However, they do help.

And caring is sharing.

Here’s a Sneak Peak at the Jalopy Marketing Cheat Sheet.

(Yes, I am rather proud of that title!)

Marketing / Branding

- Make your brand obvious and consistent everywhere and in every communication you have.

- This includes all other online tools and accounts. If your Twitter page looks totally different to your website then people will be confused. And confused people don’t buy.

- What do your customers hate? Tell everyone how much your business is so not about all that stuff.

- Benefits are more sellable than features.

- Get your customers email address by offering them a free thing as a bribe.

- Email is best for promoting your stuff. Not your blog.

- Offer gift certificates. People like that stuff.

- Don’t let people forget about you or your promotion, especially if it’s a long time coming

- Look out for companies that do marketing well. And copy what they’re doing.

- Look out for companies that do marketing badly. Do the opposite of what they’re doing.

- Have a good story.

- Know your customers. Know where they hang out and what they’re worried about. Meet them there and talk directly to them in your marketing.

- Ask for referrals all the time.

- Under promise, over deliver.

- If something isn’t working, stop doing it. Even (especially) if you’ve put a lot of work into doing it.

- Spend your time and effort convincing the people who aren’t sure about you. There’s no need to try hard to convince those who are already convinced.

- Tell your customers “It’s not your fault.”

- The big four questions your customer asks during the sales process (Source: Mark Joyner)

• What are you trying to sell me?
• How much?
• Why should I believe you?
• What’s in it for me?

- The 16 human desires (source: Kevin Hogan)

• Eating
• Sex
• Desire to compete or seek vengeance
• Nesting instinct
• Connection with others
• Curiosity
• Tranquility
• Desire to Save
• Power
• Status
• Independence
• Acceptance
• Principled Loyalty

- Get your readers’ attention. This is the most important thing.

- Make all your communication easy to read.

- Short paragraphs

- Big headers

- Nice clear text

- Repeat yourself a lot. People forget stuff. And they don’t read it in the first place.

- Be specific. Use numbers and statistics a lot.

- Be concise. Write less. Bite sized pieces.

- Ask questions. People’s brains are pre-programmed to answer them in their heads.

- Best converting headlines:

• - How to…
• - 7 ways to…
• - Who else wants…
• - Discover how a…

- Negative subject lines are nearly always best

- 365 day guarantee increases conversion AND reduces return rate

- Highlight guarantee in a separate box on your website. Be flashy if you like.

- Instructional follow-up emails and/or video messages reduce return rate (most people return because they haven’t used the product, not because they don’t like it)

Website

- Highest converting landing page layout is (source: 10conversionsecrets.com):

• Top left: headline + image
• Bullets left hand side
• Optin Right side
• Social proof, testimoninials, media appearances etc on right hand side
• Text and pictures at the bottom, below the fold if necessary.

- Don’t waste space

- Optin should always be above the fold

- Optin box should be as flashy and obvious as possible.

- Putting audio of your offer increases conversion significantly. (Yeah, I know. Ugh. It does work though. People are weird.)

- Use animation.

- Video explaining site security increases conversion

- Put logos on website next to your Buy Now button to help customer trust that you’re not a fraud

• verisign
• 128 bit encryption
• BBB
• hackersafe.com, truste.com etc.

- Changing your scroll bar to colour red increases the chance your customer will read below the fold (Source: John Reese)

- Rusty, burgundy color headline dramatically increases conversions (Source: Ryan Deiss)

- Second to this is light blue

- 20pt Tahoma font with quotation marks converts best

- Google dislikes the word testimonials. Call them Customer Feedback, or similar. (Source: Ryan Deiss)

- Put the best testimonial in the P.S.

- Put all testimonials in a yellow johnson box for the best conversion rates

- Oversized buy buttons are the way forward. Make it very clear what you want your customer to do next!

- Orange border with blue text “Add To Cart” converts best (Source: Perry Belcher)

Cool, eh?

Love JJ.

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“Customers want benefits. They don’t give a hoot about features”

- a thousand different sweaty, shouty, marketing experts

This is ubiquitous marketing advice.

But what does it really mean? And why are you probably doing it all wrong?

Let’s start at the beginning…

• A feature is a fact about the thing you sell.

• A benefit answers the customer question “Yeah, fine. But what’s in it for me?”

And the answer to that question is where the money is…

The thing is, most people and most businesses suck at answering this question.

This is good news for you, because you can answer it a bit better and make a lot of money.

So how do you answer it better?

Well… let’s role play.

I’ll be the balding middle-aged guy shopping for a sports car. You play the spiv that’s trying to sell it to me.

