This is an overview page, a collection of notes, excerpts and references on sales pitch, brand development, marketing, social marketing, social network marketing, and advertising strategies and examples. Selected books are also presented.
A more detailed version of this essay, with many videos, is available at our sister site.

Definitions

• Sales Pitch:
  [Source: Encarta]
  Seller's persuasive words - the statements made, arguments used, and assurances given by somebody trying to sell something.



• Sales Promotion:
  [Source: Webster's Dictionary]
  The methods or techniques for creating public acceptance of or interest in a product, usually in addition to standard merchandising techniques, as advertising or personal selling, and generally consisting of the offer of free samples, gifts made to a purchaser, or the like.



• Sales Resistance:
  [Source: Webster's Dictionary]
  The ability or inclination to refuse to buy a product, service, etc., offered.



• Sales Spiel:
  [Source: Encarta]
  Speech designed to convince - an irritatingly long or predictably glib speech, for example, a rambling apology or a prepared sales patter (informal) [19th century. < German spiel, "play, game"]



• Four Ps
  [Source: Marketing - Wikipedia (Accessed 22 June 2008)]
  In the early 1960s, Professor Neil Borden at Harvard Business School identified a number of company performance actions that can influence the consumer decision to purchase goods or services. Borden suggested that all those actions of the company represented a "Marketing Mix". Professor E. Jerome McCarthy, also at the Harvard Business School in the early 1960s, suggested that the Marketing Mix contained 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion.
  
  In popular usage, "marketing" is the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning which recognizes that marketing is customer-centered. Products are often developed to meet the desires of groups of customers or even, in some cases, for specific customers. E. Jerome McCarthy divided marketing into four general sets of activities. His typology has become so universally recognized that his four activity sets, the Four Ps, have passed into the language.
  
  The four Ps are:
  
  • Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support.
  
  
  
  • Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, psychology or attention.
  
  
  
  • Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, branding and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.
  
  
  
  • Placement (or distribution): refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.
    
    
  These four elements are often referred to as the marketing mix, which a marketer can use to craft a marketing plan. The four Ps model is most useful when marketing low value consumer products. Industrial products, services, high value consumer products require adjustments to this model. Services marketing must account for the unique nature of services. Industrial or B2B marketing must account for the long term contractual agreements that are typical in supply chain transactions. Relationship marketing attempts to do this by looking at marketing from a long term relationship perspective rather than individual transactions.
  
  As a counter to this, Morgan, in Riding the Waves of Change (Jossey-Bass, 1988), suggests that one of the greatest limitations of the 4 Ps approach "is that it unconsciously emphasizes the inside–out view (looking from the company outwards), whereas the essence of marketing should be the outside–in approach". Nevertheless, the 4 Ps offer a memorable and workable guide to the major categories of marketing activity, as well as a framework within which these can be used...



• Seven Ps
  [Source: Marketing - Wikipedia (Accessed 22 June 2008)]
  As well as the standard four P's (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Place), services marketing calls upon an extra three, totaling seven and known together as the extended marketing mix. These are:
  
  • People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service . As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event).
  
  
  
  • Process: This is the process(es) involved in providing a service and the behaviour of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.
  
  
  
  • Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations.



• Four New Ps
  [Source: Marketing - Wikipedia (Accessed 22 June 2008)]
  
  • Personalization: It is here referred customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Early examples include Dell on-line and Amazon.com, but this concept is further extended with emerging social media and advanced algorithms. Emerging technologies will continue to push this idea forward.
  
  
  
  • Participation: This is to allow the customer to participate in what the brand should stand for; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run. This concept is laying the foundation for disruptive change through democratization of information.
  
  
  
  • Peer-to-Peer: This refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. The historical problem with marketing is that it is "interruptive" in nature, trying to impose a brand on the customer. This is most apparent in TV advertising. These "passive customer bases" will ultimately be replaced by the "active customer communities". Brand engagement happens within those conversations. P2P is now being referred as Social Computing and is likely to be the most disruptive force in the future of marketing.
  
