It doesn’t matter where you market, ultimately it all comes down to one thing that grabs your prospects attention, keeps it and helps you close the deal. Just one key element!

What I’m talking about is…
Copywriting

To help you get more attention, keep it and sell more just use these 7 proven copywriting steps.

1.  Start with these copywriting masters
It’s not flash floods or locusts or other natural disasters that plague most small business owners and keep them from attracting all the clients they want. [...]

2. Overcome writers block by doing this
You’re sitting in front of your computer with a blank screen. The cursor is blinking on an empty document, the clock ticking and nothing’s happening. [...]

3. Use this copywriting formula
It took me years to discover how to use this computer key properly. It has been critical to my success as a copywriter. I am tempted to keep it a secret. [...]

4. Copy these proven emails, articles and offers
Did you know that writing articles is one of the best ways to make it BIG on the web?! More leads, more sales, more profits … all from a few well-placed articles!

5. Inject more selling into your copy using these 7 surefire tactics
Weave the word, “You” throughout your copy. And if you can get your prospect’s name into the ad or sales letter, you can see conversion rates explode overnight. [...]

6. Write a killer headline for your webpage, email and brochure
Learning to write great headlines means more views, more hits, and better search engine results. If you practice this key copywriting skill you’ll soon be producing top-notch, attention-grabbing headlines. [...]

7. Put it all together into a bullet proof copywriting system
It happens every week. You make a promise to yourself that you’re finally going to start writing weekly or monthly posts for your blog, or articles sharing your personal insights.. [...]

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Last weekend I was cleaning up my front garden, pulling weeds and cutting the grass. I noticed that my front walkway was looking pretty rough. A couple years ago my husband and I decided to put down some used paving stones to make a little walkway to our front porch.

We did it ourselves and it looked pretty good… for the first year. But the next year after the winter (and the frost) the walkway was all uneven. Now a few years later and the walkway looks horrible. I regret doing it myself and wish we hired a professional. The moral of the story is some things are best left to professionals. This is true in our personal lives but even more so for our businesses.

I had a customer contact me this month and they wanted me to see if I could fix their website. They had the web design completely redone by a friend’s, neighbour’s, dog walker… ok, I am not sure who it was that did it, but it certainly wasn’t a professional.

The customer’s main concern was the site was no longer cross-browser compatible. It looked horrible in Internet Explorer and to be honest it didn’t look that great in Firefox either. Once I dug into the site I realized there were even bigger issues – all the search engine optimization we had done in the past had been removed and the site was a coding nightmare!

I couldn’t fix it quickly… I would need to rebuild the entire site properly. Much like if I brought in professionals to fix my walkway. It would be easier and more economical for them to start fresh. The customer had wasted so much time, energy and money on the new site and he ended up reverting back to his old site.

At the end of the day your website is a direct reflection of your business. Actually it’s a reflection of your business 24/7 which is why it’s so important.

In this day and age with the web over a decade old, your customers expect more than a site that you built yourself of hired someone to build for pennies on the dollar. They expect it represent the value you provide.

If it looks shoddy, unprofessional, doesn’t work and doesn’t generate traffic, it won’t matter how much money you saved by having your son’s best friend build it. If you want a truly effective, functional and profitable website you’ll need a professional, one that is more than just window dresser but actually understands direct response marketing.

Want to attract more prospects to your site and convert them into buyers?

Get answers >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Almost everybody in business makes this mistake, costing them millions in lost customers. Yes I’ve made it and I’m sure you have too.

The most common mistake every business owner makes is not focusing their marketing precisely enough on the right buyers. Here’s what typically happens…You think you’ve got a great product or service. It’s god’s gift to the world and anyone with a pulse and wallet should be knocking on your door. Usually that lasts about a week and you wise up, realizing you need to get the word out, but the question is to whom?

Who should you target with your marketing?

You could just broadcast your message to anyone and everyone, but there are two big problems with that.

