If you just know your business could be doing better, but aren't quite sure what to do next, just ask yourself…

 

Which would you like to accomplish starting tomorrow?

 

·      Improve your online results—professional online / SEO copywriting, video scripts, AdWords campaigns, generate testimonials, email / autoresponder campaigns, landing pages, squeeze pages, and minisites

·      Boost the response to your sales letters, brochures, direct mail packages, telemarketing scripts, emails, e-zines, print ads, case studies, white papers, and radio/TV spots

·      Engage your prospects at their deepest psychological levels, so that buying from you becomes an entirely natural and desirable transaction based on trust

Global Brand's Michael Cooney

And now…

"I'd like to Tell You a Story…"

… about a letter mailed to Liberia 33 years ago, and how lessons learned from it could add major $$$ to your bottom line in 2010

Dear Business Owner or Executive,

Picture an unsophisticated country kid (me!) growing up in southwestern Oregon, in a little town called Jacksonville -- population 1,200. Jacksonville was a gold rush boom town in the 1870s, and many of those old brick buildings still stand along California Street. Our modest house was on a hillside, right next to national forest land. I loved hiking in the woods and playing baseball. And going on long rides on my 10-speed.

If you had told me then that a decade later I'd be living in Tokyo -- population 12,000,000 -- and jet-setting around the world, well, I'd have told you that you must be crazy. But sure enough, 10 years later there I was -- enjoying the view from 40,000 feet on my way to meetings in yet another foreign capital. Gee whiz… how'd that happen?

The answer to that is an unusual story about how I got started in marketing, why I do what I do, and most importantly, how the insights I've gained can help ramp up your sales and profits. Also, in a moment I’m going to share a "secret something" with you that is the key to selling anything to anyone. First things first, though….

It started with a letter to Liberia

Back in 1976 I was hired by a philanthropic non-profit foundation headquartered in Pasadena, California. The organization's founder often traveled to foreign capitals on "personal appearance tours" that my employer would set up for him.

One day my boss asked me to write a letter to the organization's magazine subscribers in Liberia, a small, poor country on Africa’s equatorial west coast. (The magazine was sent free of charge.) I was to invite them to the founder’s upcoming personal appearance in the capital city of Monrovia.

I had never written a promotional letter before. And although I had recently earned a Masters Degree from a respected school, I had had no formal training in marketing yet. So, I just gave it my best shot. I wrote a one-page sincere and heart-felt letter, explaining how the subscriber would be encouraged, inspired and uplifted by coming to hear our dynamic speaker. As I said, it was only one page.

People walked for days because of a few words on a sheet of paper

The results from that simple letter both elated and humbled me. I learned that the sports arena had been packed. And that many had walked for two or three days to get there -- just to hear a 90-minute speech. The letter was a success.

It also had a profound effect on me. I was beginning to understand the power of words. Just a few typed words on a sheet of paper. And yet they were powerful enough so that people walked for days just to hear a speech.

And that was my entrée into the world of marketing. A rather unusual beginning, wouldn't you agree?

Soon after that, I moved to Japan to become Associate Director of the foundation's Tokyo office. Although based there, I spent most of my time traveling to other countries throughout Asia, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean promoting the foundation's activities to senior government officials. Pretty heady stuff for a 25-year-old.

And that's how it all began.

Those early experiences later led to an understanding of the "secret something" I promised to share with you…

Well, it isn't a secret in the usual sense. It’s actually a set of keys. However, many advertisers and ad agencies, in their attempts to be "cute," have utterly forgotten how to use these keys that unlock the door to human motivation. Or, to put it more simply -- what causes people to buy your stuff.

Those keys are the need every person has…  

• to feel loved
• to feel important
• to feel the approval of others
• to experience joy
• to be treated with dignity and respect
• to believe we matter
• to feel safe and secure
• to be treated honestly
• to be treated with kindness, and,
• to have someone empathize with our hurts, disappointments, fears and frustrations

Those are what engage every human being’s deepest emotions and desires. And one or more of those are the emotional triggers that underlie every purchase you and I make. And every purchase your customers or clients make!

If you want your marketing strategies and advertising to become more effective -- if you want to sell more things to more people -- then remember those keys and place them foremost in your thoughts as you write to your prospects, clients or customers. In some way, your product or service will relate to one or more of those desires. Your job is to find out how it relates. And that, then, becomes the foundation for your approach.

When I discovered long ago the power that words give us to connect with others on these deeper levels, it changed my life. I began studying the past and present great masters of marketing and advertising. Men such as Claude Hopkins, John Caples, David Ogilvy, Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, and too many others to mention here.

Throughout my career I have been showing clients just like you the deeper psychology behind people’s decisions -- what makes them choose one product over another, or one company over another. And what strategies, tactics, methods, layouts, colors, words and phrases are effective in helping generate a purchase or a request for more information—once your prospect’s deeper motivations are known.

You cannot create motivation in others.

Instead, you can do this…      

Success in marketing and advertising comes after you realize that you and I cannot create motivation in others -- as much as most marketers try. What you can do is discover what motivations already exist, and develop your strategy to tap deeply into those existing motivations. And that, you see, is the ultimate key to successful marketing, advertising and selling.

Today, when we help a client hit a home run, I still get that same sense of joy and satisfaction as I did after writing that first letter to the magazine subscribers in Liberia 33 years ago.

And that's why I do what I do.

Now, I hope I will have the sincere enjoyment of talking with you sometime soon, and learning all about why you do what you do! And while we're at it, let’s also talk about what motivates your clients or customers…!

With warm regards,

Michael Cooney

For more details about how we approach both marketing strategy and copywriting, please click on the Marketing Myth page.