7 Costly Mistakes ANYBODY Can Make When Evaluating

A Strategic Marketing Consultant and Copywriter

When you want to improve your marketing, the 2 disciplines that can really make the biggest difference are your marketing strategy and your copy. Good copy will never overcome poor strategy. Good strategy will work with average copy but a good strategy executed with good copy will bring you the best results you can hope for.

When you bring in a strategist and copywriter to work on your marketing make sure that you avoid these big mistakes. It will save you money, time, and energy and it will help get you the results you need.

Mistake Number 1: Focusing on improving the wrong thing

“If I could double the response rate to this ad then my business would be good.”

Talking like this means that you are trying to improve your response rates to fit your pricing strategy. If your copy was written by a professional it is unlikely that another professional will be able to double your response rates on single shot. It could take many tests. Any smart marketer or copywriter isn’t going to play that game. It’s a fool’s game and it is very likely that they won’t be able to win. In fact, if they offer to double your response rates, they are either extremely good or extremely stupid. Either way you will overpay for the results you get. You will over pay in terms of hassle, time, money and wasted opportunity.

What you are actually looking to do is increase your revenue. There are other far easier ways to increase your revenue than rewriting an ad with the goal of doubling response rates. A good marketing consultant will be able to identify them and if they are also a good copywriter they will be able to create the materials you need in order to properly exploit them.

For example, you can change the USP of an existing product and market it to a different niche within your market. Many internet marketers will do this for their product and create a whole new website, Google campaigns, etc. with a new USP target to a certain niche or sub-niche.  A whole new source of revenue out of thin air. Much more profitable than just rewriting the same copy over and over.
There is always a pile of money in unexploited or underexploited opportunities in every business. Every business has holes in its bucket and plugging these holes is more lucrative than trying to rewrite an ad to put more water in the bucket – which in essence is what you are doing when you focus on doubling response rates.

An open mind will be the best asset you can have when working with a marketing consultant. So stop, take a deep breath, take a step back and look at the big picture.
I can bring a whole tool kit to identify the leaks in the bucket. All you have to do is be open to the idea of changing your focus onto the biggest return opportunities in your business.

Mistake Number 2: Not being fully aware of all your opportunities

This is the side effect of being focused on some obscure aspect of your business. It blinds you to other opportunities. Then you focus on trying to improve that single thing – such as response rate to an ad. Or lead to sale conversion rate… All this adds up to:

Leaving money on the table

There are bigger unexplored opportunities waiting for you. Often they were stumbled upon previously, but for lack of time, resources or ability they were never fully developed. Working with a marketing consultant and copywriter will probably give you most, if not all of skills and resources you need to capitalise and take the money off the table.

Business is about making money. Focusing on the best opportunities is where you are going to see the biggest payoff for your investment. Often times the opportunity is not immediately obvious, but you need to be open to looking.

For example, if you have a “done for you service,” have you thought of creating an info product? Or vice versa. It is an opportunity many businesses don’t explore.
This is where bringing in a marketing consultant/copywriter will help you find all of your opportunities and put together the marketing assets to cash in on these high ROI opportunities.

Mistake Number 3: Not knowing your numbers thoroughly

Business is a game of numbers. Improving your business is pretty difficult when you don’t know your key numbers. Lack of clarity about your key numbers makes finding, diagnosing and fixing key problems very hard to do.

This lack of clarity also contributes to business owners focusing on the wrong things. Changing them effects your business for the better or worse.
Once you know clearly what the state of your business is, you can find problems and improve the points of leverage in your business. This also helps you communicate clearly and objectively with anyone from outside (and inside) your business. Many times cost is focused on excessively. “I can only afford to spend $500 to acquire a customer.”

Often they then can’t explain why they believe that beyond gut feel.

Often it will turn out that they don’t factor in something like the number of referrals a customer will bring in a year. And what those referrals are worth both in additional revenue and referrals. They also won’t factor repeat purchases, up-sell opportunities, cross sell opportunities and so on.
Knowing your numbers also helps you to identify and take advantage of the major opportunities that exist within your business.

