Twister Marketing
By Marlon Sanders
Step Six: Suction Power
Now we’re going
to get into the good info because we’re going to talk about the processes that
actually make you money and put cash in your pocket. We had to do the first five
steps so we could do these.
Step Six is to
generate what we call leads, which are potential new customers. They are also
commonly referred to as prospects and the process is often called prospect generation.
I’m going to
give you the low cost methods first. Reason is, why spend money unless you need
to. If you can use a free method or very low cost one to generate leads, why
in the world would you want to waste money on an expensive one?
So step six is
all about generating new prospecting customers and stuffing them into the opening
of your funnel. This is where Twister marketing gets its name. See you’re going
to attract or suck as many new prospects into your funnel as possible then you’re
going to extract progressively and increasingly larger amounts of money.
Of course, you’re
going to do this by offering ten times more value in return. So it’s all entirely
ethical and moral. But we’re in business to make a profit and to serve our customers.
You don’t serve your customers well if you only meet one or two of their needs
and drop them.
You serve your
customer when you’re able to see them through and help them all the way to the
end result they’re seeking. That’s the ideal thing. You may not always be able
to do it. But it’s ideal.
The first method
we’re going to talk about is getting free publicity. Now free publicity means
you don’t pay for it as you do advertising. Of course, it does cost you money
to get free publicity in that you have to fax things or mail things. So there
are costs involved. In that sense it isn’t free. But compared to virtually every
other method, it’s an extremely leveraged way of spending your time and money.
Publicity can
be an excellent lead generator and it’s a good low cost one to experiment with.
Furthermore, if all you have is one or two low-priced products, it’s one of the
only ways you can be in business and make a profit. Usually, a viable business
requires expensive or numerous follow up products.
But if you’re
able to generate free publicity for your product, because it’s so cheap to get,
you can actually make a lot of money off just one or two simple products.
I hope you caught
that. If you have several low priced products or only one product, then free
publicity is possibly the only way you’ll make money. It’ s certainly the first
place I’d recommend you start your marketing efforts.
One: Free Publicity
Here are the
common problems with most publicity methods
Image building
with no immediate response
Takes too long
to get results
Time consuming
Too complicated
Expensive
Requires high
level skills
Get unpredictable
response
Book on publicity
at your bookstore are aimed at big corporations, not entrepreneurs. And the ones
aimed at entrepreneurs still aren’t any good.
b. Benefits
of the Twister Marketing Publicity Methods
Generate immediate
leads and sales
Get results
fast...imagine, it’s 11 pm. You turn on your fax.
Takes 30 minutes
to several hours a week
Costs as little
as $25 to $50 a week. The most you’ll spend is $300
Low skill level
and quick learning curve.
c. The Lew Williams
Method
A press release
is a one-page blurb about your product or service that you mail, fax or email
to contacts at newspapers, magazines, and newsletters.
With practice,
you should be able to write one in 30 minutes to an hour. Maybe longer at first.
Four formats
in Twister Marketing method
Here's an
example
Lew is a good
friend of mine. As I mentioned earlier, he worked with Joe Cossman then went
on own with great success.
I market a whole
publicity course by Lew. In his method, he gets publications to print his press
release as is. He doesn't actively solicit an interview with the media sources.
This is good in that the release either gets printed or it doesn’t and you don’t
have to spend any time doing interviews.
Paul Hartunian’s
method which we’ll discuss in a second takes a different angle. He uses the end
of the publicity release to ask for an interview. This way he gets longer articles
written. The downside is that you have to take time to do interviews.
Lew’s approach
is strictly product oriented, and it’s very factual. Hardcore journalism types
often don’t like splashy or gimmicky approaches but they respond to this nothing
but the facts method.
Publicity is
a whole course in and of itself. What I want to do here is turn your onto the
right resources and save you wasting your time. Most of the information on publicity
at your bookstore is pretty useless to the entrepreneur. It has you doing all
kinds of puffery stuff that doesn’t get you any immediate business. It’s image
building. That’s OK once you reach a certain size. But right now you don’t need
to be sponsoring tennis matches, or golf tournaments. Those activities have a
valid place in business but they aren’t about lead generation.
