TQ, a friend of many years, does not understand a rule I live by, which is: never give unsolicited advice.

Here are 5 reasons why I do not give unsolicited advice — and why I am not crazy about getting it, either:

1 — If other people really wanted your advice, they would ask for it.

2 — People don’t value advice unless they seek it out. And even then, they don’t really value advice all that much unless they PAY for it.

3 — The giver of unsolicited advice often makes the erroneous assumption that the receiver has goofed because of lack of knowledge.

What the giver does not realize is that the receiver either (a) does not agree with the giver’s opinion or (b) has made the error because of lack of time — or because fixing it is not a priority.

4–The giver of unsolicited advice may claim his motive is purely to be helpful, but the action is almost always driven in part by a conceited desire to show off (what he perceives as) his superior knowledge.

As such, it comes across as argumentative, arrogant, and annoying — not kind, friendly, and helpful.

5 — The advice giver erroneously assumes that the topic in question is a priority to the recipient.

In fact, it may not be a priority. Often, it is not even the least bit important.

A CNN.com poll today shows that 74% of Americans are confused about the Obama Administration’s health plan, and only one out of four feels well-informed about the health plan.

President Obama doesn’t read this blog and isn’t asking my advice. But if I were in the White House, here’s what I’d do immediately:

1–Distill a summary of the health plan down to 5 key points that can fit on two sides (preferably one side) of an 8 1/2 X 11-inch sheet of paper.

(Yes, I know that health care is complex. But just give the 5 most imporant points.)

2–Call a press conference and have the President explain these 5 points in a talk lasting no longer than 10 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A from the press.

3–During the press conference, announce a site — with a short, easy-to-remember URL — where people can go to download the 5-point abridged health care plan summary document.

4–Create a more detailed white paper of no more than 10 pages and have that available on the site as well.

Winston Churchill used to insist his staff write memos, even on complex subjects, restricted to one side of a sheet of paper.

If Obama can do this for health care, and perhaps you can do this to sell your products or ideas to your market, people would at last get the message and feel better educated — and therefore more comfortable accepting what you are proposing.

A lot of marketers, including me, use white papers of 10 pages or longer. Perhaps we need to start creating 5-point one page summaries to support our products, services, organizations, causes, and ideas, too.

For instance, if you are selling SEO services to an unsophisticated small business market that has heard about search engine marketing but doesn’t really get it, what about doing a one-sheet “5 Reasons Why You Should do SEO — NOW”?

What do you think? I am going to start implementing this idea soon. Will you give it a try?

In one of my favorite TV cartoon shows Dexter’s Lab, Dexter’s dad tells his wife about her constant talking on the phone: “I can’t stand another minute of this mindless gab.”

I confess that this is often my reaction to social media, and in the most recent as well as past issues of his excellent e-newsletter on copywriting The Copywriter’s Roundtable, my colleague John Forde has indicated a similar sentiment.

He points to a study from Pear Analytics. It found that 40% of Twitter tweets are “babble” and only 8.7% have pass-alone value and news of interest.

The study concluded that “Twitter is a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else.”

While this study is far from a condemnation of Twitter as an absolute time, it’s more evidence that Twitter is largely composed of mindless gab, yes?

According to a new study by Internet Retailer, visitors who arrive on a site from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are 50% more likely to buy than traffic generated by search engine optimization (SEO).

The study found that the average conversion rate from paid search is 2.03% vs. only 1.25% from organic search.

Visitors sent to web sites via e-mail marketing convert even better, at 6.9% — a figure confirmed in my own business after tracking the results from literally millions of e-mail messages.

Why is this so? The study did not speculate, but I have my own theory: the more the prospect knows about what he will be offered on the web site or landing page before he gets there, the higher the conversion rate.

E-mail gives you the most information about what to expect, so the conversion rate is higher. PPC ads have significantly less copy, so the prospect is not as clear on what is being offered, and conversion rate is less.

SEO has the lowest conversion because of the limited description displayed in the Google search engine results page (SERP), and also because most marketers don’t take as much care writing their description meta tags as they do their PPC ads and e-mail copy.

Source: SIPA Alert, 8/17/09.

What would you do about Bill?

Bill B. e-mailed me to say he couldn’t afford my Internet marketing home study course.

Now, there are Internet marketing courses out there costing thousands of dollars.

Mine sells for less than $100, and the week Bill wrote me, I was offering a special discount, selling it for just $77.

So I recommended a less comprehensive ebook I have, which is a good beginner’s guide and sells for only $19.

