© Copyright 2004		The 7 Deadly Sins of Advisor Marketing by Martin R. Baird Making your direct mail work! Every day, I'm forced to ask a simple question of clients and prospective clients. They bring in so-called mailers or sales letters that are not working. They want to know why, and the answer is.......duh! At that point, I ask why they are wasting their money? I think I have found the answer. People don't know how to write, develop and produce direct mail that works! They have bad habits they learned from English teachers and from a business class 20 years ago. They learned direct mail by doing what they have always done. I am not claiming that everyone is a poor writer. Fortunately, to make your direct mail work, it is NOT about writing. It's about doing little tricks that can double and triple your response rates! Here are some points to think about. The average person in the United States is exposed to more than 3,000 marketing messages each and every 24 hours. Will your mailer be one that gets noticed? Is it strong enough to cut through the clutter of 2,999 other messages? Research shows that it takes most people less than half a second to decide if they are going to open your mailer. They make this decision very quickly, and your sales are affected. Does your mailer pass the half-second test? With all due respect, English teachers didn't know squat about direct mail. They know about verbs and nouns. But direct mail is about sales! Oh no, I let the cat out of the bag! If you remember only this one point, you will stop wasting some of your money: good direct mail is sales in print. Please read that line again. So how do you make letters and mailers sell? The answer is so easy. You follow the same system you would if you were face to face with a prospect. This is easy to do, and you will see your sales go up! Look at most of the mail you receive. Does it truly try to sell? Or does it just preach? I get far too many mailings that I call the ìhow great thou artî letter. These are the ones that talk about how wonderful the sender is. They've been in business forever. They have the perfect list of clients or suppliers. They have all of the right credentials. (Some people have more letters and initials after their names than a medical specialist!) I have only one thing to say. Who cares? Do they think they are writing this to impress the reader? Most readers are too bored to be impressed. Do people get emotional because they found out how great this person is? No they don't. Most likely they stop reading after the first two lines. People don't really care about you. What do they care about? They care about themselves and how something affects or helps them! It's that simple. I want to know what you are going to do for me. Are you going to make me happier, healthier or wealthier? I want you to talk about my needs, not brag about yourself. Yes, your credentials are important, but not until I think you care about me. The credentials are used to justify my emotional decision. This is the second time I mentioned emotion. In Sales 101, we all learned that you need to get the prospect emotionally involved. This is a requirement in direct mail, and it works. So how do you get a reader emotionally involved? First you talk about them. Then what? You ask questions and you get them to thinking. Have you noticed that in this article I have asked you a number of questions? I did this to keep you involved and keep you thinking. One more point about emotion is fear. Do you want your reader to have some fear? Maybe you want them to be a little nervous. It's important to make a strong emotional connection with your reader. Now let's review: Good direct mail is sales in print! It's about sales, not English. Get the reader's attention! Talk about what is important to the reader. Make an emotional connection. PURCHASE THIS BOOK Martin R. Baird is president of Advisor Marketing, a full-service marketing management firm that provides a variety of services to financial advisors to help them improve their marketing methods and increase revenues, including seminars and conference speaking engagements on such topics as referrals, marketing, client communication and transitioning to fee. The firm's Web site, www.advisormarketing.com, offers free marketing information and tools for financial advisors, including a free weekly e-mail newsletter. Baird is author of "The 7 Deadly Sins of Advisor Marketing," a book that offers easy-to-implement marketing ideas for advisors. Baird may be reached at mbaird@advisormarketing.com or by telephone at (480) 990-1775 or (800) 279-1775. Visit www.advisormarketing.com for marketing tactics that will help your business grow.