52 Getting people to pay attention to your window displays

What is the purpose of a window display?

An attractive shop window display should draw passers-by to look and come in to buy. It is like an advert for your business that gives shoppers a taste of what they can expect inside. It is an opportunity to communicate your brand identity and stand out from neighbouring shops.

Why is it important?

How many shop windows do you pass in a typical day? How many of them are using the space to their advantage? Many shoppers are attracted into a shop by what they see in the window. A good shop window display can get you more business. It is also free advertising.

Shops that are located close to traffic lights or road junctions where cars typically queue up really do have a captive audience. As your window display is the first thing people see when they pass by, it will influence their first impressions.

Your challenge

A shop window will need to be dressed regularly for maximum impact. It will need to be colour co-ordinated and work with your existing image. It will take careful thought and planning every week if you want to get the most from it.

How to create an attractive window display

• Go out and take a walk around your local town with the purpose of studying window displays. Note down anything you see that has impact.
• Make sure your shop facia is bold and reflective of your name and brand.
• Co-ordinate your colours.
• Make sure the sign and windows are always clean.
• Use special offers and new popular products, to attract attention.
• Organise your offers so that they can be seen and have impact.
• Keep it simple – do not clutter the display.
• Use vinyl window glass signage at the top, bottom or the side of the display.
• Keep your messages simple and straightforward.
• Update displays every week – give your customers something new to look at.
• You can use scrolling signs to attract the eye.
• You can use lights after dark to make your window display stand out.
• Don’t leave grills or grates up or allow high reflective glass or poor lighting to make your shop look like it’s not open.

A high street print, copy and design shop have found that their window display is their most effective marketing tool. They have a big glass frontage and are situated very close to a set of traffic lights with short queues round the clock. As soon as they realised that their window display was more important than any of their advertising they developed a complete strategy for making the most of it. It is so good at motivating new business that they have even been approached to sell advertising space on a scrolling banner in the window.

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR SHOP WINDOW - SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• Look at your window display from the customers’ point of view and ask yourself what your window display says about your business.
• Think about what you could do to maximise its impact.
• Measure the results you get by noticing what people are looking at and what they respond to.

How to use this information

If you do have a business with a prominent window frontage it is well worth considering how you can use this information to make the most of it. Develop a long term strategy for marketing your business through the biggest advertisement you have.

53 Designing adverts that sell

Why is this important?

Many people spend pounds on unplanned and poorly measured advertising and then find that they do not get the return they anticipated. Many are persuaded by the press to take late space or advertise in the latest feature and then find – because they rushed the design of their advert and made a spur of the moment decision – that it did not generate a result. This can be very frustrating and can result in a loss of faith in advertising as a method of attracting new customers. Many business owners make excuses for their lack of results by saying that they simply use advertising to keep their name out there. Advertising is very expensive if you do not get a result from it. There are many businesses generating thousands of pounds from advertising that works. They are the ones which have learnt how to design adverts that sell. They continually monitor and measure the return they get, fine tuning as they go. This is important if you want to get the best return from your advertising spend.

Your challenge

Your challenge will be to make sure that any advertising that you do is targeted correctly. Any advert that you design will need to be designed to attract the right people. It will also need to appear in the right publication, which is one that is read by the highest number of your target prospects. You need to find out what the people you want to reach read, and where they go to research information about suppliers of the product or service that you are selling.

For each publication you will need to consider

• Who reads it?
• Are the readers the people you want to reach?
• What are the readership or circulation figures?
• What geographical region does it cover?
• What are the planned features and how will they attract attention to your advert?
• Are there any specific sections that may naturally draw attention to your advertisement?
• Who else is advertising – what kind of responses and reactions did they get from their advert (people are often more than happy to share their experiences)?

How to create an advert that sells – the AIDCA formula

Whenever you create an advertisement there are five essential key elements that follow the way a person psychologically responds to advertising both logically and emotionally. If you follow this formula when designing your advertisement it will give you the best chance of motivating your reader to respond.

The formula is easy to remember and easy to apply.

• A – It must attract Attention with the headline and the picture.
• I – It must keep the Interest by making it easy to read and understand.
• D – It must build Desire with the value, offers and benefits.
• C – It must Convince with a special offer, guarantee or testimonial.
• A – It must ask for Action by telling the reader how to respond and provide contact details.

