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Bob Bly's Direct Response Letter:
Resources, ideas, and tips for improving
response to business-to-business, high-tech,
industrial, Internet, and direct marketing.
May, 2003
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If you would prefer not to receive further e-mails
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3 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR "LEAD PIPELINE" FULL
If you depend on a steady flow of new leads
to maintain revenue and profitability for your
business, the weak economy may be slowing that
flow down. Here are three ways to rev
it back up again:
1. Regular direct mail outreach: Each month,
a mailing list company ships a local printer labels
for newly incorporated or newly registered businesses
in his area. Sending
them a special offer
for printed stationery yields a couple dozen
new faces in his shop a month, some becoming
long-term customers.
2. Periodic seminars: Many years ago, terrific leads
came my way through several adult education programs
where I taught.
After preparing once, I merely had
to show up and perform well. I even got paid
a small amount to teach the programs.
3. Recurrent publishing:
Either a column that you
write every week, month, or quarter or your own newsletter,
mailed out or sent by e-mail, will normally bring you
inquiries like clockwork, too.
Source: This article originally appeared in The
Marketing Minute, a weekly newsletter on creative
marketing published by Marcia Yudkin. For more info
or to subscribe: http://www.yudkin.com/marksynd.htm
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IS THIS THE END OF MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSIONALS?
I had an interesting e-mail exchange with consultant
Jeff Herrington.
Jeff specializes in teaching non-writers in corporations
to write content. His basic premise is that everyone must
have communications skills, and in the future this will
reduce or even eliminate the need for communications
specialists including employee, corporate,
and marketing communications.
In an e-mail to Jeff I wrote: "In a recent interview
you
said, 'The whole idea of a central group being the
communicators will be seen as old-fashioned.' Does that
mean you don't think marketing communications will continue
to exist as distinct positions within the corporation?"
Jeff's response was as follows: "I would not say that
something precise like marketing communications will
completely vanish within companies in the next 3 to 5 years.
What I do foresee, however, is that over the next 10 to
15 years, marketing communications as a separate department
will slowly fade away.
"Communications departments will shift in priority
from churning out communication pieces themselves,
to strategizing how everyone in the organization can best
communicate internally and externally and then facilitating
their obtaining the tools and skills to do just that.
"Communicators won't be doing communication themselves
so
much as giving information owners access to all of the tools
they need to communicate both inside and outside
the organization."
What do you think? Is the communications professional
disappearing along with the dinosaur and the dodo?
Or is there still a place for us in the world?
E-mail me your thoughts at rwbly@bly.com.
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NEW IN-HOUSE TRAINING PROGRAM AVAILABLE -
"COPYWRITING FOR NON-COPYWRITERS"
Even if Jeff Herrington is dead wrong, many non-writers
want to improve their writing skills, whether it's to write
sharper e-mails, Web content, and product sheets,
or to be a better reviewer and editor of copy written
by their staff, ad agency, PR firm, or freelance copywriter.
I have taught copywriting to hundreds of managers,
engineers, and other non-writers, and my latest course
is "Copywriting for Non-Copywriters." It is
designed to
help anyone - pro or amateur - improve his writing,
critiquing, and editing skills for content, internal
communications, and marketing communications.
In this workshop you will learn how to:
* Understand your reader's "core complex" on a
much deeper level.
* Write crisply and concisely to accommodate today's
time-pressured, non-reading audience.
* Trim the fat from your writing.
* Talk to your reader in a friendly, natural, conversational
style that builds empathy and strengthens the relationship.
* Write about what your reader really wants and needs to
know.
* Create e-mail messages and landing pages that double
click-throughs and conversions.
For more information, or to schedule a
"Copywriting for Non-Copywriters" seminar for your
organization
or group, call Fern Dickey at 201-797-8105,
or e-mail her at dickeybf@aol.com.
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MORE ADVICE ON CHOOSING DOMAIN NAMES
Direct Response Letter subscriber Andrew Denny
comments, "The real problem with descriptive
domain names (e.g. divorceonline.com) is that they
then tend all to sound the same. For instance,
divorceonline.com is too close to onlinedivorce.com
or even divorce-easy.com."
His solution? Get an unusual, memorable name, and
plug it heavily until it's associated with what
you are promoting (e.g., google, amazon, yahoo, ebay,
clickz).
It will be more easily memorized in the short term -
and more findable in the long term.
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WRITING TIP OF THE MONTH
"Today's time-starved, MTV-ized, USA Today'd readers
don't have the patience for the kind of polite strolling
about the subject that Victorian-era authors indulged in.
They want their stories straight up, fast and furious,
with no throat-clearing. If you're writing a book
about a homicide, get the bullet out of the gun
on the first page. If you're promising to improve
readers' sex lives, get between the sheets in the
opening sentence."
--David Fryxell, Writer's Digest, 4/03
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BOB'S NEW BOOK: "CAREERS FOR WRITERS, SECOND
EDITION"
VGM Career Books has just released the revised
and updated edition of my book, "Careers for Writers
& Others
Who Have a Way With Words." If you want to start or
jump-start
your writing career, this book offers plenty of career
opportunities for writers to make that dream come true.
Order now and get 20% off the cover price.
Just click on the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/007140600X/qid=1048704295/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-6839593-2717666?v=glance&s=books
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NEW AUDIO CONFERENCE: "GENERATING MORE LEADS IN A TIGHT
ECONOMY"
If business is slow, and the weak economy has you worried,
go to the Web to listen to my well-received teleconference,
"Generating More Leads in a Tight Economy."
You'll get practical, easy-to-implement strategies
that can help you generate more leads and close more
sales, even in today's marketplace. To hear this seminar
and get a copy of the accompanying PowerPoint presentation,
click on the link below:
https://www.pbconferences.com/audio/main.asp?G=2&E=88&I=1
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60-SECOND COMMERCIAL FROM FERN DICKEY, OFFICE MANAGER:
Bob is available on a limited basis for copywriting
of direct mail packages, sales letters, brochures,
white papers, ads, e-mail marketing campaigns,
PR materials, and Web pages. We recommend you
call for a FREE copy of our updated Copywriting
Information Kit. Just let us know your industry
and the type of copy you're interested in seeing
(ads, mailings, etc.), and if Bob is available
to take your assignment, we'll tailor a package
of recent samples to fit your requirements.
Call Fern Dickey at 201-797-8105 or
e-mail dickeybf@aol.com.
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Bob Bly
22 E. Quackenbush Ave.
Copywriter/Consultant
Dumont, NJ 07628
phone 201-385-1220
fax 201-385-1138
www.bly.com
rwbly@bly.com
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