Tomorrow night (Monday 17th May) I’m presenting a FREE one hour webinar about How To Double or Triple The Response You Get From Any Type Of Advertisement, Flyer, Website or Promotional Piece You Produce!  As you probably can guess, the subject is effective copywriting and Ad writing.  We’ll be convering some really important principles, as this (copywriting) is arguably one of the MOST important skills you can master in marketing your business.

I’m going to use these two examples as a bit of a Case Study, so it would be worth a read of these before you jump on the Webinar (details below):   Once you’ve read them, if drop me a comment and list the differences you can notice in the two examples!

EXAMPLE OF NOT-THAT-GOOD COPYWRITING

Welcome to our Used Mercedes Benz Dealership.

We offer outstanding customer service and will assist you in any way we can to make your car buying experience a memorable one.

Our showroom contains great value used model Mercedes Benz vehicles but if we don’t have the vehicle you want in stock, we will endeavour to find it for you.

Mercedes Benz is one of the most respected and prestigious brands in the world. Their selection of vehicles includes the A-class with a choice of:

- 3 or 5 doors;
- B-class compact sports tourer;
- C-class Saloon, Estate and Sport CoupA;
- E-class Saloon and Estate; S-class Saloon;
- SLK-class Roadster; SL-class Roadster;
- CLA-class CoupA and Cabriolet;
- CLS-class CoupA; CL-class CoupA;
- M-class SUV; GL-class SUV;
- R-class Sports Tourer;
- Viano MPV;
- and finally the Options AMG.

With such a large variety of models available, there is a vehicle to suit almost any purpose, commercial or domestic. Many of the vehicles in the Mercedes Benz range have a large load capacity which would suit families and the Viano MPV is specifically designed with the tradesman in mind. Otherwise you can choose from the popular sportier style vehicles such as the Roadster and Sports Tourer.

Take some time to browse through this site by clicking on the navigation bar to explore the main sections. If you would like to arrange to test drive any one of our used cars, click on the link and fill out the online form advising us of your preferred time and we will endeavour to accommodate you. We hope that you enjoy your visit and look forward to doing business with you.

EXAMPLE OF GOOD COPYWRITING

A first class dealer to match a first class vehicle

We believe in making your buying experience every bit as pleasurable as your driving experience, and aim to make you feel like a VIP with our attentive, award winning service.

Our well appointed offices certainly take the chore out of shopping for a new car, but perhaps most importantly our ongoing commitment to you after you have purchased your vehicle is second to none. In other words, we never stop treating you like a VIP customer. It’s the kind of service you would expect when buying a first class vehicle like Mercedes Benz.

The Mercedes Benz Journey
Mercedes Benz understands that it’s important to focus on the journey, not the destination. That’s what they’ve been doing so well for over a century now: creating vehicles that simply take you someplace else. Once you experience the sheer pleasure of driving any one of our extensive range of Mercedes Benz vehicles, destinations will be a thing of the past.

Long distance luxury and comfort
Few people can appreciate long distance travel like those living in rural Australia. It can be hard on the body as well as the mind, but it doesn’t have to be.

Imagine taking your lounge room for a spin. That’s what driving a Mercedes Benz is like: luxuriously comfortable seats, roomy interior, surround sound, climate control and such a smooth ride you’d be hard pressed to believe you were going anywhere.

A car that’s as safe as houses
For most people, especially families, safety is the number one priority when choosing a car. Mercedes Benz values safety just as much as you do, which is why they are industry leaders in safety technology.

Performance …

For safety
Nearly all of us have been in a tight situation on the road where a bit of extra power can do wonders. Mercedes Benz high performance engines allow you to confidently handle such situations should they arise without the heart palpitations that can sometimes go with them.

For the open road
Nothing beats the open road for the optimum driving experience. This is where Mercedes Benz comes into its own giving you secure, reliable and smooth performance.