  
  
  • Predictive modeling: This refers to algorithms that are being successfully applied in marketing problems (both a regression as well as a classification problem).



• Social Marketing
  [Source: Social Marketing - Wikipedia (Accessed 22 June 2008)]
  Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good...
  
  The primary aim of 'social marketing' is 'social good', while in 'commercial marketing' the aim is primarily 'financial'. This does not mean that commercial marketers can not contribute to achievement of social good.
  
  Increasingly, social marketing is being described as having 'two parents' - a 'social parent' = social sciences and social policy, and a 'marketing parent' = commercial and public sector marketing approaches.
  
  Beginning in the 1970s, it has in the last decade matured into a much more integrative and inclusive discipline that draws on the full range of social sciences and social policy approaches as well as marketing.
  
  
  • [Source: What Is Social Marketing - Weinreich Communications (2006)]
    Social marketing was "born" as a discipline in the 1970s, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman [see abstract: Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change (1971)] realized that the same marketing principles that were being used to sell products to consumers could be used to "sell" ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Kotler and Andreasen define social marketing as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society." This technique has been used extensively in international health programs, especially for contraceptives and oral rehydration therapy (ORT), and is being used with more frequency in the United States for such diverse topics as drug abuse, heart disease and organ donation.
    
    Like commercial marketing, the primary focus is on the consumer--on learning what people want and need rather than trying to persuade them to buy what we happen to be producing. Marketing talks to the consumer, not about the product. The planning process takes this consumer focus into account by addressing the elements of the "marketing mix." This refers to decisions about 1) the conception of a Product, 2) Price, 3) distribution (Place), and 4) Promotion. These are often called the "Four Ps" of marketing. Social marketing also adds a few more "P's." At the end is an example of the marketing mix...
  
  
  
  • [Source: What Is Social Marketing? - Health Canada (Accessed 22 June 2008)]
    Social Marketing is a planned process for influencing change. Social Marketing is a modified term of conventional Product and Service Marketing. With its components of marketing and consumer research, advertising and promotion (including positioning, segmentation, creative strategy, message design and testing, media strategy and planning, and effective tracking), Social Marketing can play a central role in topics like health, environment, and other important issues.
    
    In its most general sense, Social Marketing is a new way of thinking about some very old human endeavours. As long as there have been social systems, there have been attempts to inform, persuade, influence, motivate, to gain acceptance for new adherents to certain sets of ideas, to promote causes and to win over particular groups, to reinforce behaviour or to change it -- whether by favour, argument or force. Social Marketing has deep roots in religion, in politics, in education, and even, to a degree, in military strategy. It also has intellectual roots in disciplines such as psychology, sociology, political science, communication theory and anthropology. Its practical roots stem from disciplines such as advertising, public relations and market research, as well as to the work and experience of social activists, advocacy groups and community organizers...
    See Aslo: Seven Steps to a Marketing Plan



• Social Media Optimization (SMO):
  Source: Social Media Optimization - Wikipedia (Accessed 22 June 2008) Adapted.]
  A set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. Methods of SMO include adding RSS feeds, adding a "Digg This" button, blogging and incorporating third party community functionalities like Flickr photo slides and galleries or YouTube videos. Social media optimization is related to search engine marketing, but differs in several ways, primarily the focus on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.
  
  Social media optimization is in many ways connected as a technique to viral marketing where word of mouth is created not through friends or family but through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites. In a similar way the engagement with blogs achieves the same by sharing content through the use of RSS in the blogsphere and special blog search engines such as Technorati.
  
  Origins
  Rohit Bhargava was credited with inventing the term SMO.^[1]...