These rules apply to any form of advertising that you do.

YOUR ADVERT DESIGN – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• Who are you targeting? – describe your buyer.
• Decide what you want to sell to this buyer through this advert.
• Imagine that you are this buyer looking for information about this product or service – what would be the picture they have in their head? What information would they need?
• Choose an image that shows the buyer using or enjoying the product or service. Make it something that they can easily relate to.
• Think about what would get that reader’s attention in the headline. This might be a special benefit, a new special offer, a short positive description of the product, a question that the target reader has to answer ‘yes’ to. You can also provoke curiosity by promising answers to questions they may have.

Sample headlines

Let’s imagine I want to attract new members to a golf and country club here are some examples of headlines that could attract the attention of the target audience

• Enjoy a challenging round of golf at the exclusive…
• The perfect round of golf.
• Calling all golfers…
• Do you want to spend more time playing golf?
• Three ways to improve your golf swing immediately.
• Do you want a free round of golf?
• Good news: golf club membership at special rates.

Consider the layout of the advert and how you can make it easy to read and follow.

Write a list of the benefits that this reader would get from the product of service. Write in a simple, straightforward way as if you were speaking to the reader telling them all about what is in it for them.

Decide what you are going to use to convince the reader and prompt a direct response from your advert. Give a special offer or guarantee.

What action do you want your reader to take? Tell them to call you, book a free consultation, or visit your showroom. Make sure that you have put all the correct contact details in your advertisement.

Sample advert layout

How to use this information

Take some of your existing advertising and run it through the AIDCA formula test. Step into your readers’ shoes and see your offer through their eyes. Decide what could be improved and test it out. Monitor the results you get. Stop all advertising that is not bringing you a return. Make sure that you are targeting the right people through the right publications and if you have been guilty of making last minute decisions and placing haphazard adverts, stop it now. Make a commitment to design adverts that give you and your business the best possible chance of a positive return.

54 Writing a good sales letter

What is a sales letter?

A sales letter can introduce your product or services to potential customers. Its aim can be to pre-sell your service in advance of a follow-up sales telephone call. A sales letter can also stand alone as a ‘sales person’ in print and aim to do the complete sales task from start to finish. Sales letters can be sent direct mail or email.

Why is it important?

A sales letter can be a valuable part of your sales and marketing process. Written well sales letters can persuade and influence your customers to buy, either directly from the letter or from you when you make your follow up telephone call. They allow you to target and communicate with more potential customers than you could physically talk to at any one time. Sales letters can warm customers up prior to a telemarketing campaign.

Your challenge

Your challenge is to write a letter that gets read and responded to. Everybody receives so much mail these days in the post and via email that your letter needs to be good to stand out. Most of us scan letters very quickly and if nothing grabs our attention or stands out as being relevant and appealing then they tend to go straight in the bin.

How to write letters that sell

Know what your objective is

Before you start typing you need to know what you want your letter to achieve.

Know who you are targeting

It is also important to be clear about who you are targeting and what their interests and problems are. This will help you to write copy that communicates directly with these people and provides solutions to their problems.

Write as if you are writing to one person

When you are writing put yourself into the shoes of the person you are writing to. Imagine that person as a friend and you are writing your message just for them. Even though this letter may go out to hundreds of people, each person will read it individually.

Be personal – use ‘you’ and ‘your’

If you include plenty of ‘you’ and ‘yours’ in your letter it will come across as if you are talking to the reader personally. You will be more likely to make a connection with the reader this way. Using ‘you’ and ‘yours’ shows the reader that you are focusing on them and their interests.

Get the reader’s attention from the start

Headlines that communicate something immediately of value to the target reader will get their attention.

• A major benefit.
• A question that they have to say ‘yes’ to.
• An amazing fact or piece of research.
• Something new or different.
• An amazing opportunity.

The headline is the opening sentence and the first thing that is read. Use a spot colour to emphasise its importance.

Make it look easy to read

Readers will make a decision to read a letter or not very quickly. If the headline has successfully grabbed their attention and the letter looks easy on the eye there is more chance of it getting read. Short paragraphs with sub-headlines that highlight the main benefits, well spaced out will make the letter look attractive and pleasant to read.