Beauty that’s not just skin deep
Ever heard the expression ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’? Whether it’s the stylish, plush interior, the classy exterior or the sheer grunt underneath the bonnet, with a Mercedes Benz vehicle, there is beauty that will catch the eye of any beholder.

Matching people with cars
The Mercedes Benz range has something for everyone:
- Personality
- Function
- Affordability

Whatever your lifestyle, make Mercedes Benz your reward.

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(Acknowledgements to JustWeb.com.au for this example)

Fascinating isn’t it!  This clearly shows how changing the focus of your website copy can greatly increase a reader’s openness to your product and or service, just with different use of words!  The same applies to the script you use for an audio or video message as well.However, tha ability to do this effectively, is a learned skill!  Really top level copywriters can charge tens of thousands of dollars to create the sort of sales copy that can sell millions of dollars worth of products or services. 

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time and thousands of dollars training myself in this art of Emotive, Direct-Response copywriting, and in the Webinar below, I’m passing on some of what I’ve learned for free - no pitches, no offers!

Here is the info about the free webinar I’m presenting on Monday evening 17th May 2010, 7.30pm AEST Australia.

In this one hour FREE webinar Peter Cutforth, Direct-Response, Online and New Media Marketing expert, will reveal the little-known secrets to getting a significantly better response from any Newspaper Advertisement, Yellow Pages entry, Email, Google Adwords Ad, Flyer, Webpage, promo video or direct mail letter than you ever have before!

Peter says: “Most business are making fundamental mistakes that are costing them heaps in lost potential business whenever they spend precious money on any of the above types of advertising!”

Why?

Because they have not been taught the simple principles of “Emotional Direct-Response Copywriting”! Now this sounds like a mouthful, but it’s really quite easy to understand and implement once you have discovered the seven key principles and practices that Peter will reveal during this webinar.

These are scientifically proven and tested principles that endure the rapidly changing times, because they simply cater to the in-born, consistent responses and psychology of human nature!

No matter what changes we experience in current media and advertising delivery (many!), these simple but profound approaches will ALWAYS produce better results than what the vast majority of business owners trot out day-to-day… and Peter will show you how, in this exciting punchy webinar!

A webinar is a bit like a live seminar presentation, except you can enjoy it from the comfort and convenience of your home. You don’t need any special equipment, just a computer with speakers or a headset, and a decent Internet connection! Connecting in is simple, but we would ask that you join us a few minutes early so you have time to familiarise yourself with the webinar environment!

The webinar will start at 7.30pm AEST on Monday 17th May, and will go for at least an hour, with some extra time for questions during at after the presentation.

Please click here to register this Webinar:
http://bit.ly/9PfyKC

PS. There is no pitch for expensive products or services at the end. I’m doing this for some of the life coaches my wife has trained, and am opening to my FB friends and my list as well.

http://bit.ly/9PfyKC

This week my other company Urban E-Learning (co-owned with my business partner Steven Asnicar) was engaged by the AMAQ to fast track the development of a website designed to provide information to the public about local hospital "indicators".  We took the brief and registered the domain name on Monday afternoon, and by Wednesday at midnight, the site was completed!  It was launched today with lots of media engagements, resulting in it being a lead story on Channels 7, 9 and 10 this evening.

Here’s the story as it was run on Channel 10.

The site came up really well, our client, the CEO of AMAQ was wrapped in it.

You can check it out here:

http://www.yourhospitalshealth.com.au

The famous Mental Toolbox is coming to Brisbane again!

25 year veterans of the Australian personal development industry Paul and Mary Blackburn will be bringing their unique Mental Toolbox to Brisbane near the end of February!

At this event 2 years ago Carolyn, my wife of 25 years and I did one of the most powerful "together" exercises we’ve ever done (can’t tell you what it was…, but you’ll definitely get to do it when you go!). This is not a "Lecture" style workshop, it’s what I believe is an almost perfect blend of great cutting edge teaching, plus opportunities to really explore yourself and discover the breakthroughs that are right for YOU, right here right now!

