June Update:

Discover the “Missing link” that’s robbing you of your rightful profits!

Ever been in a place you don't want to be?   I was today....   a poetry reading.   Yes, a woman suckered me into it, and yes, I didn't enjoy it.

Well....  I really didn't pay attention to the poem…  because I was focussed on this column! 

That, and whether to have Roquefort or Russian dressing on my salad that night....  (I got suckered into paying for dinner, too)

Moral:  You should never let life drag you along so that you have to come up with fantastic rescues later.  Better to plan to avoid major problems in the first place, or as some famous philosopher once said, “The greatest victory is to win without a fight”.  Let’s try to win our marketing battles without a fight…  

Okay, okay.  Enough pre-amble… what is this month's update about? 

Something many people seem to unnecessarily either glamorize or avoid:  Pro copywriting, or as I call it,

"Tell me again, lefty"

If you've read or listened to anything Jeff and Jim have been telling, you know how important the selection of the market is.  All to often, journeymen and pro copywriters are called in to rescue a promotion that’s going down in flames, when the promotion, product or service never had a chance in the first place...

If you've listened to a marketing seminar with "hot seats", you'll see the marketing guru get stumped.  If he's honest, he’ll admit it.  Look, not every idea is a winner.  Due to a variety of circumstances, that idea may not be a winner in it’s current form.  It may have to be repositioned, re-niched, massaged, or it just may not work in any variation.  (This is what I like to call, “Ahead of it’s time”)

You see, not every product is a winner.  Not even close!   When the guru's start shooting ideas back and forth, they are really doing is trying to find something I call, "the link".  What is the link??   It’s the chink-in-the-armor that shows you where to aim your marketing lance.  It's the connection of the USP (if there is one!) to the best place to deliver that benefit.  Sometimes, the Link is a connector, a bridge, so that the rational and the emotional buyer…  It’s not an easy thing to do!

It's fascinating to me, listening to boot-camp tapes of Jeff Paul and Dan Kennedy do hot seats.  Many times, they will focus a spotlight on just one aspect of the attendee's business, usually urging the customer to niche it, in that area.

Almost always, the remainder of the business is forgotten or spun off, or sold.  The attendee is told to accept what comes from the forgotten segment as a pure “bonus” and forget exploiting it.

Let me give you one amazing example:

Seawater contains over half the total GOLD on the planet.  Almost every country has some coastal areas, so most of the population of the earth has an almost unlimited amount of gold is floating past them every day.

But, we still open gold mines in the far corners of the globe because, although the deposits are smaller, they are more concentrated, and therefore, more economical.

Now…  What are the best ways to discover the link?  There really are only two:

Niching & Reverse Marketing

Pop Quiz:

You’re in a room with a rattlesnake, grizzly bear and a lawyer.  You have a gun with two bullets.  What do you do?

Shoot the Lawyer.  Twice.

Niching is like that.

Niching FORCES you to think about your market instead of a product.  This is what we all should do anyway.  Niching is like being in a gunfight with one bullet left.  Where are you going to shoot it?  Certainly, you won't waste it...    Not even on a lawyer.

Almost no one likes to niche.  I think, in their minds, they have some deranged fantasy of selling their widget to everyone on the planet, or, only slightly more rationally to everyone who is their prospect.

This is similar to the direct mail fantasy of creating a promotion so amazing, you can mail it to the white pages…  or, even better, people without mailboxes!

Forget it!     Like Stephen Wright says, "You can't have everything, where would you put it?"

But niching anything is almost always the way to go.

Niching also makes future marketing directions clearer.  If you know which group of people is rabid for your product, then media choices, joint ventures and even ad copy start to suggest themselves...  automatically!

To take a page out of Zen philosophy, when you have "the Link"  you don't have to write the ad, the ad writes itself.

When you know your customer, you know your ad. 

My most frustrating copywriting assignment EVER was for a client who refused to talk to me!  I’m serious!  I had the retainer, and some copies of his previous plain-vanilla ads, and I was expected to generate a totally new sales letter from scratch.  Insanity!

Now, it can seem scary when someone suggests amputating a part of a business.  But that’s what niching is.  I know abandoning parts of businesses is scary.  Especially when this business is barely treading water, telling someone to cut-off a part of the cash flow can seem insane!

Even scarier is telling someone to reposition their whole business, turning the entire business on a dime to it veers off in a more profitable direction.  It's every bit as exciting as a Hollywood movie!

As long as you aren’t the one who has to do it! 

See, there might be 10 or 20 options or roads open to a business.  But many of those are "false" paths.  Many will not pan out.  Some may look good now, but may not have the volume or potential for exploration.  This is why the “We can do it cheaper” is always a bad idea.  It’s everyone’s instinctive initial reaction.  It’s a crowded path.

A business or product that is past the newborn stage will have, probably, a hodgepodge of customers from a variety of sources.

Talking to these customers, especially the ones that raised their hands and bought with little, or no sales resistance, and figuring out what niche they came from is probably a good strategy to follow.

Now, if finding out where they came from is a good idea, then finding out where the most profitable ones came from is a fantastic idea!

With even moderate inquiries, you will probably find that many have come from uncontested, virgin territory.  Those lands are ready to be staked by anyone who claims them first…  So claim them already!  This is reverse marketing at it’s finest!

Another important fact about the link is to realize that Products or Services have to hit both Rational, and Irrational Minds.  Some products are too rational.  Some are too irrational.  What should you aim for?

The right balance between the two with, and this is important, a LINK between them.  The gap can't be too large or your prospect might not make the connection.

Getting real about your USP and the link:

The sad truth about most people’s products is that they are always trying to “Fix” marketing problems…  And, I don’t have to tell you there is an endless parade of “consultants” who claim to be able to fix the problems, or write you a better sales letter.

The fact is:  Most people make their information products in a vacuum, and then expect the world to beat a path to their door.  Then, when it falls flat, they try to fix it.

But “Fix” implies that it worked at one time.  Most of them NEVER worked…Most of them CAN’T work.  Most of them are what the entrepreneur wants to make, and sell, rather than what the public wants to buy.

And the public is a “Hanging Judge”.  No pardons, no parole, no second chances.

I’m not trying to be funny, but if you find yourself selling a product no one wants, you’re in pretty good company.  There isn’t a marketer alive who hasn’t at one time tried to sell a product that was an absolute DUD.  Myself included.

Sometimes, the product can be re-invented, with other, more applicable or attractive stuff wrapped around it.  Sometimes the product is too advanced  and can be sold as a back-end product much later.

And, sometimes the whole product doesn’t have the USP, Link, or market at all that it’s just easier to forget about the product… 

I’m currently in that position right now.  A product was engineered from the ground up.  I thought (Thought, not tested) that it would be a quick sale.  I’m still nursing prospects over 3 months old.

I thought (Thought, not tested) that the sales cycle would be quick because the offer was irresistible.  It was irresistible…  to me!  My market has proven remarkably resistant to my irresistible offer!

So here’s the moral: Start small, test cheap, and kill fast…  Every single one of my “Winners” have been winners from the start…  When I’ve been able to rescue something from the dead (Once only), it was like a sick plant that comes back to life, barely…  I invested an insane amount of time, nursing it back to health, when my time could be spent doing better things.

Next month: A two-part column…  devoted exclusively to the PS!

Click here for this Month's Ad Analysis