Copywriting Techniques for the Computer Business (Part 1)

Have you ever been suckered into a sale? Years ago, when in need of a new car I started out browsing the car yards ….just looking and definitely not buying. I was going to do the rounds and play off one car salesman against the other and get a brilliant deal …or so I thought.

To cut a long story short I went home with a new car …after only visiting the first car yard. The clever man had sold me a car. I was determined to play my own game ….but I became the sucker.

He wasn’t a pushy type ….he just kept asking me questions …..and after a long session he signed me up. Sure, he chucked in a few free extras but he got the sale. So how did he do it?

The most valuable thing to remember is a hot prospect needs lots of information. Yeah, tons of it! What the salesman was doing to me was finding out exactly what I wanted in a car.

At the same time he was giving me a ton of information in return. When every avenue had been exhausted …I had no where to go ….it was a good deal …exactly what I was looking for ….plus all those extras for free.

This salesman knew how to press all my emotional buttons. He got me in the car. With him driving he gave me a “high-speed-law-breaking-demo.” Next, I am driving the car and together we broke the law and got the adrenalin pumping. The salesman had me emotionally involved …there was no escape ...the car had my name on it.

So what is this emotional stuff? Print advertising is “selling in print”. Two important things to remember is: tons of information in an emotional format. If you check out your local newspaper, you could argue that there are plenty of examples of advertising with very few words.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy says, “There is a universal belief in lay circles that people will not read long copy. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

In a car sales situation who do you think would be more successful ….the salesperson who blurts out a few catchy phrases or the salesperson who spends an hour with the client explaining and answering questions? It is the same with print advertising. The more you tell ….the more you sell …as the saying goes.

Print advertising is often confused with high risk image advertising. Image advertising is for bigger companies with deep pockets and not for a small computer repair business. It is impossible to create brand awareness from running a few ads. Print advertising forces you to use the direct response approach in your marketing.

What this means is …if you spend one hundred dollars in advertising you want to recoup your hundred dollars and earn a premium. Always set up a marketing system so you can accurately measure the money you make from advertising.

The First Step in Effective Promotion From Your Website

Most people with a commercial website want it to work away unattended on autopilot, selling their goods and services. The only problem here is you need some sort of marketing mechanism to drive the sales process.

What you need is an electronic salesperson working away answering questions and taking orders. In other words a direct marketing system is required. Direct marketing means selling without sales people. Instead of sales people, you need included in your site, a well written sales letter or a web marketing piece.

During the 1960's advertising agencies departed from print advertising and focused on the easy money in image advertising. As a result the old fashioned way of print advertising has slipped into obscurity. To-day with the Internet, a grasp of the lost art of print advertising is vital.

For your web site you need web marketing pieces (copy) that will get to work and sell your goods. If you buy a typical book on advertising …or if you take advice from an ad agency you will be doomed to fail. They will steer you into the same way most big companies do their marketing. What you need to do is learn all about print advertising and effective copywriting.

What You are Seeing is ...an Album of Business Cards

If I could turn the clock back twenty years and use my acquired expertise …how would I use it to boost my income? If I understood the concepts of print advertising twenty years ago, it would have made a huge difference. The object of this newsletter is to make life easier for those in the computer repair business.

One of the problems with being in any sort of business is you are usually on your own and advertising concepts are usually learned by copying others. If you go to any section in the Yellow Pages, you will notice that most of the advertisers all have the same message and saying the same thing. In fact, what you are seeing is a album of business cards.

If you understood how print advertising works this would give you a great advantage. Write a great print ad ….and you could make life tough for your opposition.