The tip sheet
method by Elaine Floyd.
My friend Elaine
Floyd has written a number of books on newsletters. Her niche is the business
newsletter market. She uses a method called the tip sheet. Tip sheets are neat
because they’re subtle. They provide information a magazine or newsletter will
want to print and they slide in a reference to your product or service. She has
obtained tens of thousands of dollars of sales with her publicity methods.
What’s interesting
about Elaine’s method is she works in the name of her product and her company
name or phone number. She tried giving away free reports from her publicity but
for her business it was too much work and not enough return. Her books don’t
have enough profit margin to justify the effort. If you have a big follow up
repeat business (FURB) as we’re going to talk about later, then using publicity
to generate leads can be practical.
Here are sample
topics for tips sheets:
Dentist: 5 secrets
of smiling like a movie star
Chiropractor:
6 Cardinal sins to avoid at the airport – or your back will pay the consequences
Carpet Cleaner:
7 ways to prevent carpet stain nightmares
Web Sites: 5
ways to add sparkle to your web site
Here’s a formula
you can use to write your tip sheet.
1. Put a
news angle in the headline
Read trade publications,
newsletters, magazines, and newspapers for angles you can hook your news to.
2. Begin
with a good statistic or trend. Something factual
3. Mention
the name of your product or business, the price and the main benefit.
Do this up-front
so it doesn’t get cut.
4. Give a
quote about why you developed the tips or why there’s a need for them.
This will usually
be a quote from you.
5. Give the
tips
6. Quote
a 3rd party...a customer or someone in the industry
7. Background
paragraph of who company is, credibility building.
8. Who to
call for more information.
The same general
format with only a few changes applies to Elaine’s formula for promoting a book
with a news release without using the tips approach.
1. Put a
news angle in the headline
Read trade publications,
newsletters, magazines, newspapers for angles you can hook your news to.
2. Begin
with a good statistic or trend. Something factual
3. Mention
the name of your product or business, the price and the main benefit.
Do this upfront
so it doesn’t get cut.
4. Give a
quote about why you developed the product or why there’s a need for it.
This will usually
be a quote from you.
5. Give the
features.
6. Quote
a 3rd party...a customer or someone in the industry
7. Background
paragraph of who company is, credibility building.
8. Who to
call for more information.
There’s an inexpensive
book I recommend that shows the basics of how to write a tip sheet. It’s called
6 steps to free publicity by Marcia Yudkin. In Chapter 7 Marcia gives brief but
helpful hints on how to put together a tip sheet.
The question
is, if you use tip sheets, how do you generate leads? You can do what Elaine
does and just mention your product directly and go for immediate sales. If you
sell a low-priced product like a book, this is the route to take, unless you follow
that up with larger sales
Alternatively,
you can give readers a reason to contact you. This will typically be a free report
on the same topic that goes in-depth a little more. Later we’ll talk about creating
free reports. The name of the report is extremely important in the response you
receive. You have several response options:
1. A toll phone
number
People have to
pay some money to get the report so it qualifies the leads. The calls can go
to voice mail or an answering service.
2. A toll free
number
Doesn’t qualify
leads. So it is most appropriate in highly targeted publications where you know
that only members of your target market will respond.
3. An address
I think this
cuts out busy people who may be more successful. OK for a lower strata.
4. SASE -- self
addressed, stamped envelope
Again, rinky
dink. But it depends on who you’re selling to. Can bes used as a good qualifier.
5. Web site
This is free
to you and a good response option if your target market consists of computer owners.
6. Small fee
Asking for a
little money is a heavy qualifier. If you’re having problems with junk leads,
you can try this.
7. A fax number
Ask for a faxed
business card. At least you know the respondents have a business card, are willing
to give you their phone numbers and they own a fax machine in most cases. This
is a good qualifier for a business audience.