1. Trying to reach everyone who has money in their pocket means 99% of your marketing will be wasted, because chances are only a small percentage of the total universe of people who can afford your products or services will have an interest.

2. When you try to market to everyone, inevitably you avoid being specific or tailoring your market to particular interests. And in trying to apply to everyone, you’ll appeal to no one, or hardly anyone.

Imagine you’re filling in your profile on one of the online dating services and you want it to appeal to everyone. You fill in the form, and you say you’re tall, short, blonde and brunette, love adventure travel, love staying at home, enjoy living in the country but live in the city, … Which of course would be ridiculous.

But that is what most business owners try to do with their marketing – appeal to everyone, instead of targeting the people who are most likely to buy. It’d be like owning a ski shop and planning to market in every town in the country all year long.

Obviously, you’d be more successful in marketing your skis in cities and towns within driving reach of a ski mountain, and focusing on the fall months when people buy skis, not June or July.

The more you know about your prospects, the more precisely you can target them and market to them.

But here is one mental hurdle you need to overcome.

By targeting your best buyers, you’ll be marketing to far fewer people, but don’t worry, the result will be that your marketing will resonate with them and you’ll sell more.

Take the lead generation services my company, www.ClientsDelivered.com, provides to local businesses. At first glance, there are millions of businesses we could be marketing to. And while we could try to target all of them, that wouldn’t be too smart for the above-mentioned reasons.

What we’ve found is there is a specific subset of people who are the ones most likely to sign up. For www.ClientsDelivered.com, our most eager buyers are local service providers who already have a website. They’ve tried SEO, even hiring someone to do it, and/or they’ve tried social media.

Like you, they may have even tried to set up their own online lead generation system or hired a handful of so-called experts to work on parts of the puzzle. And probably like you, they’re frustrated with the lack of results and looking for a proven lead generation system and someone who can manage it for them.

Which is what we do – provide business owners like you with one integrated, proven online lead generation system that gets the phone ringing and generates sales.

You see the difference?

You can waste your time trying to market to everyone, and appeal to almost no one, or you can precisely identify the problem you solve and the specific types of people you solve it for. With the second strategy, you’ll have instant appeal and generate many more sales.

Want to target more buyers?

Start by answering the following questions:

1. Why do your clients (from their perspective) buy your products or services?
2. What’s the problem they want you to solve for them?

Then use this information to shape your marketing so your ideal clients see themselves reflected in your marketing message, marketing copy, videos, and everything you use to attract buyers. It’s really that simple.

To your success,

Charlie

P.S. One truth about marketing is it’s a lot easier to sell more to a few people than it is to sell to a lot of people. For most small business owners, the real money, the millions in income, is in the niches.

Find out how >>

P.P.S. Another simple truth about marketing is that it’s ten times easier to attract the right people to buy, than to try and convince the wrong ones.

Want help? Start here >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

I typically get 75 to 100 emails a day, so cleaning my inbox out is like flipping through the channel guide on cable tv. If an email doesn’t catch my attention, it’s skipped over without another thought.

If the sender is someone I don’t know and the subject is about something… I could care less about, then it’s immediately put in my trash bin; the lid is placed securely on top and it is sent to the curb never to be seen or thought about again.

And, in all honesty, some emails from people I do know are removed just as eagerly if I don’t think they offer me anything valuable. I discard them like used banana peels, empty milk containers and leftover macaroni and cheese. I watch the trash icon on my computer screen open it’s lid and close it…like it’s verification that the email has successfully disappeared from my desktop.

Is this happening to you with your emails that you send to clients or potential clients? Are you sending them out only to have them discarded…sent to the trash icon on their desktop?

Let me share with you 3 things that I have learned about email copywriting that helped me write emails that had clients not only opening them, but reading them too:

1) Have an attractive subject line

If the subject doesn’t get your reader’s attention, they won’t even open the email. Would you bother to open an email that has a subject line that reads “Build Your Business with Email”? Pretty stale. How about one that says “Transform Your Business with These 3 Email Tips”? Different ring, right?