  Source: Rohit Bhargava (10 August 2006)]
  ...Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client's website:
  
  

  1. Increase your linkability - This is the first and most important priority for websites.  Many sites are "static" - meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront.  To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content.  Adding a blog is a great step, however there are many other ways such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply aggregating content that exists elsewhere into a useful format.
  2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy - Adding content features like quick buttons to "add to del.icio.us" are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, but we go beyond this, making sure pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).
  3. Reward inbound links - Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings.  To encourage more of them, we need to make it easy and provide clear rewards.  From using Permalinks to recreating Similarly, listing recent linking blogs on your site provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you.
  4. Help your content travel - Unlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making changes to a site.  When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.
  5. Encourage the mashup - In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason).  YouTube's idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can imbed videos from their site has fueled their growth. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create mashups that can drive traffic or augment your content.

  
  There are many other "rules" and techniques that we are starting to uncover as this idea gets more sophisticated.  In the meantime we are always on the lookout for new ideas in Social Media Optimization to encourage even better thinking.  Perhaps we may even see the rise of entire groups or agencies devoted to SMO in the future ...

Overload, Precision Pitch, and the USP

Redefine Marketing Strategy

Source: Mastering New Marketing Practices
Edge Perspectives with John Hagel: Mastering New Marketing Practices (29 July 2006)

...To start with marketing strategy and again at the risk of over-simplification, conventional marketing is built upon the three "I's":

• Intercept – target and expose customers to your message wherever you can find them.
• Inhibit – make it as difficult as possible for the customer to compare your product or service with any other options.
• Isolate – enter into a direct relationship with the customer and, wherever possible, remove all third parties from the relationship.

Nirvana is the walled garden of direct marketing. It is captured in the mantra of "one to one marketing" – one vendor dealing individually with each customer.

A different approach will be required to succeed in [the new] a business landscape... I describe this marketing approach "collaboration marketing" and define it in terms of three "A's":

• Attract – create incentives for people to seek you out.
• Assist – the most powerful way to attract people is to be as helpful and engaging with them as possible – this requires a deep understanding of the various contexts in which people might use your products and a willingness to "co-create" products with customers.
• Affiliate – mobilize third parties, including other customers, to become even more helpful to the people you interact with.

In contrast to the "one to one marketing" mindset of conventional marketing, collaboration marketing requires a "many to one" mindset. The winners in this new world will be orchestrators who can mobilize rich networks of resources to serve customer needs.

See also: Building a Brand with Widgets
Rachael King, Business Week (3 March 2008)

Open Your Brand to Customer Involvement in a Web-Based World

Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World Kelly Mooney & Nita Rollins (2008) [At Chapters]

From the Publisher...
Many of the best brands today are of geek pedigree, powered by the technologies, traits and trends of the ascendant digital channel. Amidst the decline of mass marketing, push marketing tactics have been superseded by new forms of influence. These include the creating, sharing and influencing behaviors of an online population no longer content merely to consume, and the potent pairing of digital notoriety and network effects, which has given rise to the icitizenry.

From these sociocultural forces emerges a radical business imperative: to open up to consumer involvement in a brand's messages and offerings. Published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA Design Press, The Open Brand illuminates both the risks and immense rewards of doing so, and describes the essential consumer experiences that are requisite for cultural relevance—On-demand, Personal, Engaging, and Networked experiences, representing the chief values of the web-made world.

when others zig, zag...

Zag: The #1 Strategy Of High-performance Brands
Marty Neumeier (2006)

Source: How to "zag" when everyone else "zigs"
A Review by Robert Morris, Amazon.com (28 June 2007)

In a previous book, The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier explains how companies can bridge the gap between business strategy and customer experience, noting that brand-building isn't a series of isolated activities; rather, it is a complete system in which five disciplines - differentiation, collaboration, innovation, validation, and cultivation - "combine to produce a sustainable competitive advantage. " His intent in Zag "is to zoom in on differentiation to reveal the system within the system."

[At Chapters]

Initially, he observes that the human mind deals with clutter the best way it can: by blocking it out. As a result, "the newest barriers to competition are the mental walls that customers erect to keep out clutter. For the first time in history, the most powerful barriers to competition are not controlled by companies, but by customers. Those little boxes they build in their minds determine the boundaries of brands." (Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck also have much of value to say about these boundaries and barriers in The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business.) In his latest book, Neumeier explains how to overcome these barriers with radical innovation - "the engine for a high performance brand" - that requires mastery of four disciplines:

1. Finding your zag
2. Designing your zag
3. Building your zag
4. Renewing your zag

Everything begins with identifying the zag. That is, offering something that combines the qualities of both good and different. "When focus is paired with differentiation, supported by a trend, and surrounded by compelling communications, you have the basic ingredients of a zag."

