Archive for October, 2009
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Let’s consider some legendary business names. Diehard batteries has a great brand name that in effect describes what you want the product to do, last a long time and never let you down late at night in a dark parking lot! It needs no explanation and therefore no marketing money need be wasted on explaining the product. Instead it can be spent on selling the product! (J.C. Penny had a similar battery at the same time that has gone nowhere because of a weak name.)
Super Cuts hair franchise also has a nice descriptive name that focuses on results. Sears’ line of tools has a great name, Craftsman. Toys R Us is a great name for a business that offers the largest selection of toys. Because it’s a great name, it has been widely copied by others like Babys R Us, Pets R Us, etc and for the most part the concept probably works. The perception being that you will have a large selection of a specialized product.
Ugly Duckling and Rent-a-Wreck carved out a nice niche with unusual names at the bottom end of the rental car market.
Because you probably don’t have the massive financial resources of the big players in your town or industry, you must take great care in deciding on your business name. Over time it will be your most potent weapon in conquering your market. Your name should capitalize on your key strength, the one thing you have that others don’t, or even if they do, the thing they are not claiming (your USP).
For example, Toys R Us may stock lots of model trains, but that’s not their specialty. They stake their reputation on having a huge general selection at low prices. That would allow you to enter the model train business and claim the position of model train specialist. For example:
Casey Jones Model Trains
This name positions your store as one for the collector or serious hobbyist. It states clearly that you are an expert on the subject and that people could come to you and get questions answered by a professional. This is brought about by the name “Casey Jones,” immortalized in song, print and television as perhaps the world’s only legendary train driver. People into trains will get the connection, even if others do not!
The most effective business or product names are the ones that connect instantly with your customers’ needs.
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without
additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains
intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in Branding, General Marketing, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Played the Edinburgh course at Wentworth on a perfect Fall day in UK and they GLADLY let us play the back tees!
Great course, great lunch, great day…. despite horrible play I left my swing in the USA, along with my clubs!
Posted in Golf Travel, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
There are twelve proven formulas for writing captivating headlines. Formulas, you say, but isn’t great marketing all about creativity?
NO, let me repeat that, NO!
Sure creativity helps but very often in an effort to be creative, people ignore the basics of human nature. And the end result of their efforts is a campaign that is called cute, funny, or creative, and might even win an award, but BOMBS where it counts, in actually increasing YOUR RESPONSE!
Great movies are the result of great scripts, very often formula scripts. So too, are most bestselling books and great sales letters, letters which ALL start with great headlines.
You can very often borrow winning headlines from other industries and adapt them to your needs. Some of the world’s best headlines still pull responses 50 years or more after their creation. They can do this because while the world changes quickly, people do not. People today have the same basic vanities, desires, motivations, fears, and hopes as their parent’s and their parent’s’ parents, albeit with more money to satisfy them!
In writing headlines, never forget that people are emotional, irrational beings that who respond to their wants and needs, not yours!
The Twelve Proven Ways to Write Legendary Headlines are:
- The Benefit Headline – Be Slim: Lose 20 lbs in Two Weeks
- The Offer Headline – Buy Now, Get One Free
- The Discount Headline — Save 40%
- The News Style Headline – New Homes Selling Fast!
- The Bonus Headline – Free Shipping
- The Testimonial Headline — This Product Works I Love it!
- The How to Headline – How to Get a Date Tonight
- The Secrets Headline — 7 Secrets to Growing Flowers
- The Guarantee Headline – Money Back iIf Not Happy!
- The Question Headline – What Happens iIf You Die?
- The Shocking Headline — Man Makes Millions in Bed!
- Headlines with Free in Them! – Free Beer Until 8pm!
Just like movies scripts, books, and comedian’s’ gags, certain formulas for headlines work; use them!
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without
additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains
intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in Copywriting, Cunningly Clever Book, Direct Mail, General Marketing, Print Ads, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
If you don’t grab the readers by the throat with your headline, 95 percent of readers won’t make it past the first paragraph – or even your first sentence. This, which means no matter how long or short, good or bad, or big or small your ad is, it won’t work!
Without good, NO GREAT headlines, everything that follows is a GIANT waste of time, money, effort, and trees, for it will most likely never be read!
This is so important that I want to say it again: Your headline is the ad for your sales copy. Therefore, a great headline has one job and one job alone; get the reader to actually read what comes next. You must excite him, intrigue him, titillate him, shock him, question him, project him into the future and show him the better “life” that can be his!
But Wait, My Clients Are Rich, Smart, and Sophisticated!
Perhaps the biggest mistake of all is to think that your clientele, your product, or your service is above such tactics. But these are not mere marketing tactics we are talking about here; we are talking about something far more interesting and deep, human nature. People’s natural inquisitiveness and self-interest changes little with social or economic status. Sure the things they buy may change, but the way you attract their interest changes very little. Delude yourself if you wish that your high- end product is different and that your customers are so sophisticated that they will take your abstract headlines and write their own sales pitch in their head… THEY WON’T!
Your headline is the ad for your ad, make it Legendary!
