Tag: self promotion

5 Ways to Stop a Consumer in Their Tracks (and look at your product instead of someone else’s)

In order of importance here are the five major components to great advertising copy: 

  • Command Attention
  • Showcase Benefits of Products/Services
  • Prove the Benefits
  • Persuade People to Embrace the Benefits
  • Call to Action

Advertising is sales; so you’ll need to think about the unique benefits your products/services offer and showcase them in a persuasive way. In short, you need to emphasize results, not features.

Let’s take a minute to talk about each of these components:

  1. Command Attention: This is usually accomplished with the headline. You need an attention-getter that makes people want to know more about your products/services. The best headlines give a vivid portrayal of the benefits or show how a problem can be solved with your products/services. The headline is the advertisement for the advertisement.
  2. Showcase Benefits: You have to showcase the benefits of your products and services and, more importantly, show how they solve or surmount an obstacle.. Customers need to know what’s in it for them. Include useful, factual, and clear information to show precisely what the benefits are and how they are going to work.
  3. Offer Proof: This is where you prove what the advertisement is offering. You need to establish you have a method to deliver. Consider information that establishes credibility and past performance.
  4. Persuade: Add compelling reasons for your potential customers to purchase your products/services. Use a hard-sell approach and create scarcity. This motivates your potential customers to act now, not delay and risk losing an opportunity. Which leads into the last component.
  5. Call to Action: You need to compel your potential customers to do something. They need to check out your site, sign up for your newsletter, purchase your products, contact you about services—something.  Offer a freebie like a booklet, sample, product, bonus, demo, consult, limited-time price, etc.

Download my free workbook, Profit Jolt for actionable strategies you can implement now.

Lessons I learned from the Kardashians

  1. You may be asking yourself, “Why is she mentioning the Kardashians on her business website?” I promise, it fits in beautifully with the subject of shameless self-promotion. Love it or hate it — entrepreneuriship is all about self-promotion.

Consider some of the celebrities we all know like the Kardashians: Oprah, Drew Barrymore, Gwyneth Paltrow, and LeBron James, to name a few. They’re all natural promoters of what they have to offer the world.

Here are lessons I learned from the Kardashians:

  • Position. Position yourself around people who can make a difference in your life. Ask yourself, “Who can I meet today who will make a difference in my success?” Maybe go a step further and remind yourself by writing it in big, bold letters on your bathroom mirror.

Also, consider:
– Who can help me meet my goals?
– Is it a prospective customer/client? A colleague with contacts? An association with key members who may become prospects?

Don’t settle into interacting with the people who are the easiest to access. You need to reach outside your comfort zone and there you’ll find a wealth of new connections that can facilitate great success.

  • Style. No, this doesn’t mean you need to wear CHANEL to bring in more business (though let’s be honest, look at this bag! W.A.N.T.). What this really means is differentiate yourself from competitors. What makes you memorable with customers? If you meet people and they don’t remember you once you leave the room, you have a problem. Consider subtle changes to your:
    – Business cards
    – Company messaging
    – And, tighten up your elevator pitch to make a bigger impact.

  • Repetition. This is the third trait of natural promoters. You can’t say it once and leave it at that. Successful self-promoters say it as many times as they need to until they get a response, then they say it again. You may have to make multiple impressions on those you are networking with in order to build brand awareness. Repetition directly impacts positioning. Once you find people to network with, reach out and find hundreds more who can help with your success.