OK, but how to do that? Neumeier provides a design process that consists of 17 checkpoints, each formulated as a question. He explains how to answer each of them correctly (i.e. an answer most appropriate to the given organization) by proceeding through a sequence of 17 checkpoints, each of which evokes a question to be answered correctly (i.e. appropriate to the given organization), with the first two previously posed as a trilogy in The Brand Gap: "Who are you?" and "What do you do?" Responding to them may prove far more difficult than it may first seem and a correct (i.e. appropriate) answer to each is essential to achieving radical innovation. The third question posed previously, "Why should I care?" creates an even greater challenge. Fortunately, a correct (i.e. appropriate) answer to that question will be revealed by carefully proceeding through the remaining 15 checkpoints.

It is truly remarkable how much substance and how many thought-provoking questions Neumeier provides within a narrative of less than 200 pages. With both rigor and eloquence, he explains how radical innovation can break through ever-increasing clutter in a competitive marketplace, whatever and wherever it may be. Special note should also be made of the book's production values. All of his core concepts, checklists, key points, observations, and recommendations are presented within a visually appealing context. The last time I checked, there are about 34,000 business books on the general subject of brands. Neumeier has written two of the most valuable among them. Bravo! [Read More Reviews]

NOTE: For a very useful peek inside ZAG, visit
Marty Neumeier : ZAG : The #1 Strategy of High-Performance Brands.

Social Network Marketing

• How Social Network Marketing Works
  Tahir Liaqat, SEO Expert Blog (1 May 2007)
  

  Most marketers would ask the wrong question here: "how can social networks make me more money?"
  
  The problem with that approach is that you tend to focus on immediate means of monetizing the value of social networks such as MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn and Flikr, while ignoring the real reason these networks were setup and how you can use those ideas to help your business.
  
  MySpace, Orkut and Friendster grew as means to stay in touch with friends, meet new people online and to share ideas. LinkedIn has a similar slant - it is great for entrepreneurs and professionals who want to mine their contacts for hiring / outsourcing. And Flickr is just a blindingly simple tool for sharing photos.
  
  The success of social networks marks a dynamic shift in how people are using the Internet. We’ve evolved from just searching for information to creating and participating in social spaces with other individuals through the Internet. This model is based upon the hive mentality where people identify themselves as part of a group with similar likes and interests that draw them together. This is easy to do online because the traditional communication barriers of physical locations no longer exist.
  
  Social networks make viral marketing and word-of-mouth marketing much easier than before. The best use out of social networks is not to make money "directly" off them, but to harness their marketing potential and to use them to market your own business... [Read More]

• Report: Brands Reaping Returns from Social Network Marketing
  Mark Hefflinger, DigitalMediaWire (23 April 2007)
  

  Los Angeles - More than 70% of Americans ages 15-34 are actively using online social networks, spending on average more than seven hours per week on such websites and driving the growth of overall time spent online, according to a report commissioned by MySpace, Isobar and Carat USA and conducted by market research firms TRU, TNS and Marketing Evolution.
  
  The online survey of 3,000 U.S. Internet users found that 69% use social networks to connect with existing friends, and 41% said they use them to connect with family members.
  
  The survey also found 40% of all social networkers said they use social networking sites to learn more about brands or products that they like, with 28% saying that at some point a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.
  
  Brands such as Adidas and Electronic Arts attributed more than 70% of their marketing return on investment to the word-of-mouth or pass-along effect of a brand within a social network...