Bill’s reply was that he would “really appreciate it” if I were to “donate” the book to him (as if he was a charity?) because he would not afford to pay for it.

When I asked him why he should get a free copy while thousands of my customers have paid $19 for it, he chastised me for being uncharitable, greedy, and only caring about making money.

“It’s okay if you can’t help,” Bill wrote. “One day you will understand why helping someone you don’t know feels good — more than the little money on your pocket.”

What do you think I should have done with Bill?

A–Give him the e-book. After all, it’s a PDF, Bob — doesn’t cost you anything.

B–Refuse to donate it. After all, it comes with a money-back guarantee — if Bill doesn’t like it (or even if he does), he can just ask for a refund and it will be free anyway.

C–Other.

If you picked “C: Other,” what would YOU do in this same situation?

Do you agree with Bill that I am a money-grubbing Scrooge?

Or was I more than fair with Bill, pointing him to the cheaper product instead of pushing him to buy the slightly more expensive program?

What say you?

P.S. Would Bill go to the GROCERY STORE and expect them to give him free steaks?

Does his dentist treat him free of charge?

Would he call a plumber and ask the plumber to “donate” his time fixing Bill’s broken toilet?

Why should I, as a writer, not get paid for my expertise and time, while everyone else Bill deals with gets paid by him?

Coors and a few other beers are boasting about how they sell “ice cold” beer.

But as comic Kyle Cease observes: “Isn’t how cold it is really up to ME?”

How cold the beer is has nothing to do with the brewer or the brand.

It is determined with Coors, as with every other beer on the planet, by whether and how long the customer puts the beer in the fridge, freezer, or on ice.

So why even talk about it as a selling point in the ads?

Coors Light promotes temperature as a selling point right on the can.

The can is illustrated with a drawing of a mountain. When the beer reaches “optimal drinking temperature” of 39 degrees F or lower, the peak turns blue indicating it is guzzling time.

But even then Coors has the whole temperature thing wrong.

According to an article in Wired (7/09, p. 24): “Beer loses its flavor at that temperature [because] it releases few volatile chemicals,” and your tongue’s ability to taste the beer is diminished.

“Luckily, with Coors that makes little difference,” the article concludes.

I agree with Cease. Coors promoting their beer as the coldest makes as much sense as Campbell’s saying its soups are the best because they are “piping hot.”

When I became a copywriter in the late 1970s, direct mail wasn’t popular — considered an ugly stepchild of beauiful color magazine ads and funny TV commercials.

I never once tried to push direct mail on anyone or argue that it was somehow better than those TV and magazine ads, preferring to write sales letters only for companies that already wanted and believed in sales letters — a practice I continue to this day.

But today’s blogging and social media gurus are different.

They are not content to offer speeches, books, and consulting services to companies who want to try these new media.

The social networking evangelists feel compelled to stand on a soap box and proclaim to the world that Twitter, Facebook, and the gang are the greatest thing to happen since sliced bread.

And, they take pains to explain how social media is making all that “old hat” stuff — like TV commercials, radio spots, magazine and newspaper ads, and direct mail — obsolete.

To do so is foolish for several reasons.

First, your evangelist faith in the power of new media is largely unproven.

Yes, there is a growing number of success stories.

But these are still isolated.

New media is NOWHERE as proven as conventional marketing methods like direct mail and space advertising.

Second, smart marketers know it is not a case of choosing one over the other. They use any and all media that works, in combinations that get the best results.

But new media evangelist seem hell-bent on making their Kool-Aid pre-eminent and deriding all that came before.

Third, social media may be beneficial. But the metrics for it are nowhere near as strong and established yet (and perhaps may never be) for traditional direct response.

In social media, peple often make logical cases for why campaigns work (e.g., with 8,720 new blog subscribers, I am getting a lot of exposure for my ideas).

In DM, we KNOW the campaign worked or didn’t work (e.g., I spent $10,000 and generated $35,670 in sales).

So let me ask you….

If you are a new media evangelist, what compels you to be so contentious with and critical of us old-school direct marketers?

Why does what we do offend you on so many levels?

Do you think it’s more important to be trendy, hip, cool, and current … or (like us direct marketers) to make the cash register ring?

A bank was offering home equity loans through direct response newspaper ads.

They tested 2 ads with different themes:

A — “Fix up your dream home at a competitive rate.”
B — “Fix things around the house that are bugging you.”

One ad generated 41% more loan business than the other.

Which do you think was the winning ad — A or B? And why?

Source: “PitchPerfect Message Strategy” by Barry Callen (McGraw-Hill, 2009).