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without
additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains
intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in Copywriting, Cunningly Clever Book, Direct Mail, General Marketing, Print Ads, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009
My first huge marketing success was a $1,000 ad, I ran in three editions of the local Penny Saver, in Irvine, California. I was sitting in my small karate school one afternoon waiting for the world to discover me when a man in his forties walked in and said. “You know I always wanted to try karate.” About two hours later a woman in her mid twenties walked in and said. “You know I always wanted to try karate but my father would never let me. He wanted me to do girl stuff!” Finally around 5pm a mother walked in with her son and said, “He has always wanted to try karate and I have finally given in!”
Three totally different people, three identical comments, in just three hours. Fortunately, the significance was not lost on me! I took the words I kept hearing from my customers and added a picture of a good looking blonde in a karate uniform flanked by a boy and a girl. They were actually smiling, maybe even having fun. Below their picture were the words, “You always wanted to try karate, now is the time!”
With a simple change in advertising strategy, I made more money in that month than I had in the previous year. The phone literally rang off the hook, all because the ad said what many of my prospects where actually thinking!
Listen to what your customers are saying about you, your products, services, or the benefits they derive from them. Really listen. Those words may be more effective in resonating with your prospects than those of any high- priced copywriter or ad agency, including me!
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without
additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains
intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in Copywriting, Cunningly Clever Book, General Marketing, Print Ads, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 12th, 2009
 Click To Enlarge As you may know I have a thing about worthless and insulting signs, especially on golf courses but not all signs are bad, or to be ignored. This one at a course I played in France, was treated with the respect and attention it deserved!
It was also the ONLY sign on the course!
Posted in Golf Travel, Signs, UK Golf Marketing | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Back in my karate school days, my school was positioned near the border of all multiple ad zones. Because of this positioning I ran ads in all five editions of my local Penny Saver for over a year. Then, one rainy afternoon, for no particular reason, I started putting pins in the oversized street map of the city I had hanging in my back office, just to see where my students were actually coming from.
Next I traced the Penny Saver zones in red marker. I was astonished to find that 95 % of my students came from just two zones, with just a handful more from the closest and most affluent zone to my school.
I later found out that people don’t like crossing bridges, freeways, rivers, railway lines, busy intersections, and city, county, or state boundaries. In fact, faced with any of these factors people will often drive several miles in the other direction. But I digress…
Armed with this astonishing information of where my customers actually came from. I told my rep to run ads in only two of the five zones cutting my ad budget by 60%. Later I reduced it again by an additional 40% when I ran half- page ads instead of full- page ads. Neither of these moves, which saved me a whopping 70% of my ad budget, reduced my response by one iota!
It was primitive tracking but it was enough to focus my attention on tracking results from every campaign since. Something few people ever do!
It was this experience that ultimately lead me to develop the ad tracking tool in Marketing Commander. (A tool so sophisticated that it tracks everything, even phone calls to a specific campaign.)
Do you know exactly where your customers come from? If not, find out. Then advertise only in those states, regions, cities, postal codes, developments, or streets!
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without
additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains
intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in General Marketing, Print Ads, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, October 5th, 2009
When the recession first started I heard talk of 400 clubs closing their doors. Later I heard it might be 800. Now having talked with inside people involved with country club finance, I have heard a figure of 1800 being tossed around!
Even if only 1,000 clubs go under before it’s all over (very likely) another 1,000 will be so mortally wounded that they will die a slow and lingering death!
But here is the astonishing part, most clubs are doing absolutely nothing about their situation!
“What can you do?” I heard one club manager say with the shrug of his shoulders.
“We will just have to wait until it’s over,” said an owner.
“I just hope I keep my job!” said another.
The fear is real, the lack of positive action AMAZING!
Most of the owners and managers I speak with just kind of hope the recession goes away and that people flock back to their clubs, the way they did when Tiger was young!
They will not, not in your lifetime. The world and its leisure habits, media habits and values have fundamentally changed over the last two decades. The recession has brought that change to the golf industry with mind numbing speed!
The Golf Industry’s reaction is to be paralyzed by fear! But perhaps you are too close to see this so let me give you an example of another industry paralyzed by FEAR and in complete denial, just like the golf industry.
Think of the record industry. It’s in the news everyday fighting for tougher legislation to stop people from pirating music or movies. Doing things like shutting down file sharing websites. Taking draconian action by fining a 13 year old girl $20,000 or cutting the internet service of an entire corporation because an employee downloaded a song without paying for it!
Meanwhile back in the REAL WORLD the number of sites and people who download and share these files grow exponentially, every few hours, not days. Hours! The record companies are attempting to shut the stable door when the horse is already severed up as steak, in some roadside bar in Nogales!
I sympathize with the record companies and the artists who lose their “traditional” royalties, but here’s the problem. The old industry of printing vinyl records or compact disks is gone, gone forever, never to return. Bands will NOT make the majority of their income from selling records ever again! Instead they will do more live shows, sell more T-shirts, spin off reality shows and monetize their fame and talent in ways even Elvis never dreamed of!
But this scares the record companies to their very core because they only know one business model and they want things to stay the way they were since Bill Haley and the Comets. They don’t want to look for creative options, they just want things to stay the way they damn well were!