• The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media
  Paul Gillin (2007)
  

  [At Chapters]

  Reviews...
  This is a benchmark book...Gillin brings his engaging and most times brilliant journalistic style to a profound topic. Read this book.
  Larry Weber, founder of The Weber Group and W2Group
  
  As word of mouth loses opinion-forming power to word of blog, companies are faced with a revolution in how their brands and corporate image will be shaped in the future. Paul Gillin provides a very insightful and well-written guide on how to effectively benefit from these dramatic changes. A must read!
  Patrick J. McGovern, founder and chairman, International Data Group (IDG)
  
  Individuals, armed with technology, are seeking out others like themselves and sharing their opinions with the world. There s a new breed of influencers and they re talking about your brand. Gillin has managed to capture the essence of trend and what it means for marketers.
  Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion
  
  Paul Gillin gets it. I don't know how to put it any other way. He not only sees the new social media, he has the clearest perspective on the actual cultural impact. This book is a must read-either in print or otherwise.
  Paul Greenberg, CRM at the Speed of Light, 3rd Edition

The Political Use of Sales Pitch

You may have heard of Frank Luntz, of Luntz, Maslansky Strategic Research, corporate and public affairs communications firm in Washington. His new book, Words that Work: It's Not What You Say it's What People Hear, was published 31 January 2007.

Dr. Luntz has written, supervised, and conducted more than 1,200 surveys, focus groups and dial sessions in over two dozen countries and four continents over the past decade. Frank has become the go-to consultant when Fortune 100 companies need communication and language guidance, from General Motors to Federal Express, Disney to American Express, from AT&T to Pfizer, from Kroger supermarkets to McDonalds to the entire soft drink and motion picture industries, as well as for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the Business Roundtable. [Read More]

Luntz is also the author of a 16-page memo entitled THE ENVIRONMENT: A CLEANER, SAFER, HEALTHIER AMERICA (2003), which presents a public relations strategy to help Republicans and President George W. Bush address vulnerabilities in their position on the environment and the matter of global warming. I encourage you to download and save this memo — read it, not because the strategy it propounds is laudable, but because it provides an insider's perspective on how to make marketing muck.

Luntz is famous for what he calls "language guidance" — the use of simple messages, carefully tested and frequently repeated, to overcome public suspicions on potentially unpopular policies...

...Luntz has long been associated with the Conservative party and its forerunners. He recently spoke to a meeting of the Civitas Society attended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other top Conservatives.

In his 2003 memo he told Republicans not to use economic arguments against environmental regulations, because environmental arguments would always win out with average Americans concerned about their health. Luntz also told his U.S. clients to stress common sense and accountability.

"First, assure your audience that you are committed to 'preserving and protecting' the environment but that 'it can be done more wisely and effectively.' Absolutely do not raise economic arguments first."

Source:
Bush's Chief Climate "Spinmaster" Tells Harper How It's Done, Ross Gelbspan, DeSmogBlog.com, 31 May 2006

See also: LuntzSpeak | Read the Memo. LuntzSpeak is a Website of the National Environmental Trust.

On 15 November 2006, CBC's The Fifth Estate ran a documentary entitled The Denial Machine, in which Luntz and other scientists-for-hire were interviewed in a disturbing revelation of what's gone on, and continues to go on, behind the scenes, in the matter of political spiel on global warming. Interestingly, many of the same players were involved in the tobacco industry's use of spin to persuade the public that insufficient evidence exists to conclude that cigarettes cause cancer.

The Denial Machine will also air on CBC Newsworld, on Friday the 17th, Saturday the 18th, Sunday the 19th, and Tuesday the 21st. Click the appropriate calendar date onsite for show times.

Selling Real Estate...

In House Prices and Time-till-sale in Windsor (2002), an unpublished report submitted to the Windsor and Essex County Real Estate Board, authors Paul M. Anglin and R. Wiebe identify a number of factors that had impact on the speed of sale for real estate in the Windsor area, Ontario. More than 20,000 home listings were analyzed from 1997 to 2000. Dr. Anglin cautions that "[t]his research is based on data from one place and at one time. While I believe that the results apply more broadly, readers should consult a qualified professional before taking any action."