2) Write like you’re writing directly to one person.

When I read an email that starts out “Dear Valued Customer” I think, “Yeah, right. I’m valued…just like the other 20,000 people you sent this too.” Now, I know that no one has the time to personalize each and every part of an email. But, if I get an email that says, “Dear Charlie, …” I tend to keep reading. I feel more like they’re talking directly to me.

3) Keep it short and to the point.

Most of us have to-do lists a mile long and feel like we spend way too much time on the computer as it is. If I get your email and it’s more than a few paragraphs I will just delete it. It may be a masterpiece, but I won’t take the time to read it to find out. Value your customers’ time as much as you want them to value your business.

Emails can be a great way to share your products and services with potential clients. You can reach many people quickly, efficiently and with minimal cost. However, if you don’t abide by simple rules of email engagement, you will be discarded, deleted and removed from the list of the very people who could be your future clients.

Don’t let this happen to you. You didn’t spend all your time, money and effort to create a business that doesn’t have customers.

If you need help creating an effective, proven email system, check out my website for additional tips or contact me directly to discuss how I can help you stay out of your future client’s trash can and, instead, be placed proudly on their mantle where you belong…

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Everyone’s afraid of the unknown. It’s natural. Personally I won’t eat squid…not because I don’t like it but, I’m afraid of what it might taste like. But that’s just plain silly.

Use the 5 steps below to get the clients you want by using the phone.

1. Discover How Much You Could Make (Hint: Mark Cuban made over a billion)
In the 1980s he formed a company that helped small businesses link their personal computers. In 1995 he and Todd Wagner, a college classmate, had an idea: Use the Internet to allow sports fans to hear local broadcasts of their favorite teams even if they are far away. [...]

2. Get Over Your Fear of Cold Calling And Get More Clients This Week
There’s one area of sales that everybody hates to do…Cold calling – the dreaded task of picking up the phone and calling someone they’ve never spoken to before. Why? ?Because they’re afraid of being rejected. So What! [...]

3. Make Your Prospects Feel Important (use this secret strategy)
I was sitting at my desk diligently working on another success essay when the phone rang. Being programmed like Pavlov’s dogs to answer an incoming call hen the bell rings, I picked up the phone – interrupting myself (not a very good time management technique) – and said, “Hello, this is Jeff Mayer.” [...]

4. Have a Quick Easy To Remember Marketing Message To Share

5. Find Out How To Get Return Calls (Instead of 0% you can get 25%) “Voice mail messages. Nobody ever returns my voice mail messages. I’m on the phone all day long. Leaving messages. But nobody calls me back. [...]

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

The truth is we’re all lazy! Me too!

If I could take a pill and instantly be as strong as superman, and avoid having to spend hours working out at the gym each week and could avoid curtailing my urges to eat cookies all day long and still stay svelte and healthy, hey I’d go for it…The same is true with marketing your business. We all want the lazy way to riches.

Which is why almost every small business owner buys into the big lie about SEO and their online marketing.

You read it, or an SEO firm calls you and wants to sign you up, and they tell you that with a top position in the search engines, your business will take off. You’ll be making so much you’ll be paving your driveway with gold bricks.

Right!?

Everyone wants to believe that SEO is the magic pill for your business – that if you could just get a top listing, that’d solve all your problems.

But what happens if you actually get a top ten listing on Google? Does it really translate into more leads, more prospects contacting you and more profits?

Whoops!

Each week, I get a handful of inquiries from smart, hard-working business owners who got sucked in by the big lie about SEO. They’ve often spent a year or more, slaving away to do everything they’ve been told about SEO. Or they’ve paid an SEO firm big bucks to help them get top listings.

Last week, these included a small business consultant in San Diego and an assisted living facility in Connecticut. Both made it to the first page of Google for their keywords only to find that they were hardly getting any more new leads or business than before.

What?

