After you’ve read this article you will know how to tap into the mind of your market, design powerful marketing campaigns that resonate with them and boost your profit margins.

How they chose profit boosting titles

Many years ago, the way copywriters used to tap into the public’s mind, was by reading the paper cover stickers attached to news-stand copies of Reader’s Digest.

But these paper cover stickers contained no ordinary titles; slapped together at the whim of one Editor, oh no. These titles were representative of the collective wisdom of many Editors, including RD Editors.

How it worked was, every month, hundreds of magazine Editors would read thousands of manuscripts in order to select the best titles to publish in their publications. Then, the Editors of RD reviewed these titles and selected the cream of the crop.

They went further; the business department of RD would then pick from the thirty or more articles for the issue; clinically pruning the list until they had the best three or four titles, they felt, would sell the most copies that month and they always got it right.

Then they decided to take this strategy a little further. RD decided to let their readers chose which topics they would like to read over the ensuing months.

Through a simple advertisement placed in a daily paper, the public were given all the titles for next month’s edition. Then the readers where asked to chose which titles they found most interesting or which topics, based on the title, they would most like to read in the next publication.

The results were very revealing; some titles pulled 5% and yet others 25% or more, in level of interest. Giving RD enough research fodder to work with for months to come.

What made this idea a run away success?

Because the readers were not interviewed or asked to fill in a survey, they were free to chose from a list of simple headers like: ‘It Pays to Increase Your Word Power’ to ‘How to Stop Worrying’. They would simply tick which title sounded most interesting to them.

Through the many responses they freely received, RD were able to give the public what THEY wanted. They then channelled this valuable information through all their marketing campaigns and every month, continued to publish their new titles, asking the public to choose which titles took their fancy.

How can you implement these ideas into your own business?

Nowadays, there are many millions of niche magazines, trade journals, forums, chat rooms, blogs, e-zines and the rest, that express the thoughts of their niche markets or better yet, give the public a platform in which to express their opinions; Amazon the internet store, being a fantastic example – but are we listening?

Through the many powerful mediums at our disposal, social media, blogging, browsing the magazine racks, or by subscribing to the magazines or e-zines our public reads everyday, we can learn a lot about them.

We can also use our initiative; set up alerts that tell us every time someone talks about us or our product and be there to answer a query or problem. Build a blog and invite comments. Ask our customers how they see us. Ask them what kind of product or service they think we should produce or how we can fine tune them to fit their needs better.

Recently, I was watching Lionel Richie on a chat show. If you’ve never heard of him, he is the singer/songwriter from the 70s phenomenon, The Commadors. They had hit after hit. He’s been in the music business for over 30 years. But the problem with someone who has been doing something for so long, there is a tendency to get stale.

But Lionel was smart, he asked the young singer/songwriters of today, who admired him greatly, to write music they felt he should be singing now. The result was a fresh new sound with the essence of Lionel at its core.

But what about you?

It takes a lot of bravery to ask:

“How do we design products the public will love?”

“How do we stay relevant?”

But the only way a company will survive past the twenty first century is if its moved along by brave and supple minds.

Easier said that done, I know, but it’s worth doing. Because with marketing budgets slashed, we have no option but to use our imaginations instead of our budgets to first, find out what is on the minds of our public, offer products and services they feel they cannot do without, and stay fresh and relevant.

How are you staying fresh and relevant?

The three points I’m revealing today, are based on physics and psychology. After reading this article you’ll understand the fundamental truth of why it’s vitally important to include offers in all your marketing campaigns; that will guarantee fantastic responses in every marketing campaign you produce in the future.

Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion

Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion states that bodies of matter do not change their motion in any way except as a result of forces applied to them. A body at rest remains at rest unless an external force acts upon it.

This is true of your prospects. They go about their business oblivious to your existence and may have read a direct marketing letter they received from you but still they’re not moving in your direction.

To get them to move in your direction you must provide some sort of stimulus or force that will propel them to take the action you want them to take, which is to buy your product or service.

The first law of thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Further, the more heat you put into a system, the more internal energy the system has.

Relating this fact to lead generation, you could consider your offer to be a heat source. Your offer is how you transfer energy (heat) from your creative team to your prospect.

So the greater the heat source, the larger the energy transfer and therefore, the more prospects move towards you.

What’s in it for me?

It’s a fact, all your prospects read or hear your communications and immediately think:

“What’s in it for me?”

They feel slightly irritated that you interrupted their day and their first thought is:

“You’re interrupting me, are you bringing me anything of value or are you just wasting my time?”

Harsh truths, but it’s important to understand where your prospect is coming from if you ever hope to draw them closer to you and not further away from you.

Proving further why it’s so important to make a clear strong offer. You must sell the reason WHY they should respond to your communication rather than push your product or company on them.

Far too many companies believe they can just talk about their products and services and think that this information alone, is enough of a ‘force’ or ‘heat’ to propel the prospect into picking up the phone and ordering that particular product or service. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Your prospect doesn’t care a fig about your products or services (in the beginning), only what’s in it for them. If your product or service will save them further pain, money, time or make them look good in front of their wives, husbands or bosses.

Will your product or service make them feel part of an elite group or privy to information that only prospects who buy this product or service can get.

These are some of the things that your prospects want to hear about in your communications. He’s not interested in you. So give him what he wants and you’ll get what you want — a sale.

So whatever you do, promote your OFFER as the solution to their pains. Then sell your company and product second. In this way you’re more likely to get a response out of your prospects which you’ll like.

Have a comment? I’d love to hear it.