...A listing's "Remarks" section can both describe a house and signal its intended market, with significant TTS effects. Listings which included the words "Beautiful" or "Gorgeous" were found to have reduced [time-till-sale] TTS by 15 per cent. "Landscape" reduced TTS by 20 per cent and "Move-in" condition by 12 per cent. On the other hand, a "Must See" remark had no statistically significant effect.

Houses identified in the remarks section as being intended for the "Starter" market sold in 9 per cent less time than the benchmark. "Handyman Specials" in about 50 per cent less time (but we were careful to exclude listings with only the word "handyman" which tended to represent a work area for a hobbyist.) "Rental", or income-generating, properties took 60 per cent longer. "Vacant" houses did not have significantly different expected TTS than other houses. For all of these results, it is important to realize that our methodology distinguished between the effect of these variables on TTS and their effect on prices. Thus, for example, we found that vacant houses sold for a lower price and that TTS did not differ significantly from the benchmark. Or, as another example, "Beautiful" houses sold in less time and for a higher price... (p.3)

The right words can foster sales, it appears, provided your description is factually verifiable and accords with the buyer's perception of the actual property.

Ann Brenoff (Los Angeles Times, 13 December 2006) reported on Anglin's work in Maybe it's locution, locution, locution, but her article is no longer available online. Portions of it have been utilized in various forms by real estate agents on the Web. The following appears to be a slightly adapted version:

...In a recent study on real estate sales patterns, a Canadian professor found that homes where the seller was "motivated" took 15 percent longer to sell. Houses listed as "handyman specials" flew off the market in half the average time. The study dissected the wording of more than 20,000 Canadian home listings from 1997 to 2000.

Homes described as "beautiful" moved 15 percent faster and for 5 percent more in price than the benchmark. "Good-value" homes sold for 5 percent less than average.

Another finding in Mr. Anglin's study was that the plea of "Must see!" was received about as enthusiastically as a dinnertime telemarketing call. Homes with listings using those words had a statistically insignificant impact on the number of days they took to sell.

Listings where the word "landscaping" was heralded sold 20 percent faster, and homes in "move-in condition" took 12 percent less time to sell than the benchmark.

Owners use listing language to convey how serious they are about selling, but some words work better than others, Mr. Anglin's study found. Listings in which the seller said he was moving sold for 1 percent less in price compared with 8 percent less when the seller was "motivated."

The real meaning

Real estate listings, not unlike personal ads, are crafted to minimize blemishes and maximize selling points. So if "enjoys moonlight walks on the beach and cooking together" means "I'm unemployed and am looking for someone who won't always expect to eat out," then "needs TLC" might mean "this house will have you on a first-name basis with the clerks at the local hardware store."

Last year, the impact of listing language was covered in a National Bureau of Economic Research study that looked at whether real estate agents selling their own homes hold out for a higher price. (They do; the study found they take longer to sell but fetch a higher price.)

Descriptions of houses that indicated an obvious problem – such as "foreclosure," "as-is" and "handyman special" – drew substantially lower sales prices.

One problem discovered was that "superficially positive" words that, in effect, damn with faint praise – such as "clean" or "quiet" – had zero or even a negative correlation with prices... [Read More]

Real Estate Agent Remarks: Help or Hype? (2000), researched by Professor Ronald C. Rutherford (University of Texas at San Antonio) explores a similar theme. Here's the Abstract:

This article groups the remarks of a multiple listing service listing into common themes and then uses a hedonic pricing model to determine whether such comments are priced in a meaningful way. The comments provide information on the motivation of the seller, location of the property and physical improvements or defects. Most of the comments analyzed are statistically significant. Negative comments are associated with lower sales prices suggesting the helpful nature of comments. Some of the positive comments, however, including "new paint" and "good location" are also associated with lower sales prices suggesting that some comments may be better classified as hype... [Read More]

Martin Conroy's "Two young men..."