Write as you talk

Imagine that you are going to have a conversation with someone and tell them all about the solution you have for them. Use easy to understand, plain English. Jargon and long words have the potential to bore and confuse. Be friendly and personable as if your were speaking to a friend.

Keep your sentences short

Short sentences keep people’s attention.

Simplify

Eliminate excess wording. Be clear and concise in the points that you make. For letters you are sending in the post one A4 sheet is best. Scrolling email letters can be longer as long as the approach and language is kept simple and straightforward.

Sell the benefits

Show that you understand the target readers’ problems and explain the solutions you have for them. Talk about what your product or service can do for them and the outcomes they can expect to be satisfied. Make sure that you communicate your unique selling proposition.

Include an action line

At the end of any letter you will want your readers to take a next step. You need to ask them to do that. If the next step to expect is a call from you within a defined time period then you must communicate that.

The power of a good PS

After the headline, the PS is the most read part of the letter, so you need to come up with a compelling PS. Your PS can be used to reinforce a key selling point or place some urgency on the response required.

Proof-read

As your sales letter represents you and your business there is nothing worse than it going out with spelling or grammatical errors. It is best practice to get all your written sales and marketing materials double-checked by a professional proof-reader.

Read aloud before you send

When you read a letter you read it aloud in your head. Reading it aloud yourself once it has been completed is a great way of uncovering anything that doesn’t quite work.

The structure of a simple sales letter

How to use this information

Make sure that, if you are using a sales letter to pre-sell your services prior to a telecampaign, you make your call no more than three days after you send the letter. Leave it longer than that and you risk the person forgetting about the letter no matter how well written it is.

If you have been using sales letters check them against the information you have here. How could you improve them?

55 Using compelling direct mail

What is direct mail?

Think of direct mail as a sales person in print sent directly to prospective customers by post in the form of a sales letter, flyer, brochure, post card or combination. Its purpose is to sell your products or services.

Why is using direct mail potentially beneficial?

Here are some of the potential benefits of a compelling direct mail campaign.

• It leverages your efforts by getting your message out to thousands in one go.
• It allows you to target with precision by pinpointing the people who fit your psychographic, demographic and geographic profile.
• You can get an immediate response. If your campaign works, you will know about it quickly.
• It can work for you, selling your products and services while you sleep.
• It is a relatively low cost way of getting to large numbers of prospects.
• As it is tangible it can stay in your prospects’ homes if they are interested but not ready to buy immediately.

Your challenge

With all the mail that falls on most people’s door mat in the morning there is a lot for any mail shot, letter or flyer to compete with. Most mail shots these days generate as little as a one per cent return. If the direct mail piece is not compelling for the receiver, then the chances are it will get put in the bin immediately. Sad, but true.

Direct mail can be a huge waste of time and money if you don’t go about it in the right way. Sending out thousands of poorly targeted and poorly written mail shots is a bit like tipping a big bag of £5 notes down a drain. The sending of it does not guarantee a result. If you are serious about making your mail campaign work it will need some considered forethought and precision planning.

Tips on how to get the best result from your direct mail

• Make sure that you send your direct mail to the right people. The key is to have the right mailing list to start with. You have the best chance of getting a response from people who have purchased something similar to what you are selling, people who have money to spend and belong to a group or organisation that have a strong want or need for your product or service. You can purchase mailing lists from list brokers who can help you to identify good lists for your direct mail campaigns.
• Sending a mailing to highly targeted prospects will raise your chance of success. If you are a landscape gardener and you send a mailing to owners of properties with large gardens in areas where there is disposable income, you will have a much better chance of a good response than you would sending it out to a housing estate with matchbox-sized gardens.
• Make sure that your direct mail follows the AIDCA formula already described.
• Use attention grabbers to get people to open it. Be creative and consider something a bit different or unusual that receivers can touch and feel.
• Personalise it if you can.
• Make your mailing look like a letter from a friend by printing your address labels in script or similar and avoiding colourful messages on the outside, which make it obvious that it is direct mail. The less obvious, the better.
• Sequential mailing campaigns get a better response than one-off mailings, as doing this well means that you are able to build a relationship with buyers over time.
• If you follow up a direct mailing with a telephone call you can increase your response rate by 50–100%.
• Don’t send out more than you have the resource to follow up, as this needs to be done within a few days of sending the mail shot.
• Hand deliver and test. Another useful trick to getting a better return from your mail shot is to be selective about where you distribute it, and test small batches by hand delivering in the evenings.
• You can introduce your mail by voice broadcast over the telephone or by telemarketing: this can help to set up an expectation for it. Some organisations send competitions in the post as a way of attracting potential customers.

