During my quarter century as a copywriter, I have observed that business owners and managers fall into one of four categories as far as their competence and skill in marketing is concerned.

By recognizing which category you are in and taking the action steps recommended below, you can move up to the next level and significantly increase the ROI from your marketing efforts.

>> The lowest level of marketing competence is ?unconscious incompetence.? You don?t know what you are doing, and worse, you don?t know that you don?t know.

You may even think you are a pretty sharp marketer, even though to others, that is clearly not the case. Egotistical small business owners who appear in their own TV commercials and junior employees at ?creative? Madison Avenue ad agencies can fall into this category.

Do you think you are an okay marketer, and blame the lack of results generated by your marketing always on external factors, such as bad timing, bad lists, or bad luck? You are probably in the unconscious incompetence stage.

Solution: Recognize that you don?t know what you?re doing and it is hurting your business. Get help. Hire a marketing manager who knows more than you do. Or take a marketing course or workshop. Read marketing blogs and trade publications.

>> The next stage up the ladder is ?conscious incompetence.? You?ve recognized that the reason your marketing isn?t working is that you don?t know what you?re doing.

Again, take the steps listed above. When I was at this stage as an advertising manager recently graduated from college and with only a year of work experience under my belt (instead of the considerable paunch that resides there now), I hired an experienced ad agency and leaned on them for guidance.

This strategy worked well for me and my employer. The company got better advertising than I could have produced on my own. And working with the agency accelerated my own marketing education, making me a more valuable employee.

>> Moving higher up the ladder of marketing competence, you reach the stage of ?conscious competence.? You?ve read the books, taken the courses, and understand what works. But your experience at putting it into practice is limited.

That means whenever you want to create a promotion, you have to slow down and think about what you are doing. It doesn?t come naturally.

In this stage, you should keep checklists, formulas, and swipe files (examples of successful promotions you admire) close at hand. Model your own efforts after the winners of others.

Don?t try to reinvent the wheel. Observe what works and adapt it to your own product and market.

>> Do this enough times, and you will slowly begin to become a true master of marketing. You will reach the highest level of marketing competence, ?unconscious competence.?

At this stage, coming up with great offers, promotional ideas, headlines, and copy is second nature to you. You do it naturally, without having to consult your checklists or reference files. The quality of your work is better, and it comes faster and easier.

However, you should still keep an extensive swipe file of promotions. Borrowing ideas and inspiration from direct mail packages that are working is a time-honored tradition in our industry, as long as it does not step over into plagiarism or copyright infringement.

My colleague Michael Masterson says it takes approximately 1,000 hours of practice to become really competent at copywriting, marketing, playing the flute, or anything else. If you have expert guidance, you may be able to cut that to 500 hours.

But ultimately, you learn by doing ? and doing a lot. If you are at this stage, keep doing more and more marketing. When you put in 5,000 hours, you will become great, not just good, and your results will be even better.

Action step: Rank yourself using the four levels of marketing competence as described here, and follow the recommendations for whatever stage you are in.

The other day one of my subscribers asked me, “Bob, do you read novels?” The answer, of course, is yes.

Here are my 10 favorite novels (the list includes a play widely published in book form and a “nonfiction novel”):

1–Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller.
2–A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
3–Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
4–The Shootist by Glen Swarthout.
5–Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.
6–To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
7–In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
8–South of Broad by Pat Conroy.
9–The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
10. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

What’s your favorite novel?

In 1961, Rosser Reeves published his classic book Reality in Advertising in which he introduced the notion of the Unique Selling Proposition, or USP.

Today the book is out of print and difficult to get. As a result, most practicing direct marketers don’t know the original definition of a USP. Their lack of knowledge often produces USPs that are weak and ineffective.

According to Reeves, there are three requirements for a USP (and I am quoting, in the italics, from Reality in Advertising directly):

1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Each must say, “Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.”

Your headline must contain a benefit — a promise to the reader.

2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer.

Here’s where the “unique” in Unique Selling Proposition comes in. It is not enough merely to offer a benefit. You must also differentiate your product.

3. The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product.

The differentiation cannot be trivial. It must be a difference that is very important to the reader.

In general advertising for packaged goods, marketers achieve differentiation by building a strong brand at a cost of millions or even billions of dollars.

Coca Cola has an advantage because of its brand. If you want a cola, you can get it from a dozen soda makers. But if you want a Coke, you can only get it from Coca Cola.

Intel has achieved a similar brand dominance, at an extraordinary cost, with its Pentium line of semiconductors.