You’ll Discover:

# how your mind works,
# why it does the things that frustrate you,
# how to change it into your most reliable and productive asset,
# where, when, why & how to ‘reprogram’ it and
# what to do to keep it running at peak efficiency for the rest of your life.

Here’s some more info about this event:

This is the day on which you will transform into the person of your dream. Are you ready to begin living the life you’ve imagined?

Imagine:

* Making more money in less time by knowing how to work smarter instead of harder.
* Being cool calm and relaxed - even when the going gets really tough.
* Remaining superbly fit, exuberantly healthy and full of vibrance, energy & enthusiasm.
* Experiencing genuine, lasting, fulfilling, happiness - both in each moment of the day and on-going-ly.
* Building & maintaining relationships with your friends and family that just plain WORK!

Our wind up session outlines what you need to do and when to do it so that the skills from The Mental Toolbox become personal habits enabling you to look back in twenty years and conclude that the time and money spend on this weekend was the best investment you ever made. It’s a simple, what to do and when to do it session that puts the weekend into a package you will use every day - because it delivers!

My wife Carolyn is a Master Coach with this company, that’s how much we believe in what they do! Because of her association with Beyond Success we can offer special discount tickets to this fabulous event, for only $197 (Normally $1997).

To register visit here:
http://www.thementaltoolbox.com/

…click on Register, then enter the Promo Code: "CARCUT"

Looking back over the many successes my clients have had this year, one stands out in my mind as particularly valiant and newsworthy!

Lisa Vance a leading Nutritionist in Brisbane runs a business called I’ve Got Life.  Lisa only came out to Australia from South Africa around 18 months ago, and has developed an enviable following of clients and supporters through effective networking and engaging several online strategies.  Not having a huge budget for an online presence, we focussed on creating a simple but functional site and also created some videos which are still ranked # 4 and 5 in Google for the term "nutritionist in brisbane".

Lisa also started slowly building her email list and now its not unusual for her to get in the range of 150 visitors to her site from a simple email newsletter broadcast.  One of Lisa’s secrets to success has been providing useful, interesting and practical content - check out her blog to see some of her recent posts - the latest one outlines how to choose the healthiest beer for Christmas!!

Finally, amongst many admirable achievements, just last week Lisa launched her first physical product:  The Tasty Times 2010 "Healthy Eating Calendar for All Seasons".  Always one for quality, Lisa has excelled herself with this innovative collection of sumptuous recipes and healthy eating tips, assembled with beautiful photos (all taken by Lisa herself, not stock pics!) and gorgeous graphic artwork on high-gloss CD size cards!

Congratulations to Lisa, and by the way, if you think Lisa’s calendar might make a great Christmas present for either yourself, a relative or friend, you can purchase one (or more) for the discount price on her website of only $14.95 each plus P&P, but you’ll need to get your order into Lisa by early next week!

She’s also offering some crazy Christmas Special package prices on wellness consultations (for non-active clients only).  I am a clinet of Lisa’s myself and she has helped me considerably this year with some health and wellness goals that I set for myself and I can HIGHLY recommend her approach which is both practical and true-to-her-own-values of choosing high levels of vitality and health through the foods we eat and thoughts we think!

Check out her crazy offer right here!

Here’s an interesting example of a double listing in Google.  You can only get two listings in Google for the same domain, and sometimes you get them one after the other, whcih is always nice because you pick up the extra "domination" of the SERPS for that term.

My client Drake Homes is one of Brisbane’s longest established relocatable homes providers, and runs a very busy operation on the southside of Brisbane.  A lot of his traffic comes from Google so we looked at ways to improve his presence and rankings.  The example I want to mention today is for the serach term relocatable homes brisbane which his site ranked quite well for already but now that we added in an SEO page specifically optimised for that term, he now has a #2 AND a #3 listing.  With further linking work, this can easily go even higher.