How is it possible? How is it that top rankings don’t equal more business?

The simple truth is that SEO, search engine optimization, is a good idea, but it won’t remedy other more critical marketing problems.

Imagine for a minute, you were trying to sell your house and you lived in a great town, had a great location and that buyers were out there. I know – a bit of a leap of faith in some parts of the country. But just for a second imagine your could attract a steady stream of prospects to at least drive down the street to view your house.

What do you think would happen if your lawn hadn’t been mowed in a few years, or the façade was faded, the doors locked and the shades pulled so no one could see inside?

Obviously traffic alone isn’t going to help you sell your house nor is it going to help you make money with your website, unless… your site is set up to convert traffic into leads.

But whoops! Most small business sites don’t convert traffic to sales for a simple reason.

They haven’t taken the time to clarify their:
- Brand Identity – what differentiates you from the competition
- Value Proposition – the prospects’ needs you meet and the value you provide
- Marketing Message – your client centered promise
- Primary and secondary Headlines that give prospects a reason to learn more.
- Compelling offer that gets people to email you or call you.

And that’s just for starters…

Yes, putting all the above together takes some time and some thought – but who do you think your clients are going to buy from, the business whose marketing isn’t clear, the one that looks like everybody else or the one that makes it obvious as to what they offer and how it can help their clientele?

How about you – did you get sucked in by the big SEO lie, wishing it was the magic pill for your business?

That’s okay, you’ve got lots of company, and it’s spawned a whole industry of SEO services that preys on people like you. But, now that you know the truth – the more important question is what are you going to do about it?

Looking for help growing your business – from getting attention online to getting prospects to getting sales?

Get started >>

To your success,

Charlie

P.S. Trust me, if I had a magic pill I could sell you that would instantly transform your business and your life, you’d be the first to know. Instead I’ve got a team of twenty experts, ready to do all the hard work for you, which is almost as good.

Talk to Charlie >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

It’s not flash floods or locusts or other natural disasters that plague most small business owners and keep them from attracting all the clients they want.

It’s the lack of compelling copy – words worth reading.
That’s why we provide content for our clients using our own team of writers who follow the Cook recipe for writing. It’s a proven formula that all of our writers must master. To make it easier I typically send them a handful of books written by the true copywriting masters including…

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation by Sally Hogshead

The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales by  Dan S. Kennedy

Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs by Joseph Sugarman

The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires by Roy H. Williams

Turn Words Into Money by Ted Nicholas

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America’s Top Copywriters by Joe Sugarman

Hypnotic Writing: How to Seduce and Persuade Customers with Only Your Words by Joe Vitale

On Writing by Stephen King

And of course, Writing Copy That Sells

How about you? What books do you use to train your copywriters?

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Want to be successful online?

The key is to get the basics right and put together an internet marketing plan and stick to it, using proven strategies. Here are 7 essential steps to get you started.

1. Clarify The Purpose Of Your Site
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Disney’? Movies? Cartoons? Disneyland? The little guy with the soft-pitched voice and red pants? Most small business owners think they know what branding is… but they’ve usually got it wrong. Brand recognition is the following: [...]

2. Make A Plan To Succeed Online
Almost every person who has ever tried to market online has been told this big fat LIE about the internet. And it’s the one lie that, if they believe it, kills their online business before it even opens. [...]

3. Answer These Key Internet Marketing Questions
A good friend recently had to call it quits and give up on a business that she’d been slaving over and pouring money into for years. The problem? It wasn’t her lack of effort – but simply the… name she picked for the business that finally killed it. [...]

4. Personalize Your Internet Marketing To Stand Out
Understanding the proper use of color is essential to creating a positive small business branding image. Color can send a positive or negative message, increase sales, excite an audience, or make an athlete perform better. [...]

5. Transform Your Website So It Generates Leads Like Crazy
When you use the same approach everyone else does, your marketing takes on a “me too” look and your prospects have no idea why they should bother doing business with you versus the competition or just not doing anything at all. [...]