8. Email address.
Qualifies people
for computer ownership.
The Paul
Hartunian method
Paul Hartunian
says he has probably gotten over 6 million dollars in publicity. He has been
on the Donahue Show, the Jenny Jones Show, To Tell the Truth, the Regis Philbin
Show, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC news, over 1,000 radio talk shows and interviewed by
hundreds of newspapers, magazines and newsletters around the world.
Forbes
magazine did an article on him that was two full pages...that’s the equivalent
of over $105,000 in advertising if he had paid for the space.
He points out
that one of the BIG plusses of using publicity is that if people see you in the
news it gives you credibility.
In his system,
you need 3 key publicity pieces:
1. The press
release
2. The bio
sheet
3. A question
and answer sheet for interviews.
He says that
to get publicity you have to be controversial, a nut, have the next pet rock or
solve a problem. It’s ok to be controversial, have a pet rock, solve problems
– but don’t be a nut.
In Hartunian’s
system, the only purpose of the press release is to get media to call you for
an interview. Because of his objective, the techniques and rules are different
than for the other methods.
He emphasizes
the headline and uses ones that make an outrageous, attention-getting claim that
he can back up. For example, “I can help anyone find the love of their life in
90 days or less.” He’ll often use a controversial headline that infuriates people.
To get ideas,
he suggests you listen to the news on the radio and ask how you can hook a headline
onto the news story. The headline is the key. In the course he spends considerable
time taking you through the process of writing a hot headline step-by-step.
The other thing
Paul does exceptionally well is talk about how to use electronic distribution
of your press releases. Lew and Elaine usually mail their press releases. But
Paul uses electronic methods extensively. I believe he looks for a 50/50 mix
of electronic to paper distribution.
There’s a service
on the Internet called Faxaway. They will fax your press release for you inexpensively
if you provide them with the fax numbers. You can also fax press releases through
your computer while you sleep at night. And all it costs you is 10 or 11 cents
per fax, whatever you spend for 1 minute of long distance time.
So to send out
400 press releases at a dime a minute will cost you 40 bucks. Imagine the impact
on your business if you send out 400 press releases a week! The cost is certainly
right. Now publicity sources do get tons of faxes. And yes a lot are thrown
away. But it’s like direct mail. You’re playing a numbers game. Check your
resource sheet for a phone number.
400 press releases
may sound like a lot to you. But there are thousands and thousands of media contacts.
You probably have 400 publications, at least, in your state alone. Some cities
probably have 100. So you don’t have to promote yourself nationally. You can
just go to your state publications. Or several states. Or even just the city
you live in.
You’ll want to
get on the Internet and type in PR Newswire in a search engine and go to their
web site. If you aren’t on the web, then get their phone number in the resource
guide. They will fax out your press release as part of their wire service
that goes to publications. It gives you added credibility. And I believe it
also goes online on the computer, if I remember correctly. The price is still
plenty reasonable.
Paul just faxes
the press release initially. He saves the bio and the Q&A sheet until the
media contacts him.
I wish I could
just teach you Paul’s whole course, but no one can do it like he can. He just
takes you through everything step-by-step where even a beginner can do it. It’s
all logical, practical and thoroughly explained. All you need is the publicity
sheet, bio and q & a sheet. So many of the publicity courses and books available
make everything complicated. They have 14 zillion different types of sheets and
tools and things you need to create. It’s just too much hassle and trouble for
most entrepreneurs. Paul’s system, in contrast, is very simple and easy to implement.
Where to
get the fax numbers
Paul has a disk
he sells. It contains over 14,000 media contacts and fax numbers for a great
many of them. What you do is use your computer to select the fax numbers (takes
just several minutes) then fax to your heart’s content. If you’d like a set,
send me an email and I'll get Paul's info to you.
The beauty of
Paul’s system is that it’s something you can do. He makes it simple and practical.
The drawback, and I wouldn’t really call it a drawback, but the mass fax approach
is more applicable to a broad consumer product than a business one.