You can check out his listings here, although remember, things change from day to day on Google!

I’m looking for an innovative marketing company in Brisbane with direct response and B2B marketing  experience (not interest in big firm "branding" oriented approaches) to assist me with helping an SME develop a strategy and possible pilot marketing campaign roll-out for an innovative new B2B product targeted at the SME sector.

Must be innovative, strongly customer service focussed, and not have ridiculous expectations price wise, to provide some initial strategies for this project.  There will be an online marketing component to the strategy which I may be handling, but we need some strategies around FAST ways to take the product to a test market, to assess market/product/pricing match.

Please call Peter on 0416 086 502 for more info and initial discussion.

Thanks

Peter

We made this video (amongst others) for Lisa from www.ivegotlife.com.au
It was recorded in Hi-Def so check it out in HD by clicking on the HD button.

Peter Cutforth

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you would have heard of the meteoric rise to fame of new social media websites like Facebook and Twitter:

Here are 7 interesting stats:

1.  Facebook is growing at the rate of the size of a city per day!

2.  Twitter’s monthly growth rate (as a percentage) is nearly 4 times that of Facebook

3.  Twitter currently has about 14 million users, and it’s estimated to grow to 50 million by the end of this year!

4.  See the graph below from www.compete.com which show how Facebook and Twitter are growing much faster even than YouTube and how Facebook alone has rocketed past YouTube in terms of popularity!  Also see how Google is pretty much flat-lining!  Hmmm… interesting!

5.  Twitter is growing at over 1200% annually - 76% per month!  That’s insane!

6.  It took Google 10 years to get to 50 million users, Facebook did it in 24 months, what will Twitter do?!

7.  Microsoft has their own  “Twitter outreach team”.  Other major companies (who are not selling IT or web products) are also using Twitter to reach and engage customers.  For instance Starbucks, Ford, Pepsi, Sprint, Rotary Clubs, Oracle, and Wedgewood.

So What - You Might Ask?

Here’s 5 Reasons Your Business Should Be On These Sites!

Reason #1: First of all, this IS the way of the future!  Several of these “Web 2.0 properties” put together already get MUCH MORE traffic than Google does! LOT’s of people now look to Web 2.0 sites as sources of trusted referrals to a wide range of products and services they may be looking to purchase.   But this stuff does take a little bit of “getting familiar with”! So every few months you wait, means you are giving opportunity to your competitors to get a head start on you, and this type of marketing is such that you have to build up a “presence” and a brand steadily over time.  Now is the time to start!

Reason #2: The ability to use Twitter particularly, to do market research, find out what people are saying in your industry (even about you and your company!) and build a list of targeted followers is nothing short of astounding - but most people (including me until only a little while ago!) have no clue about these features of Twitter!

Reason #3: You can use Twitter as an awesome  customer service tool - more below;

Reason #4: Unless YOU are  building and managing your brand reputation (and we ALL have a brand, my brand is “Peter Cutforth”!) someone else might be managing it for you… negatively! This is the SCARY truth I referred to in the Subject line.  Read on… don’t miss this!

We’re now living in the age of “UGC - User Generated Content”.  eBay probably started this many years back, with their Feedback system, which if you’ve ever been an eBay seller, you know is incredibly effective at keeping you accountable to provide good service!  Now this is extending out into whole industries, and with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, into the commercial marketplace generally.

For instance have you been on an accommodation search website recently? Noticed how many places have feedback from people who have stayed there?  How much effect do you think that feedback has on their bookings?  Yep, a massive effect. I saw one place recently that had had an overwhelming number of “Thumbs downs” and vitriolic comments!  There’s NO WAY I’d stay there in a pink fit!

Now, with Twitter, this dynamic has broadened out to be pretty much universal.  In the Twitter community, if someone doesn’t like what your business has provided for them, there’s a good chance you’re going to get that fact broadcast out to thousands, tens, or even hundreds of thousands of faithful followers!  Think on that for a minute!

