Monday, August 23, 2010

The Power of Leverage

In the financial or real estate worlds, the word leverage is defined as “The use of various financial instruments or borrowed capital, such as margin, to increase the potential return of an investment.”

Investors might use leverage for futures trading and homebuyers use leverage for a home mortgage.

But have you ever thought about leveraging your marketing copy to get more bang for your investment?

Let’s say you create a successful direct mail package for a product or service that mails millions of pieces and brings in tens of millions of dollars in sales.

A one-and-done project? Not if you leverage the great copy and graphics.

Here are some examples.

*Covert the direct mail copy and graphics into an online microsite. A microsite sells this one product or service in a focused, easy-to-follow website that showcases the problem(s) this product or service overcomes, the unique features and benefits offered and more.

I’ve had excellent success by leveraging copy I wrote for a thyroid supplement—first for direct mail, then for an online microsite.

*Convert the direct mail copy and graphics into an online landing page. This presents the story in a linear fashion, like a letter with sidebars.

I’ve had a number of very successful direct mail promotions converted to online landing pages—for a continuous stream of sales and profits beyond just mailings.

*Convert the direct mail copy and graphics into a space ad for a newspaper or magazine. The challenge here is you have to cut quite a bit of copy to make this ad cost effective. Best results usually come with a “Risk Free Trial” that motivates readers to call an 800 number where they are given the offers—and ideally, upsold to a bigger offer or automatic shipping plans.

I’ve seen and heard of some great successes, and I’m currently working on a few of these ads myself—soon to be tested.

*Convert the direct mail copy and graphics into back-end promotions to get buyers to buy more of the same product.

I’ve had great success doing this for some nutritional products. I’ve taken some of the key copy points that caused the prospect to buy in the first place and used them for the back-end promos to buy again.

The point is: There are many different ways you can use powerful, proven copy and graphics to leverage your investment and set up additional streams of sales and profits.