Martin Conroy died on 19 December 2006 at the age of 84. He is the author of the famous direct mail, 780-word Wall Street Journal subscription letter. After a successful run that sold an estimated $1 billion in subscriptions over the course of nearly 30 years, this letter was retired in 2003 and replaced with another format. You can read more about it online: Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense (January 4, 2007: Vol. 3, Issue No. 1). You can read more about Martin Conroy at Wikipedia, David Garfinkel's World Copywriting Blog, A New Marketing Commentator, Obituaries - NY Times, Obituary - San Diego Union-Tribune.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL,
World Financial Center, 200 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10281

Dear Reader:
On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president... [Read full text]

An Advertising Manfesto...

There have been a number of great manifestos drafted in the history of man. But there is one you’ve probably never heard of. It was a print ad written by agency Doyle Dane Bernbach in the late 60s or early 70s. But it was actually much more than a print ad, it was a manifesto. A manifesto aimed at both the advertising industry and the advertisers themselves...
Source: Age of Persuasion » Blog Archives » Do This Or Die
Terry O'Reilly & Mike Tennant (18 June 2007)
Original ad format: http://f.hatena.ne.jp/chuukyuu/20070201175031

	DO THIS OR DIE. Is this ad some kind of trick? No. But it could have been. And at exactly that point rests a do or die decision for American business. We in advertising, together with our clients, have all the power and skill to trick people. Or so we think. But we're wrong. We can't fool any of the people any of the time. There is indeed a twelve-year-old mentality in this country; every six-year-old has one. We are a nation of smart people. And most smart people ignore most advertising because most advertising ignores smart people. Instead we talk to each other. We debate endlessly about the medium and the message. Nonsense. In advertising, the message itself is the message. A blank page and a blank television screen are one and the same. And above all, the messages we put on those pages and on those television screens must be the truth. For if we play tricks with the truth, we die. Now. The other side of the coin. Telling the truth about a product demands a produce that's worth telling the truth about. Sadly, so many products aren't. So many products don't do anything better. Or anything different. So many don't work quite right. Or don't last. Or simply don't matter. If we also play this trick, we also die. Because advertising only helps a bad product fail faster. No donkey chases the carrot forever. He catches on. And quits. That's the lesson to remember. Unless we do, we die. Unless we change, the tidal wave of consumer indifference will wallop into the mountain of advertising and manu- facturing drivel. That day we die. We'll die in our marketplace. On our shelves. In our gleaming packages of empty promises. Not with a bang. Not with a whimper. But by our own skilled hands. Doyle Dane Bernbach Incorporated

The Online Sales-Pitch Formula

There's a formula many marketers use to pitch their products. Alpha del Bosque presents a nine-block model of this formula in How to create killer mini-sites that sell like crazy!. You can download del Bosque's eBook free of charge. The key ideas in del Bosque's model of the construction of a sales pitch are adapted and expanded upon below.

How to sell stuff...
The mechanics of the spiel.
You grab the visitor's attention in your header graphic block, which presents the navigation or structure of the site and compels the visitor to read your headline/promises block. The headline (with brief supporting subtext) stretches credulity. It's designed to push the envelope of believability and set the visitor up: That sounds too good to be true - how could this be real?

The testimonials/credentials block is where you adduce the opinions of experts who confirm the merits of your product. This persuades the visitor that what follows is believable and that you're trustworthy. Now, in the informational block, you write about the problems and frustrations encountered in your area of business. You don't mention the product at this stage; instead, you gradually increase anticipation by elaborating upon these issues, intimating that they're in the past. You show that you understand and empathize, then you conclude this block by telling your visitor that you have a solution.

You next introduce your product (product introduction block) and present a well-designed visual illustration to give the visitor something "real" to remember (a "hook"). You show exactly how your product will benefit the user (benefits block), how it will make life easier, generate amazing profits, etc. More testimonials are inserted to reinforce the truth of this: The solution really does work!

Then you kick it up a notch in the call to action block: (1) offer a few good bonuses; (2) in a succinct paragraph, remind the visitor what your product will do for them; and then (3) present a deadline beyond which you cannot guarantee your this-is-a-great-deal low price.