The golf industry is in even worse shape because they are not only slow to change but they are not even sure they want to admit there is any REAL need to change!
Let’s take a look at the Industry “leaders,” and I use that term VERY loosely, because the clubs following leaders like this might as well be a lemming walking toward a cliff!
Go now to the websites of Troon, Palmer or Casper, three of the larger and best-known management companies.
None have a blog.
None have a Twitter account set up.
None appear to be using Facebook or similar.
So in effect none of the “LARGE” management companies apparently think that social networking or (web 2.0) is really worth doing although 80% of what’s happening on the Internet now falls into this category!
That’s just one glaring example of how lacking in creativity the “so called leaders” really are. They have their heads in the sand right up to their Logo! But it’s not just the BIG management companies, it’s the majority of clubs in the country!
They just want it all to go away, all this Tweeting and social networking, texting and iPhones, people who wear their hats backwards and heaven forbid walk into the clubhouse in a $300 pair of Calvin Klein jeans!
“That’s not my market!” Oh really….
Can clubs succeed in this economy?
Yes, succeed and thrive, if they think outside the box. If they are willing to
embrace and utilize technology and creative ideas that they have never heard, seen or cared one iota for a year ago! If they are willing to implement management systems that actually hold their people accountable!
There are SEVEN Key Strategies Any Club Can Use To DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE their Financial Position without a loan, a rich member or a gun…
Call me if you are interested in learning what they are 352 266 2099 or email me with your name, club and the Subject line: Improve my club Andrew@legendarymarketing.com
Most clubs need help and they need it in the worst way, but do you know why they don’t ask for it!
Because they are afraid of the truth!
Can you handle the truth?
If so call me 352 266 2099 or Bob Devitz, we are ready to help!
Regards,
Andrew Wood
Marketing Legend
P.S. Some great blog articles to check out
Fun golf marketing that works!
http://www.cunninglyclevermarketing.com/wordpress/?p=426
How to make your print ads work!
http://www.cunninglyclevermarketing.com/wordpress/?p=647
INSANE offer for any course owner that anyone would be crazy not to JUMP ON AT ONCE!
Bob Devitz, CEO Legendary Golf Management will go into any club in America and increase its bottom line income or not take a dime!
You get paid first!
Bob gets paid ONLY if he makes YOU Money!
To find out how to take advantage of this amazing offer and put the power of Legendary Golf Management’s revenue growth and operating excellence competencies to work for you, call Bob direct at 727-424-2434!
He is offering pay for performance deals to only three clubs he believes are capable of becoming Legendary! So don’t wait to call. This deal is too good to miss!
For more Cunningly Clever Strategies to Increase Your Business and Become a Marketing Legend in Your Spare Time Take the Following Action:
Follow me on Twitter
Read My Legendary Marketing Blog
Read Bob’s Golf Management Blog
Subscribe to my weekly e-mails
Join The Marketing Vault
Read or Listen to Cunningly Clever Marketing
Read or Listen to The Golf Marketing Bible
Invest in a consulting visit with Andrew Wood or Bob Devitz
Tags: Digital Marketing, golf club marketing, golf course marketing, Golf Management, Golf Marketing
Posted in Digital Marketing, Golf Management, Golf Marketing, Rant!, Resort marketing, UK Golf Marketing, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Friday, October 2nd, 2009
Most print advertising is a gigantic waste of time, money, and trees! But fortunately there is a solution and a way to maximize your return on print ads.
Stop advertising to build your brand. Stop advertising to keep “top of the mind” awareness. Stop advertising to build your image. Stop advertising to feed your owner’s ego. Stop advertising price points or specials. Stop running coupons (unless redeemed on your website). Stop advertising new products or services. Stop advertising because all your competition does.
Instead, start advertising, keep advertising and ONLY advertise to build your database of quality leads.
Make every ad a reason to register on your website or call a toll free number. Get them to put their hands up and say, “YES, I am interested in your product or service.” by giving you their names, phone numbers, and e-mails, and whatever data you need to segment your leads into groups for future sales.
Use your print ads solely to create leads by driving people to your website or calling your 800 number. You will find it an astonishingly more effective strategy than whatever you are doing now.
Plus once you have their info you can follow up forever almost free!
For More great marketing tips read or listen to Cunningly Clever Marketing
Syndication Rights
This article may be reproduced or republished provided the main body of text is reproduced as is, without additional permission, with proper credit to the author and provided that the above resource box remains intact with the article. Permission to re-publish is herby granted until Dec. 31st, 2012. Author retains all copyrights.
Posted in Cunningly Clever Book, General Marketing, Print Ads, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
|
Andrew Wood is the world’s leading expert on golf, resort and real estate marketing, although his successes reach far beyond those industries. He is the author of over 20 books on sales and marketing including, Cunningly Clever Marketing and The Golf Marketing Bible. Andrew speaks worldwide on sales and marketing topics and is in high demand as a copywriter and marketing consultant, He owns Marketing Commander software, an advertising agency, Legendary Marketing and Legendary Golf & Resort Management. He can be reached directly at (352) 266-2099 or andrew@LegendaryMarketing.com
