend AWAI’s copywriting program and the Secrets to Selling on the Internet seminar that Bob Bly and ETR are offering next week. But here are the basics:
• Open with an attention-grabbing headline and lead that makes a big promise.
• In the body of the letter, go into detail on the benefits the prospect will receive from the product. Then back up every claim you make with proof (e.g., statistics, testimonials from satisfied users, endorsements from credible sources, etc.).
• Close by asking the prospect to place his order – and giving him several ways to do it (online, over the phone, by fax, or through the mail).
Take the profits from your first classified ad and invest them in more classified ads in more magazines. Within a year, you could have a very profitable, full-time mail-order business.
[Ed. Note: Paul Lawrence, a successful entrepreneur who specializes in small business start-ups, was the president of a million-dollar mail-order company. For more information on Paul's course for starting a mail-order business, read on here.
Using classified ads to promote your products is a great low-cost marketing channel. But you should be exploring Internet marketing channels as well. To learn how to access hundreds of proven secrets to selling on the Web, continue reading here.]
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Of course, you can set up as many of these income streams you want. So if it’s more money you are after, then go for it! Best part: It only takes about an hour to set up and it’s easy to do. And then imagine yourself sitting back and watching the money roll in.
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Don’t Be Too Proud to Ask for Help
By John Carlton
It’s a sad, common tale. Confused biz owners will pump every last drop of their net worth into a marketing plan in freefall, and are not able to face reality until – like an out-of-control drunk – they hit bottom.
Smart marketers know that the moment you need a reality check comes LONG before you hit bottom. And that reality check is: “This isn’t working. Time to change course.”
For many businesses, that means asking for help from an expert.
It might mean hiring a freelance writer you can develop a great long-term relationship with. Or finding an expert you can do regular consultations with (not just one-off random consults) – one who will commit to understanding your situation at the deepest level and use every possible resource to fix what’s keeping you up at night. Or finding a partner. Or a killer personal assistant. Or just someone who is proactive, honest, effective, and lives by a professional code.
You’ll have to apply the same steps as you would for doing anything else that matters – get info, get advice, test the waters… and (as always when dealing with humans) kiss however many frogs you gotta kiss to find the right one.
With the right help, you’ll advance quicker… your results will multiply (not just double)… and, when you find the right person to watch your back, the synchronicity will provide fresh energy, verve, nerve, and sheer raw enjoyment.
[Ed. Note: John Carlton is an expert copywriter, a pioneer in online marketing, and a teacher of killer sales copy. He knows marketing inside and out. Discover how to get your hands on the kick-ass secrets of the world's smartest, happiest, and wealthiest marketers.
As John points out, getting help from an expert could be just what you need to get your business or career to the next level. You can get free advice from any of ETR's in-house experts. Simply send an e-mail to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com.]
You Must lift When Losing!
My mom was never much for “workouts” when I was growing up. She was too busy taking care of me and my sister and doing a lot of housework and gardening.
That kept her active.
But now that she’s retired, she’s discovering the need for structured exercise sessions. While it’s great to see her biking and walking on her treadmill in the winter months, I’m even more proud to see her doing resistance training at the gym.
Most women don’t think too much of resistance training, but I believe it’s far more important than cardiovascular exercise. After all, if you don’t have your strength, you won’t be able to do much as you grow older. Resistance training also helps you keep your muscles and strength when you diet.
Researchers from Purdue University put 16 women (average age 68) through a 16-week study where they ate 500 calories fewer than needed to maintain their weight. Half the women did three days of resistance training per week, and the other half did not exercise. Both groups lost an average of more than 11 pounds during the 16 weeks, but only the resistance training group maintained their muscle mass.
It is essential for women to maintain muscle mass with age, and only resistance training can do that. So start a simple total-body workout program that you can do in just 20 minutes, three times per week, and you’ll get stronger, lose fat, and sculpt your muscles.
[Ed. Note: As fitness expert Craig Ballantyne points out, you don't need to do hard-core exercise every day to see real results. Learn how you can get fit with three 45-minute workouts a week with Craig's Turbulence Training program right here.
For more easy-to-follow advice on how to stay fit, lose weight, and eat right, sign up for ETR's FREE natural health newsletter.]
It’s Good to Know: How Much Is First-Class Postage Today?
It seems like the U.S.P.S. is always raising the price of stamps. And if you don’t have one of those “forever” stamps (which will always be good for first-class mail), you’re left wondering if that old stamp you found in the back of your desk drawer will get your rent check to your landlord or come back marked “insufficient postage.”
Before you send that letter, check priceofstamp.com. It gives the current price of first-class postage, and is updated as the price increases.
== Highly Recommended ==
Who Can Guarantee You a Stress-Free Retirement?
Congress can throw money into our economy until the end of time…
The Fed can lower interest rates to practically nothing…
But here are the cold hard facts: At the end of the day, Uncle Sam ain’t gonna help you the only one who can get you out of this economic mess and guarantee you a stress-free retirement is you!
And one sure-fire way to do that is to acquire the wealth attraction skills of a billionaire.
Billionaires see money making opportunities where others see only despair!
Imagine having billionaire money magnet skills so ingrained into your consciousness that magically deals fall into your lap.
Imagine for the first time in your life NOT having to chase wealth! When in fact, MONEY opportunities just knock on your door” and you simply open it.
Word to the Wise: Nimiety
“Nimiety” (nih-MY-uh-tee) – from the Latin for “too much – is another way of saying “excess.”
Example (as used by Nicholas Poburko in an issue of Renascence: Essays on Values in literature): “Just as daily life contains all the comforts of what one owns, there is also a natural shedding or forgetting and a natural dulling, otherwise one becomes burdened with a sense of nimiety, a sense… of the ‘too-muchness’ of life.”
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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