For instance, check out this 20-something year old blogger with over HALF A MILLION followers:  http://twitter.com/ijustine

Thankfully, it also works the other way as well - with recommendations:

Notice how in this post she recommends a cafe/restaurant she’s been to recently:

That post goes out the over half a million followers - OK not all are going to read it, but trust me, many thousands would have!

But It Gets Better - or Worse!

One of the “cool” things about twitter is that it’s one of THE most viral Web 2.0 beasts to hit the internet yet! All because of two little letters:  “RT”.

What RT means is “ReTweet”.  So what happens is when a Twitterer likes someones else’s Twitter post (Tweet), they simply copy it and put RT, plus the ID of the original Twitterer in front of it, and send it out to all their followers as well!   And on and on it can go!

Here’s an example from my own Twitter account:

A week or so ago I tweeted out this message:
“What would you say if you weren’t afraid?” Think on this

About a day later, one of the thought leaders in Social Media Marketing I admire the most, Shama Hyder (@shama), “Retweeted” my post:

Shama RT @petercutforth: “What would you say if you weren’t afraid?” Think on this

Now Shama has over 10,000 followers, so do you think this helped me get a bit of exposure?  Absolutely.

So this is all very cool, but what if it works the other way around? People Tweet and Retweet about some problem they had with you or your brand, and if you don’t even have your head around twitter, first you’re not even going to know about it, and second you have no presence there to counter-reference their post.

Here’s an example of a company who looks like they’re really managing their social media profile exceptionally well - they also have over 500,000 followers on Twitter.  Check ‘em out:  http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/twitter/

Notice how they are using Twitter to receive and respond to customer service gripes and issues, all in the public domain!  You can only see their responses on their Twitter feed, but the fact that they are responding is probably building them HUGE kudos within the Twitter community, dirving even more users to their local stores, and building their brand as a company that cares:

Reason #5: There’s ways you can monitor Twitter for posts about you and your company, which really makes this whole “gig” something you literally can’t ignore.

If this report’s been useful for you, you’re going to love Part 2, which is coming soon.

Enter your first name and email address below and we’ll notifiy you as new reports, tips and strategies become available.

I’m about to launch a special Social Media marketing home study course which will give you the keys to launch your business into the Web 2.0 age!  It’s only going to be available to 15 people, so register below for Priority Notification!

Cheers

Peter

I’m putting up this blog post to let you know about some exciting ways to stay ahead of the pack, in your business, even during the financial dramas that are unfolding this year!

In fact, this whole situation is creating some AMAZING OPPORTUNITIES - if only you can see them and take action!

There’s one HUGE avenue that has NEVER  before been open to businesses in previous times of economic hardship.  I want to reveal to you what it is, and help you to understand it, seeing as it can almost certainly improve your business for you!

Don’t worry, this is not some kind of scam, and I am most certainly being genuine in what I say above.

It’s so important I’m going to be doing a special launch directly related to it on Valentine’s Day in about a week’s time!  And I’ll have a huge package of FREE gifts ready for you which, trust me, will be extremely useful to business people like yourself.

Anyway, click here to find out what I’m going on about!  There’s nothing to buy

Regards,

Peter Cutforth
P.S.  Why Valentine’s Day, you might ask?  Well to be honest, we will be releasing a mega-package of extremely useful free training material created specifically for small and medium sized business owners, and I thought it would be appropriate to give that gift away to businesses, on Valentine’s Day.

Sort of like a Valentine’s Day gift for Business owners!

It will include 10 free videos, (nearly 2 full hours of specific strategy training here), a 30 page White Paper entitled “Small Business Online Marketing Blueprint” (in fact you can get this right away now), plus some video Case Studies, PLUS a full one hour teleconference.  Pretty good Valentine’s Day gift, wouldn’t you agree!  Don’t miss it - register for priority notification here and if you’re fast, you could win a package of our services worth over $500 for absolute FREE!