Most direct marketers are too small, and have too strong a need to generate an immediate positive ROI from their marketing, to engage in this kind of expensive brand building. So we use other means to achieve the differentiation in our USP.

One popular method is to differentiate your product or service from the competition based on a feature that your product or service has and they don’t.

The easiest situation in which to create a strong USP is when your product has a unique feature — one that competitors lack — that delivers a strong benefit.

This must be an advantage the customer really cares about. Not one that, though a difference, is trivial.

But what if such a proprietary advantage does not exist? What if your product is basically the same as the competition, with no special features?

Reeves has the answer here too. He said the uniqueness can either stem from a strong brand (already discussed as an option 95% of marketers can’t use) or from a claim not otherwise made in that particular form of advertising — that is, other products may have this feature too, but advertisers haven’t told consumers about it.

An example from packaged goods advertising: “M&Ms melt in your mouth, not in your hand.”

Once M&M established this claim as their USP, what could the competition do? Run an ad that said, “We also melt in your mouth, not in your hand!”

One more point: As direct marketers, we — unlike most general advertisers today — are compelled to create advertising that generates net revenues in excess of its cost.

Reeves believed all advertising had to do this. He defined advertising as “the art of getting a USP into the heads of the most people at the lowest possible cost.”

“The real danger with social media is in marketers expecting too much from it,” says Linda LoRe, President of Frederick’s of Hollywood.

According to an article in Deliver magazine, 65% of marketers say they have not increased revenue or profited using social media.

And more than half of the adult population doesn’t use social media at all.

1) How to Write a Good Advertisement by Vic Schwab (Wilshire Book Company, 1962). A common-sense course in how to write advertising copy that gets people to buy your product or service, written by a plain-speaking veteran mail order copywriter in 1960.

Best part: 100 ?archetypal? headlines that people are still using in various forms today to create new controls (e.g., ?When Doctors Feel Rotten, This is What They Do?).

Availability: Still in print (Wilshire Publishing) and available on amazon.com.

2) My First 50 Years in Advertising by Max Sackheim (Prentice-Hall, 1970). Another plain-speaking, common-sense guide that stresses salesmanship over creativity, and results over awards. The author was one of the originators of the Book of the Month Club.

Best part: The oversize format allows full-size reproductions (large enough for the copy to be legible) of many classic direct response ads (e.g., ?They Thought I Was Crazy to Ship Live Maine Lobsters as Far as 1,800 Miles from the Ocean?).

Availability: Out of print and difficult to find.

3) The Robert Collier Letter Book by Robert Collier. While Schwab and Sackheim concentrate on space ads, Collier focuses on the art of writing sales letters, of which he is a master. You learn how to write persuasive sales letters in a friendly, natural, conversational style.

Best part: While some of the letters may seem old-fashioned and dated, Collier?s timeless principles still apply.

Availability: Comes in and out of print. Somewhat difficult to get.

4) Reality in Advertising by Rosser Reeves (Alfred A. Knopf, 1961). The book in which Reeves introduced the now-famous concept of USP (the Unique Selling Proposition).

Best part: The idea that every successful ad must (a) offer a benefit, (b) the benefit must differentiate your product from the competition, and (c) the benefit must be big enough to motivate buyers to purchase your product instead of others.

Availability: Out of print and difficult to get.

5) Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz. A copywriting guide by one of the greatest direct-response copywriters of the 20th century.

Best part: The notion that advertising does not create desires; rather, it focuses already existing desires onto your product.

Availability: Available from Boardroom Books.

6) Tested Advertising Methods, Fifth Edition by John Caples, revised by Fred Hahn (Prentice-Hall, 1997). An updated version of John Caples? classic book on the principles of persuasion as proven through A/B split tests.

Best part: The A/B split headline tests with the results (e.g., for an air conditioner, ?How to have a cool, quiet bedroom ? even on hot nights? pulled 2 ? times the response of ?Get rid of that humidity with a new room cooler that also dries the air?).

Availability: In print. Available in bookstores and online.

7) Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy (Atheneum). Charming autobiography of legendary ad man David Ogilvy, packed with useful advice on how to create effective advertising.

Best part: Chapter 6 on ?How to Write Potent Copy.?

Availability: Out of print and difficult to get.

8)-Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins (Bell Publishing, 1920). A book on the philosophy that advertising?s purpose is to sell, not entertain or win creative awards ? and how to apply this philosophy to create winning ads.