In the guarantee block, you offer a "love it or shove it" refund policy of some sort, maybe even use the phrase "guaranteed results".

And finally - most importantly - in the action summary block, you summarize why the visitor should buy your product and you ask them to buy it right now. Many spiels follow this with a signature and multiple postscripts (P.S., P.P.S., P.P.P.S., etc.), reinforcing the call to buy.

See Also...

• Source: Delivering an Effective Sales Pitch
  EffectiveMeetings.com

  Dig for the Dirt
  ...To really connect with a prospect, you have to make it about them – their problems, their needs, their company and their situation. No matter how amazing your product is, no one's going to buy it unless it's relevant to their business ... [S]tart asking your potential customers questions. What are their needs? What problems do they hope to solve with your product? Is there any background information that you could use? What other solutions are they considering? Ask about anything and everything that might be relevant... You have to really dig if you hope to uncover the reason why your product/service is the solution to their problem.
  
  Tailor the Pitch for the Customer
  Once you have this information, it's time to create your presentation. Take their problem and turn it into an objective that identifies a mutual goal for you and your customer. Achieving this objective should be the central theme of your presentation... [Read More]

• Source: The Net upends tenets of loyalty marketing
  Richard G. Barlow,
  Advertising Age, 17 April 2000
  Brandweek (13 December 1999)

  What captivates us now is special stuff, stuff that only a few of us can get, stuff that stands for something or symbolizes something. And, more compelling than stuff, are experiences — events, trips, places, sights, sounds, tastes that are out of the ordinary, memorable in their own right, precious in their uniqueness and fulfilling in a way that seems to make us more than we were ... Some describe this phenomenon as "the experience economy". [Read More]

• Source: Psychological Triggers In WebSites,
  posted by "tedster", 25 Mar 2001(11:02pm)

  ...[A]lways read the copy aloud. Or even better, listen to someone else read the copy aloud. It should sound like natural speech. Or maybe even like poetry or song lyrics, without the rhyme.
  
  "Boil the copy down". Write freely on first draft, and be prepared for about 10 re-writes. Great copy is hard work, but when you've got it, it just leaps from the page.
  
  The best copy often comes from team writing, not one whiz kid. At least have an editor, if not a co-writer.
  
  Principal "don'ts":

  1. Avoid passive verbs.
  2. Avoid long sentences with lots of modifying phrases. Nothing should require the reader to "carry" one piece of information in their mind while they wait for another piece to complete it.
  3. This is an often stated copy writing truism, but it's still violated every day: talk mostly about benefits, rather than features. That is, describe your reader's life as they use your product, rather than just describing the product.
  4. Target, target, target. Always write for your ideal prospect, rather than writing for a generic "everybody". What you are trying to do is create this response: "Hey, you're talking about me!"

• Consider the following outline, adapted by Lloyd Rohler from Hugh Rank's book entitled The Pitch, published in 1991, now out-of-print but available second-hand.

  Outline for a sales pitch

  1. Attention Getting:
     Use of the following to gain the attention of the target audience
  1. Visual stimuli: pictures, display of product, lights, colors
  2. Emotional appeals: associations with primary groups, or basic drives
  3. Cognitive appeals:: demonstrations, lists, questions, stories
  2. Confidence Building:
     Use of the following to build confidence in the salesperson:
  1. Authority: expertise, experience
  2. Trust: friend, sincere, benevolent
  3. Desire Stimulating:
  1. benefits of the product - push the product itself:
     quality, efficiency, scarcity, novelty, beauty, stability, reliability, simplicity, utility, safety
  2. added values: push the psychological benefits of possessing the product
     Meet basic needs of health, hunger, security, sexual appeal.
     Contribute to psychological well being by increasing self esteem, stimulating creativity, leading to success.
  4. Urgency Stressing:
     Rush, Hurry, Deadline, Sale Ends, Offer Expires, Do it Now!
  5. Response Seeking:
     Buy at, Call Now, (Give specific location or telephone number. Hand out coupons.)