Posts by Bob Bly
How to Dramatically Increase Your E-Mail Marketing Revenues by Becoming Part of Your Prospect’s “E-Mail Inner Circle”
When you get 100 or 200 e-mail messages a day, just getting through them becomes a drain on your time and productivity. To protect themselves, many people simply delete e-mails from anyone they don’t know. They assume it is spam — or don’t want to risk a virus infection. So they click DELETE and your…
Read MoreThe Awful Truth About Unsolicited Advice, Part II: How To Score Points With A Client (Or Potential Client) By Criticizing What He’s Doing
In her book “The 7th Sense”, Doris Wild Helmering makes a distinction between constructive criticism and “inappropriate” (petty, denigrating, and useless) criticism. According to Helmering, constructive criticism has three components: 1. There is a contract between the people involved. The person who is making the critical comment is involved with the project or product,…
Read MoreThe Awful Truth About Unsolicited Advice, Part I: A Big Mistake You Don’t Want To Make
The other day I got the following unsolicited e-mail from a Web designer: “I just visited your site to check your copywriting service. You have a very good portfolio, but one thing that your website lacks is powerful design that would reflect such quality service. It just happens that I offer redesign service, so I…
Read MoreAre All Marketers Losers and Sleazebags?
“If it’s not done ethically, advertising won’t be trusted. If consumers don’t trust it, advertising is pointless.” – Jef I. Richards One of my regular copywriting assignments is to write e-mail promotions for the American Writers and Artists Institute, a sister company of ETR. These e-mail messages often go out with my name in the…
Read MoreLessons from a Direct-Marketing Legend, Part 1
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” – Albert Einstein Gene Schwartz was a direct-marketing legend. One ad that he wrote sold 1.98 million copies of a single $25 book — resulting in sales of nearly $50 million. Gene also wrote the ad that launched Boardroom, one of the most successful…
Read MoreHelp More Search Engine Users Find Your Website
“Searching is half the fun: Life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.” – Jimmy Buffett Many ETR readers have asked me for advice on search-engine optimization — increasing your ranking in search engines so that when your prospect searches the Internet for information, he…
Read MoreA Marketing Gambit That Almost Never Fails
“The basic rule of free enterprise: You must give in order to get.” – Scott Alexander In the late 1970s, when I worked at my first marketing job with Westinghouse, we had a secret marketing weapon we referred to as the “junk cabinet.” It was filled with all sorts of advertising specialties — favorites were…
Read MoreHow to Impress the Heck Out of Potential Clients
In Message #1109, I told the story of a friend of mine who, in my opinion, blew her chance to promote her self-published book (which was not available in most bookstores) on Oprah’s show. She didn’t sell any books as a result of her appearance, because she never checked to see whether Oprah would give…
Read MorePromote Your Business in Subtle Ways When You Make A Presentation
Whenever you give a talk at an association meeting or a meeting of any other business group, your presentation should be 100% useful information — with not one word of self-promotion. “But then how do I get business if I don’t talk about my product or service?” you may be thinking. Before the talk,…
Read MoreWhat My Dad Taught Me About Advertising
Here’s one advertising technique that may work for you. Ironically, I learned it from my dad. I say “ironically” because my father had no interest in advertising or marketing. His expertise was insurance. He was an insurance agent, and he knew the technical aspects of insurance inside and out. He ran a one-man insurance agency…
Read MoreWhy Direct Response PR Should Be Part of Your Marketing Plan
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.” – Daniel J. Boorstin Janice, a freelance writer, had self-published a book on eating out and was trying to promote it . . . with little success. Then, out of the blue, she hit the jackpot: Oprah’s people called and asked her…
Read MoreIs Exhibiting at Trade Shows a Waste of Your Time? Not If You Do It Right
Early in my career, I worked as an advertising manager for Koch Engineering, a company that made mixers and other equipment for the chemical industry. I liked a lot of things about the job, but one thing I didn’t like was managing our trade-show exhibits. (I had also handled trade shows for Westinghouse in an…
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