Let’s go…

So what’s so great about that sports car over there?

It has 128 valves, 60 pony power and is available in a variety of eye-catching metallic paint finishes.

Yeah, fine. But what’s in it for me?

It goes really fast and it looks fantastic.

So what?

Well… it’ll certainly attract attention. Heads will turn as you drive past.

And why should I care about that?

It’ll make you feel young and sexy. Your friends are going to be totally jealous and think you’re the coolest guy ever. Hot chicks are going to see in that car and they’re going to want to sleep with you. But you’re happily married aren’t you Sir? So you’re not really concerned with that. Right Sir?

Bingo!

We’re finally hit a convincing answer to the question “And what’s in it for me?”

Let’s look at each of the answers you gave, one by one. (Yes, I know you didn’t really come up with them, but it doesn’t half simplify this writing lark if I pretend we’re having a chat.)

“It has 128 valves, 73 widgets, 60,000 pony power and is available in a variety of eye-catching metallic paint finishes.”

This – a list of car statistics – is a clear feature. It’s a list of facts about the car.

If you simply describe the features of the thing you’re trying to sell then you’re leaving all the thinking in the hands of your customer. You hope that they’ll figure out the reason why they might want that feature, but what if they can’t make that leap themselves?

Your customer isn’t going to be as helpful (or annoying) as me. He’s not going to keep asking what’s is in it for him. He’s going to accept your answer and he might come up with a reason why those 128 valves are a good thing for him. Or he might not.

Now you might think that it’s not a big ask to get a balding forty year old man to picture the imaginary sex he can have with imaginary twenty one year old sorority girls in his imaginary new vehicle… but it doesn’t hurt to help him to make that connection.

“It goes really fast and it looks fantastic.”

This might appear to be a bit more of a benefit, but it’s really just an elaboration on the feature.

It’s an unconvincing answer to the “What’s in it for me?” question. Why should I care that the car is fast? What’s the real benefit to my life? How does that really make me feel?

“Well… it’ll certainly attract attention. Heads will turn as you drive past.”

Better. But why does he care about that?

“It’ll make you feel young and sexy. Your friends are going to be totally jealous and think you’re the coolest guy ever. Hot chicks are going to see in that car and they’re going to want to sleep with you. But you’re happily married aren’t you Sir? So you’re not really concerned with that. Right Sir?”

Now, through tedious repeated questioning we’re finally at the point where anyone could understand why our middle-aged friend really wants that flashy sports car.

That was kind-of a dumb example, chosen predominantly because it entertained me. Let’s blast through a few others to hammer the point home.

More Examples:

Slimming Pants:

Patented pain-free Kevlar corsetry (feature)

You’ll look slim, feel sexy and make your ex-boyfriend crazy jealous when you see him at that party next Saturday (benefit)

24/7 Grocery Store:

Open 24 hours a day every day (feature)

You can buy your ice-cream at 3 in the morning and share a hot midnight feast with your wife (benefit)

Web Design Nerd:

Skilled in PHP, Javascript, Python, BDSM (feature)

Will create you an awesome looking website that makes people want to empty their pockets of money and give it all to you (benefit)

Deodorant for Men:

Science stuff that stops you from sweating (feature)

You’ll get loads of ass. (benefit)

Is this all becoming clear now?

So what can we learn from these examples?

Yes, that’s right. The most important thing in marketing is whether or not hot chicks want to sleep with you.

Oh. Sorry. That’s not it. It’s that features are more important than benefits.

But then everyone knows that. Right?

Love JJ.

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One of the most important reasons is that the franchisee is buying into an already proven business model.

When you buy into a good franchise you don’t just get a brand.

You don’t just get a logo, a bread oven and some polyester uniforms.

You get a system and a business model too. You get a business model and marketing plan that works.

And that’s why franchisees are often successful.

However, these benefits come at a cost. And for some of you this cost will seem large. Stuff like:

• Loss of individuality
• Responsibility to franchise
• Franchise fees
• Crappy uniforms.

So before you put on the hair net and acrylic shirt and prepare to smell of fried chicken forever, let’s think of some alternatives…

Wouldn’t it be great if you could do what you love, in your very own style, wearing whatever clothes you like… but still have a proven, successful business model and marketing plan behind you?

Yes, JJ. That would indeed be rather fantastic. A panacea, arguably. (Look it up in the dictionary for proof.) But how could I attain such a lofty goal?

Well, unnecessarily verbose imaginary reader, allow me to present a simple three step plan.

Step 1. Target Selection.

Find a business already operating successfully in your chosen market.

Step 2. (Ethical) Business espionage.

