“Suc­cess is sim­ply a mat­ter of luck. Ask any fail­ure.“
– Earl Wilson

Goals prop­erly aligned will give you an impelling momen­tum that, like a snow­ball rolling down a snow cov­ered hill, increases in size and speed along the way. The more you work on your pri­or­i­ties, the more moti­vated you will become and the more timely the results you will pro­duce. They will increase and keep on increasing.

Pam Lon­tos once wrote, “Momen­tum cre­ates more momen­tum as moti­va­tion actu­ally feeds on itself.” Each lit­tle suc­cess achieved will increase your self-​​esteem, your effec­tive­ness, and of course, your efficiency.

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Through­out my research, I’m always sur­prised when I stum­ble onto web­sites that are pro­fes­sion­ally designed and seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices, but lack or fail in cer­tain impor­tant elements.

Ele­ments that, with just a few short changes, can help mul­ti­ply the results almost instan­ta­neously.

Gen­er­ally, I have found that there are seven com­mon mis­takes. I call them the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Is your web­site com­mit­ting any one of these?

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A recently under­stood seg­ment of mar­ket­ing is the immense power behind the prod­uct cat­e­gory. Often, many busi­nesses build their entire mar­ket­ing strat­egy around a par­tic­u­lar brand and its bet­ter qual­i­ties within a cur­rently known prod­uct cat­e­gory, only to have it all go down the drain in the end.

Remem­ber the “New Coke”? In the 80’s, Pepsi con­ducted taste tests called “The Pepsi Chal­lenge.” Coke, on the side­lines, also heard from their own research that a newer, bet­ter tast­ing brand would beat Pepsi.

Only 77 days later, accord­ing to Coke’s for­mer mar­ket­ing vice-​​president Ser­gio Zyman in his book “The End of Mar­ket­ing As We Know It,” not only were they forced to rein­tro­duce the older ver­sion as “Clas­sic Coke” but they also had to even­tu­ally wipe the New Coke out. Bet­ter is not always bet­ter.

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I know that the yel­low pages’ peo­ple will hate me for this, but your yel­low pages’ ad, although an essen­tial part of your entire mar­ket­ing machine, doesn’t have to be of a large size, in color, promi­nently dis­played, or tied-​​in with other gim­micks that the yel­low pages sales­peo­ple have to offer. While nec­es­sary, the yel­low pages should only be used as sup­port systems.

The con­cept of this entire book is to teach you that cre­at­ing top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness (not “insti­tu­tional” adver­tis­ing) should be your main mar­ket­ing goal. When peo­ple have seen your ad, heard about you, or have a need for your ser­vices at any par­tic­u­lar time, your con­tact infor­ma­tion may or may not be avail­able to them at that par­tic­u­lar moment. There­fore, you want the yel­low pages to back you up and not use them as a full-​​blown mar­ket­ing medium.

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We’ve made it! You’ve now reached the last com­mand­ment. And what bet­ter way is there to end this book that’s chock-​​full o’ mar­ket­ing secrets other than by telling you about some­thing I truly hate. I hate net­work­ing. Really, I do!

I hate it because, in my expe­ri­ence, it hasn’t brought me any­thing sub­stan­tial in return. You’re prob­a­bly say­ing right now, “What? Is he crazy? Has he lost his mind?”

But wait a minute, hear me out. Net­work­ing isn’t a bad con­cept. Far from it. If the pre­vi­ous com­mand­ments have been prop­erly fol­lowed, net­work­ing can be a fan­tas­tic mar­ket­ing tool to lever­age them. If you can be at the top of your prospects’ minds, you can also be at the top of your network’s mind, right?

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Part of my job as a copy­writer includes, from time to time, cre­at­ing names for busi­nesses, prod­ucts, and ser­vices. Choos­ing a name may be the sin­gle, most impor­tant busi­ness deci­sion you will ever make.

We are con­stantly bom­barded with mar­ket­ing mes­sages. Lim­ited by people’s very short atten­tion span, your mar­ket­ing mes­sage has to be effec­tive to the degree that it must com­mu­ni­cate its essence and cre­ate top-​​of-​​mind aware­ness within an extremely short amount of time.

Names are often the best tools — and some­times the only ones — for accom­plish­ing this efficiently.

In the game of posi­tion­ing, your name has to stick firmly in the mind of the mar­ket­place and must do so instantly. While unique­ness is an impor­tant fac­tor, there are many other ele­ments that can help the anchor­ing process — ele­ments that help a name become mem­o­rable as well as cho­sen when a cus­tomer expe­ri­ences a spe­cific need or desire.

So, here are some sim­ple rules to fol­low when choos­ing a name for your com­pany or product.

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One prob­lem in copy­writ­ing I often see is the fact that the audi­ence is not tar­geted for the offer. An untar­geted, unqual­i­fied prospect won’t buy, no mat­ter how good the copy is.

Or at least, they will ask for a refund once they smell the cof­fee. But that’s not the topic I want to discuss…

It’s the sec­ond biggest copy­writ­ing prob­lem. Which is the fact that the copy doesn’t speak to the cus­tomer at the stage of aware­ness at which they hap­pen to be.

This is absolutely essen­tial to ensure that the copy is long enough, and strong enough, to appeal to, qual­ify, edu­cate, and sell the prospect. It’s about con­nect­ing with them.

What are these “stages of aware­ness?” There are four.

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