Best part: His observation that ?specifics sell; superlatives roll off the human understanding like water off a duck?s back.?

Availability: Since the copyright has expired, this book is now in the public domain and is available as a free downloadable e-book on several Web sites.You can also buy it as a paperback on amazon.com.

9) Method Marketing by Denny Hatch (Bonus Books, 1999). A book on how to write successful direct response copy by putting yourself in the customer?s shoes. Packed with case histories of modern direct response success stories, including Bill Bonner of Agora Publishing, and Martin Edelston of Boardroom.

Best part: The introduction of the concept of method marketing, which states: ?You cannot write copy without getting inside the head of the person to whom you are communicating and becoming that person.?

Availability: In print and available on amazon.com; also on Denny?s Web site www.methodmarketing.com.

10) Advertising Secrets of the Written Word by Joseph Sugarman (DelStar, 1998). How to write successful advertising copy by a modern master of the space ad.

Best part: The 24 psychological triggers that get people to buy.

Availability: In print and available on amazon.com.

Did I leave out any of your favorites? (I know I left out a dozen or so of mine!)

What do you do when a customer says, ?Your price is too high??

The best way to handle this is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Your best chance of making the sale is if your price quotation is within the prospect?s budget. Your best chance of having that happen is to know the budget before you give your price.

And the best way of knowing the budget before you give your price is simply to ask.

Here?s a comfortable, nonaggressive way to get this information: Instead of just coming out and asking what their budget is, which makes some prospects uncomfortable, ask them this nonthreatening question instead:

?Do you have a budget??

The prospect will answer either yes or no. If they say they have a budget, the conversation goes like this:

YOU: Do you have a budget?
PROSPECT: Yes.
YOU: Would you mind sharing what that is with me?

If the prospect does not have a budget, this conversation might go as follows:

YOU: Do you have a budget?
PROSPECT: No.
YOU: Well, did you at least have a dollar figure or range in mind of what you?d like it to cost?

About half the prospects will give you an answer so you can tailor your price quote accordingly.

The other half won?t, so you just have to go ahead and make your estimate without this knowledge.

According to an article in PR Daily Newsfeed, the average Facebook fan is worth about $136.38.

In addition, Facebook fans spent an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves as fans of compared to those who are not fans.

I haven’t made a dime from my Facebook fans. If anybody can show me how, I’ll pay you!

A recent article in DM News used the term ?mental opt-out? to describe someone who does not unsubscribe from a list but just stops reading or even opening the e-mails.

In surveying my list, I discovered a lot of mental opt-outs among my e-zine subscribers: they hadn?t unsubscribed yet but they no longer read the messages.

Although mental opt-out isn?t included in the figures when you measure opt-out rate, it?s just as dangerous to your online business.

Reason: if people don?t read what you send anymore, it means they either don?t value the content or don?t trust you.

And if they don?t open and read your messages, they won?t respond to your offers.

According to a study reported in Target Marketing, after subscribers are on a list for two years, their propensity to open e-mail declines by nearly 40 percent.

How do you prevent mental opt-out? One way is to keep an eye on your open rate. If it sinks, that?s a sign people are mentally opting out and you need to do something about it.

Make sure your content is fresh and valuable. Surprisingly, many of your subscribers save or remember your e-mails, and if you try to recycle old messages, it won?t be received well.

If you suspect mental opt-out, try cutting back on the frequency of your e-mail blasts. Many subscribers are absolutely bombarded with e-mail ? yours and others ? and yours will stand out more if there are fewer per week. In the good old days of direct mail we used the term ?list fatigue? to describe a list that was being mailed to too often. Well, e-lists can suffer list fatigue too.

Send fewer sales messages and more content messages. A minimum of 50% of your e-mails should be pure content. I used to send two and even sometimes three sales messages a week. Now the majority of my e-mails will be pure content.

I found the best way to uncover mental opt-out was to ask my subscribers (including you) whether I was sending out too many sales messages and whether my newsletter contained enough content for them.

You can do this with your list, and believe me, your subscribers won?t be shy about speaking up for what they want from their subscription to your service.

Adjust what you are doing, give them what they want, and they will start to mentally opt in again, read your messages, and respond to your offers. But not overnight. It takes time to rebuild trust.

Do you know who is on your list and what topics they are most interested in? You can find out with an online survey using a tool like surveymonkey.com. We did this and it really helped me understand my audience better. Your subscribers will also appreciate that you took the time to do a survey to find out what they want.