Use my ethical espionage techniques to uncover their business model.

Step 3. Deployment.

Copy their business and improve on it in key areas.

And what’s the end result if I do all this?

Only total market domination!

At the very least you’ll begin to help yourself to a slice of the market share.

There’s really no need to create a business model from scratch when you can steal a ready-made one which is proven to work in the market that you are trying to enter.

So how I identify a business to copy?

I’ll show you that when I talk to you on thursday.

Oh, JJ you tease. You just want to go to bed, don’t you?

Yeah totally. Mrs. Jalopy is calling me and I feel like a snuggle!

See you on Thursday for Business Espionage Target Selection…

I can’t bloody wait.

Love JJ.

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I’ve had a hard day at work, my kids are being difficult and there’s nothing good on the TV. I’m feeling a little bored and a bit fed up. I open my mail or go to the computer and I come across one of your marketing messages.

Now, ask yourself the following question:

How does your communication make me feel?

Think about the amount of money people will spend on music, hobbies, the cinema, going out, drink, drugs, fairground rides, bungee jumps…

Why do they do it?

Because they want to be entertained. And they want to feel something different to the way they feel right now.

So when your prospective customer or client comes into contact with you, what do you do?

• Do you treat them like kings and make them feel appreciated?
• Do you make them laugh?
• Do you challenge them?
• Do you excite them?
• Do you let them in on a secret?
• Do you make them feel accepted and part of a cool group?
• Do you make them feel clever; superior even?
• Do you reassure them?
• Do you take their pain away?
• Do you make them feel understood?

Play that funky music, white boy!

(Or any other combination of race and gender thereof!)

Love JJ.

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So I asked superstar author George Orwell – that dude who wrote Animal Farm – for some copywriting tips. Just for you.

He responded with the following 6 rules for effective writing from his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language.

What a great guy.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

Common phrases feel comfortable, easy and melodic, but they carry little emotional response.

Good copy is ALL about creating an emotional response. So be creative, compelling and original.

2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Using long words does not make you appear intelligent, especially if you don’t really know what you’re doing with them.

In fact, using words that your reader is not familiar with cause them to disassociate with the copy.

That’s the last thing you want to happen.

3. If it possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Good writers cram meaning into every word.

Words that don’t contribute meaning to your copy reduce its impact.

So take them out.

4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.

The active voice is more powerful than the passive voice.

Don’t believe me? Let’s compare the following:

“I kissed a girl” – Active voice

“I was kissed by a girl” – Passive voice

(Yep. Copywriting tips courtesy of Katy Perry.)

The passive voice is not wrong. But it can be awkward, vague and wordy.

People don’t dig that kind of copy.

5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

You want people to understand what you’re talking about, right?

If there’s a chance that someone might not understand what you’re talking about then elaborate in simple language.

Don’t drone on though.

6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Use common sense when applying these rules.

If the application of one of these rules results in something that looks hideous then go ahead and break it.

They’re guidelines really.

And some more tips George Orwell would have given you if he’d actually been talking about copywriting.

7. Know your audience and write directly to them.

Get a clear picture of who will be reading your article and keep them in mind at all times.

The best copy reads like a conversation between two people. So read your copy out loud. If you wouldn’t say it to a customer then you probably shouldn’t be writing it either.

8. Write an awesome headline.

This one is pretty good.

Although it would arguably be better were it to reference Katy Perry instead.

8. Retain continuity.

If you make good points in a disconnected manner then the reader is likely to leave the copy, even though the content is good.

Each part of the piece should lead into the next, and everything should be tied up nicely at the end.

9. Champion the benefits, not the features.

Everyone tells you this. Because it’s good advice.

Concentrate on what your thing will do for people. Not how it does it. (Unless it’s highly relevant.)

10. Be specific.

Give numbers, facts and evidence. Loads of it.

Don’t give people the chance to think that you’re full of it.

Do you have any copywriting tips? Have you ever channeled the spirit of a dead author? Leave a comment below.

Love JJ.

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He’s been quitting his day job in six months’ time for the past four years.

He’s never short of ideas, Dave.

And he’s always on the look out for the newest trend in the market. He knows where the next big wave is going to be and he’s sure to be riding it.

But then he spots another wave.

The new wave is as absolute beauty. It’s even bigger than the last one. He can’t miss this. Not this one. Man, he’d kick himself if he missed this.

And so goes the cycle.

The constant search for the newest biggest wave. The distraction of the shinier shiny thing. Entrepreneurial ADD.

In these modern times – the age of the internet – entrepreunerial ADD is more of a problem than ever.

Why?

Because the barrier of entry to any market now is so low.