Still, you can
write a release using his formula, put together a narrower, more focused list
and fax away. You might fax some rounds of press releases blind and then use
the methods in The Consultant’s Guide to Publicity which I’ll discuss in
a second to fax or mail the release with a cover sheet addressed to a specific
contact.
One other thing
Paul recommends that is sheer genius is to start using The Directory of
Small Radio Stations and Newspapers. Start here until you get comfortable
with the process of doing interviews and handling media contacts. Then, after
you’ve practiced, you can launch into the big time.
For information
on Paul’s course, just search on his name – Paul Hartunian – in any search engine.
The Consultant’s
Guide to Publicity by Reece A. Franklin
This book is
designed obviously for consultants. It has a lot of good ideas. The only thing
I don’t like about it is it’s a little too complex for the beginning publicity
person. He has a whole page of publicity pages and tools to produce. Who has
the time!
Take a bio, press
release, q& a sheet, a good photo and maybe one other tool and run with it.
Keep it simple. The book also overwhelms you with all the choices available in
lists. As I’ve already mentioned, I recommend you start with the Publicity
Goldmine Disks and the Directory of Small Radio Stations and Newspapers.
But apart from
those two things, if you’re a consultant OR if you’re selling direct to businesses,
you’ll glean some very useful ideas from this book.
Here’s what I
love about free publicity – if you’re new in business, you probably don’t have
a big wad of cash laying around to spend on advertising, marketing and getting
customers. And even if you do, it’s probably stupid to spend a lot of it when
you’re starting out. Of course, that depends on your background and experience
in the industry. But publicity lets you get business without spending a fortune.
And if you use
the method of faxing or mailing a set number of press releases weekly, pretty
soon you’ll get your numbers down. You’ll know what to expect. You’ll develop
a PREDICTABLE SYSTEM. You’ll know that if you fax out X number of releases, you’ll
get X calls and those calls will usually result in Y amount of business. There’ll
be variation. But you’ll get a consistency.
And even if you
aren’t new in business, even if you’re a veteran entrepreneur, you can use publicity.
In fact, you’ll love it even more because you probably hate the high cost of acquiring
new customers.
The Unabashed
Self Promoter by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Jeffrey Lant
is a prolific writer and marketer who uses publicity to market his books and his
consulting services. What he does better than anything is write articles for
publications. He swaps out a resource box with his contact information in lieu
of being paid cash for the articles.
His definitive
work on publicity is called The Unabashed Self-Promoter’s Guide. The difference
between Lant’s book and Elaine’s system, Lew’s or Paul Hartunian’s is that those
products take one basic technique and explain it from beginning to end.
Lant’s books
has a lot of valuable information in it but it might be overwhelming for the beginner.
He presents a lot of different methods. And one is lost as to which one to use
first and where to start. But if you’re able to digest a lot of information without
getting overwhelmed, you’ll find it to be a Goldmine.
Another positive
point of Lant’s approach is that it’s easily adaptable to your local market area.
You don’t have to market nationally or even beyond your city to benefit from his
ideas. Even if you’re a dentist and you just want to reach people locally, you
can use Lant’s ideas.
If you’re just
marketing locally, you can also use another tack. It isn’t a lead generation
method but it can boost the income from whatever you do: Use publicity to become
famous. Just by having articles in national publications, being on TV or radio
talk shows and such, it lofts your reputation as a problem solving expert or whatever
your positioning is.
If your goal
is to become famous, I recommend a book called How to Make Yourself or Anyone
Else Famous – The secrets of a professional publicist by Gloria Michels.
It’s a simple
approach to the goal anyone can use. Again, it isn’t a lead generation method.
It is image building. But for some businesses could be quite powerful. I don’t
know if the book is published anymore or not. Check amazon.com on the web if
you’re local bookstore can’t order it. Beyond that, you might try the large used
bookstores or Strand used bookstore in New York City. You may not know but it’s
the largest used bookstore in the nation. Or it was the last I heard. Call information
in New York City and ask for the number for Strand used bookstore.