6. Submit Your Website Here… And Your URL Here…

7. Get Links To Your Site
Most business owners worry about traffic. And typically they worry about the wrong things.
They worry about optimizing their own site, about social media and a host of other nebulous activities. [...]

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

Did you read the book, “Bringing Down The House”?

It’s a good read about how a MIT graduate and a half dozen colleagues took a handful of Vegas casinos for millions. The ringleader of the group was trained as a mechanical engineer, who you’d think wouldn’t know a thing about gambling.

But what he did do, was apply the same type of thinking he learned at MIT, on how to engineer systems, to… beating the casinos. It worked so well, that not only did he and his colleagues make millions, they got banned for life from the casinos.

And I wouldn’t recommend you do the same, that is, mess with the Vegas casinos. But for just a minute let’s take a look at two types of people who go to Vegas.

First, you’ve got the gambler, who may have a bit of cash or a lot. And invariably they lose most or all of it. But what the heck, they tried with the hope they might win big, but hardly ever do.

Second there are a few people like the book’s main character Kevin Lewis, who created a system for fleecing the casinos, instead of the other way around.

So which type of person are you?

A gambler, hoping to win big but still frustrated with how your business is doing?

Or someone who is engineering their success and has a system for attracting a steady stream of new clients, new business and bigger profits?

Gambler or profit engineer which are you?

Now, there is nothing wrong with going to Vegas for fun, but I’m sure you can appreciate that gambling with your business is a bad idea. Which is exactly what most people do.

How about you?

Want more clients? What systems do you have in place?

• Do you have a system that month by month helps more and more prospects discover how you can help them?

• Do you have a system for building your list of qualified prospects, so each week you’re marketing to more eager buyers?

• Do you have a system for once you’ve got people’s attention for helping them to get to know you, trust you and want to do business with you?

• Do you have a system for helping prospects sell themselves on your products or services?

• And, do you have a system for generating more referrals each month?

Ultimately, it’s not demand, and it’s not luck or smarts or hard work that separates the truly successful from the wannabes. It’s having the right systems in place to grow your business.

Try using a system. You’ll make a lot more!

Don’t have a client attraction system?

Find out which system helped other small business owners beat the recession to earn $65 million in the last few years.

Get started >>

To your success,

Charlie

P.S. Whether you invest in the stock market, real estate or business, I’m sure you don’t want to gamble with your future. Try using a proven system instead.

Talk to me >>

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..

How you dress affects how people see you. The same is true with your brand.

Your company name, how you talk about your business and what you share determines whether your prospects want to do business with you. Start with these 6 steps to shape your brand and attract more buyers. Define Your Competitive Advantage
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Disney’? Movies? Cartoons? Disneyland? The little guy with the soft-pitched voice and red pants? Most small business owners think they know what branding is… but they’ve usually got it wrong. Brand recognition is the following: [...]

Pick the Right Name For Your Business
What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Disney’? Movies? Cartoons? Disneyland? The little guy with the soft-pitched voice and red pants? Most small business owners think they know what branding is… but they’ve usually got it wrong. Brand recognition is the following: [...]

Avoid These Sales Killing Names
A good friend recently had to call it quits and give up on a business that she’d been slaving over and pouring money into for years. The problem? It wasn’t her lack of effort – but simply the… name she picked for the business that finally killed it. [...]

Sell More By Picking The Right Brand Color – Yes it Matters
Understanding the proper use of color is essential to creating a positive small business branding image. Color can send a positive or negative message, increase sales, excite an audience, or make an athlete perform better. [...]

Avoid Being Lost In The Crowd With Me Too Marketing
When you use the same approach everyone else does, your marketing takes on a “me too” look and your prospects have no idea why they should bother doing business with you versus the competition or just not doing anything at all. [...]

Define Your Brand With Your Marketing Message To Attract Buyers

©2012All Rights Reserved by Charlie Cook or Blog Post Author..