[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

cleaned and recleaned 12 times. They showed him the whole process.
At the end, he was incredulous. He said,  My God, why don t you tell people the process that your beer goes
through?
And they said,  Because that s how all beer is made. It s nothing special; it s nothing unique.
And he said,  Yes, but the first person who tells the public about this will gain preemptive advantage.
He got Schlitz to the #1 position in about six months.
So, that s my classic preemptive advertising story.
Now, take a look at the processes you go through in your business to give your customers a high-quality
product or service  and tell your customers and prospects about it.
If you re a retailer, tell customers how you use choose the product line for your store. Tell them how many
people you employ to ensure they get personalized service. Tell them precisely what these employees do on a
day-to-day basis. Tell them how you unconditionally guarantee every sale...and so on...and so on.
If you re a manufacturing or creative business, explain to your customers the complete manufacturing process
step by step. Tell them what raw materials you use to create your products, and why. Tell them about the strict
quality checks that go into the creation of your products. Tell them about the brainstorming that precedes any
production, etc.
If you sell a service, explain to your customers the entire service process. Tell them the skills of the people
you hire, and your procedures for hiring them. Tell them what your standards are for your company. Tell them
about your performance guarantee...and anything else you can think of.
Even if your process is the same process that many of your competitors use, it doesn t matter  because
you re going to be the first one to explain it to the consumer, and you ll gain a clear advantage over all your
competitors.
Offer a Guarantee that Is So Extraordinary and So Profound
That No One In Your Whole Marketplace
Would Dare Compare With It
Another way to use preemptive advertising is to offer guarantees that no other of your competitors would dare
replicate  because they don t see the advantages of doing so.
Take this example: I consulted with a gentleman who owns an insurance company. I asked him what kinds
of guarantees insurance companies currently offer. He revealed to me that most insurance policies take 35 days to
be issued, and then the company gives the customer a 15-day look-see to allow them to cancel the policy if they
decide it s not right for them. So, this gives the customer 50 days to decide whether or not to keep the insurance.
So I suggested,  Well, why don t you add 10 days to it. Tell your customers that you ll give them 60, not 50
days before you ll consider the sale final. So, after they sign up, anyone who thinks they can get a better value in
the total value package, not just price, but coverage and everything else  and they can go to every insurance
company they want to  and if they find anything better in the next 60 days, you ll give them all their money
back. You yourself could offer, if you have to, to underwrite any loss. No one else in your market does that.
I also told him,  The truth of the matter is that 99% of the people who are going to exercise a cancellation are
going to do it up front. They re not going to wait until the 51st or 59th day. So your risk is minuscule in adding
those 10 days, yet it really sets your offer apart from your competitors.
Make Specific Claims In Your Advertising
Most advertising never goes beyond the weak appeal of  Buy our brand, or  Buy from us instead of
someone else. This has minimal effect on a prospect.
But, when you give your prospect valuable, objective information on your product or service  its
applications, construction, and performance...when you show the prospect what superior service, benefits, quality,
guarantee, bonus, discount, follow up, you and you alone offer...and allow your prospects to test your product or
service solely at your risk, not theirs...then hundreds, even thousands, will take advantage who otherwise would
not have, because of your daring, risk-free proposition.
Specificity is crucial in your marketing efforts. The more detailed facts you can offer, the more specific a
case you can build over your competitors, and the more successful you ll be. For example, to make the claim
 The lowest prices means absolutely nothing. But the ad that makes specific, supportable and defendable claims,
with specific, actual figures, generally has high impact and is believable.
Follow Up...Follow Up...Follow Up
Every time you do a mailing, follow it up with a postcard that summarizes the offer for people who didn t
receive the first letter or didn t read it. Give them a sense of urgency and a call to action. Then, five days after
you send the postcard, follow up by phone. This combination can normally give a boost to aggregate response by
300% to 1200%!
Use Your Yellow Pages Ad to Compete With Larger Competitors
You can compete with a company 10 times your size very easily by using intelligent Yellow Pages
advertising. You see, the big company, with a much bigger ad budget, won t buy more than a full-page ad  and
most of them buy a 1/4 or 1/2-page ad. True, a 1/4 or 1/2-page ad does take a huge chunk of your marketing
budget...but if you use your ad space effectively by writing a winning ad (following the steps outlined in Section
One of this report), you'll have the advantage. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]