Anyone can put up a website in a couple of days, for practically nothing, and be in business.

So what’s the antidote?

The antidote is a plan.

And a sober commitment to that plan. No more messing around.

The steps you take might look something like this…

1. Find a market.

Find a market that you can be really passionate about.

Find an area of that market (or niche) with:

• high demand (lots of people want what you’re offering)
• low competition (few other business are offering it and offering it well)

More on this? Try here, here, and here.

2. Figure out what you need to do to be the best in that market

Work out who your customers really are and what they really want.

More on this? Try here and here.

Spy on your competition. Find out exactly what they’re doing. Copy the best bits and improve on them.

If they’re online then this bit is easy. You can:

• Subscribe to their newsletter / auto-responder sequence.
• Analyse their keywords, back links etc. using an SEO analysis tool
• Join their affiliate program and ask loads of questions

When you’ve done all this then you should have an excellent idea of how to build a better business.

3. Do that stuff. And keep doing it.

You now have a sober plan of what you need to do to appeal to your customers and dominate your competition.

All you need to do now is to start doing it.

And carry on doing it until you start making a profit.

I think that Dave would quit his job in six months’ time if he followed this plan.

What do you think?

Love JJ

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I’m always banging on about how important it is to identify with the needs, pains and desires of your prospective customers, so that you can provide the solutions they want.

(Check out this article for some wonderfully practical advice on this.)

One of the very best ways to do this is to find out what questions your prospective customer is asking.

And the one of the easiest ways to do that is to find out what questions your customer is typing into the internet search engines.

You see, people often type complete questions into search engines.

If you can identify these questions and then answer them then you can make all your customers’ dreams come true. And – as a bonus – you’ll be able to help yourself to a nice big slice of the search engine traffic pie.

(A tasty pie, indeed.)

So how do you find out what questions they’re asking?

Well… The eggheads at Wordtracker have just released a free keyword questions tool, which looks to me to be a rather wonderful little thing. You can find it at http://labs.wordtracker.com/keyword-questions/

You enter a one or two word keyword phrase, the tool “pairs it with pair it with six question words – what, why, when, how, where and who – and then conduct[s] a broad match from” [1] a database of a years worth of search terms.

I typed in the phrase life coach and got the results below:

Cool, eh?

The value in the Times Asked column should be treated as strictly indicative. It tells you the number of times that search term appears in the Wordtracker database in the last 140 days.

This doesn’t really mean anything in the real world, as this database holds only a sample of the total searches made. So you should not treat these results as absolute but, rather, use them as the basis for further research.

For a better idea of true search volumes, you could type these questions into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. (We discuss more about this here.)

What are you going to do with these questions?

Now you’ve identified the best and most relevant questions your customers are asking. Which is an admirable thing in itself.

But what specific actions are you going to take on this knowledge?

You might:

• Create a webpage or blog post answering each one of the questions you’ve identified
• Create a product to sell which is targeted specifically to answering one or more of these questions
• Address these questions in your existing sales copy
• Make an appearance on Oprah with the name of your website tattooed on your forehead and talk about the answers to these questions.

Oh yeah.

Remember… market research can be fun!

Love, JJ.

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[1] http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-questions-tool

How does it look in here?!

Pretty, isn’t it?

I’ve done a little bit of rebranding and a complete website redesign.

I hope the new website is cleaner, more fun and easier to find your way around. There are a few loose edges to tidy up but I’m going to let you have a play with it. Please let me know what you think.

So what was the thinking behind this redesign?

Well… I wanted the look and feel to be more consistent with the Jalopy brand essence.

But more importantly I wanted to:

• reduce the chance of confusion
• have a single, clear, highly conspicuous call to action. (Can you tell what it is?!)

As always, your feedback is very much appreciated!

Love JJ.

I’m going to be giving this place a lick of virtual paint over the next couple of days.

So if the site starts acting up a bit then please relax, laugh, go and make a cup of tea, hug the dog, take a nap and rest assured that it’s all going to look super shiny awesome when you come back!

We’re bound to get a little bit of paint on the carpet…

See you soon in a brand new shiny Jalopyland!

JJ.

Most of your customers, even your most loyal ones, don’t care how hard you work, how much you want to help them, or how cool, funny or successful you are.

They care about themselves.

They care about making their pain go away. They care about feeling good, being entertained, feeling successful, feeling superior, feeling clever.

As entrepreneurs, you and I sometimes focus on what makes us look and feel good, rather than what makes our customers feel the same way.

And that’s a costly mistake.

It’s about them, not you.

So get over yourself!

JJ Jalopy.

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