YOUR DIRECT MAIL – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What could you use direct mail for?
• Who are you targeting?–describe fully.
• Where can you get the best list of this target g roup?
• Check out list brokers.
• How are you going to approach it?
• Write your sales letter or direct mail flyer.
• Test it out on a few potential customers that you know – get some feedback?
• Set up your test batches and measure and monitor results.
• Fine tune your direct mail flyer or sales letter.
• Sendoutyourcampaign.
• Record your response results.

How to use this information

If you think that there could be mileage in running a direct mail campaign, start small and learn as you go. There are lots of useful tips here that you can apply to any campaign large or small.

56 Using special offers and incentives

What is a special offer?

A special offer is an opportunity for the customer to gain a financial advantage that is ideally perceived as irresistible. A special offer should motivate purchasing decisions because of the perceived value in it.

Why are special offers important?

Special offers are as important to customers as they are to you. They can help you to achieve a number of things, for example: sell more, introduce customers to new products, speed up the buying cycle or move on old or unwanted stocks. Your customers also love a special offer. We are all motivated by an opportunity to get a good deal, something we want at a lower price than we would normally pay – a bargain!

Irresistible special offers are a great way to introduce new customers to your products or services and give existing customers a bonus.

Your challenge

Your challenge is to make your offers so irresistible that your prospective customers say to themselves ‘I really would be a fool to miss out on this opportunity’, or ‘I must take this opportunity right now or I will miss out’.

Your challenge is to do this in a way that motivates more new customers to try your services or buy your products.

What makes a special offer successful?

When creating your special offers you need to understand the psychology of the ‘risk – reward’ thought process that goes on in the mind of your prospective customer.

Whenever someone considers buying anything they will naturally weigh up what they will get versus what they have to give to get those benefits. If the perceived risk is high and the perceived value is low, the chances are that the person will not buy. If the perceived risk is low and the value is high, then there is every chance more sales will be made. So the best, most irresistible special offers are created when you increase the perceived value and lower the risk.

Increase perceived value

Here are some ways to do this.

• Add in extra bonuses – e-book sellers are masters at this.
• Give two for the price of one or three for two – supermarkets do this well.
• Package complementary products together with a lower overall price compared to buying the products separately – spas and beauty salons are good at this.
• Detail why this product/service is special and unique and discount the price as an introductory offer.

Decrease the perceived risk

• Give a strong guarantee.
• Provide low, affordable payment terms – most car retailers do this well.
• Offer interest-free credit – some furniture or electrical retailers do this well.
• Delay payments with no accrued interest – buy now pay later.
• Give free 30-day trial periods.
• Give access to follow up support after the sale has been made – computer software companies do this well.
• Prove a fast or large return on investment – property or financial investment companies do this well.
• Give proof of the results of the product or service using real life case studies.
• Endorse the product or service with testimonials.

If you combine a technique that increases perceived value with one that decreases perceived risk then you will enjoy an increased response rate to your special offer or incentive.

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN SPECIAL OFFERS – SPECIAL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

• What ideally would you like your special offer or incentive to achieve?
• What do you think would make an irresistible offer and attract new customers? Make a list of some of the options.
• Decide on the combination of increasing perceived value and decreasing perceived risk that would give your offer maximum leverage.
• Decide on a series of special offers and incentives to suit your own seasonal buying cycle.
• Decide how you are going to test your special offers.
• Find out by monitoring response rates what works and what doesn’t.

How to use this information

Integrate special offers and incentives into your sales and marketing strategy. Try different offers and test them out in your advertising, direct mail, email marketing, telesales, point of sale, networking events and talks and any marketing communication with new potential customers. Find the combination that works for you.