Mistake Number 4: Determining if they can they do the job?

Assessing whether anyone can improve your business based on their resume and samples can be hard.

So here is what I would look for.

1. Do they understand your target market? How quickly can they get to know them?
2. Do they know how to do the type of work you need done? For example, have they generated leads before, or done work in that media?
3. Do they have a systematic way to diagnose the problems in your business and uncover additional opportunities or do they just quote a fee and mail you a proposal? If they don’t this implies that they won’t look at your business as a unique entity and it is.
4. Are they willing to guarantee a result? They should. My comprehensive marketing consultation comes with an unconditional money back guarantee. If you aren’t happy at the end of the review day then I’ll refund your money. As a bonus, if you hire me to work on any additional projects then the consulting fee is credited to the fees and royalties for these projects. When I do any copywriting work I guarantee that if the work doesn’t hit agreed upon levels of performance then I will keep providing additional test pieces until we hit the agreed levels or you stop testing. It also means that I have a very good reason not to take on clients that I don’t believe I can help adequately. Anyone who doesn’t offer this level of guarantee is clearly not putting your business needs ahead of their own.

One last thing. You are paying to have a performance improvement in your business. Make sure there is a component of the pay that is performance based – it will guarantee the highest quality work. Many business owners and marketers are unwilling to offer it. You’ll stand out as a client that is head and shoulders above average business owner and you’ll get preferential treatment and higher loyalty and a better effort from your supplier.

Mistake Number 5: Hiring a separate consultant and copywriter

When you look to hire just a copywriter, they will just take your order and quote you a fee. Just like a pizza shop. No looking to make sure that the system is the most effective it can be. They aren’t likely to find you new ideas for ways to strategically improve your business.

I think this is poor customer service and waste of your money. There is more to improving business ROI than just endlessly rewriting copy and any copywriter is just going to focus on writing copy neglecting the other ways that you can improve your business.

If you tell a copywriter that response rates are falling what are they going to do? Probably tell you it is time for a new ad. In fact that will be the only answer they have… To a man with a hammer in his tool box everything looks like a nail.

In that situation a strategist will come up with several options to change your business.

I’d look at both, find what is most likely to succeed and have an intelligent discussion about what will work with you and move forward based on what is best for your business in terms of maximising revenue and ROI
The big breakthroughs in improving profitability are found in a combination of good strategy and good copy.

Marketing Strategists that don’t write copy are just as problematic as copywriters who aren’t strategists. They will find all sorts of ideas that you may or may not be able to find a copywriter who is able to execute. Thenregardless of whether or not you can get their ideas to work you’ll be slugged a fee for the advice.

Advice is worthless. New and revamped marketing systems that are implemented are of value to your business. The best strategies in the universe will not make you a red cent unless they are executed. Any real business person will take an average strategy implemented than the best strategy not implemented.

It is risky for a marketing consultant who is willing to work based on performance, think about it – bad copy could ruin the strategy. Copywriters mostly work for high fees and if their copy doesn’t work, they usually shrug and mutter “win some, lose some” while walking away looking for the next opportunity.

And if either of these operators fail to deliver you are left with little or no improvement to your business and a big bill to pay.
This is why you buy both in one. Strategists/Copywriters are able to put forward solutions to your problems and deliver a finished system. And finished systems implemented deliver value to your business.

Mistake Number 6: Buying an Overhaul

Marketing ‘overhaul’ programs. Yes they work but they use a one size fits all approach. A lot like a model T Ford – you can have any colour you want as long as it is black…
Firstly you have done something right already. Your business is working in an absolute sense. If your ‘dollars in’ is greater than ‘dollars out’, them some of your marketing is working. An overhaul will just throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is a reckless and clumsy approach.

Real strategists will look at what your business is doing currently find the individual areas that need to be improved and work on those. Who in their right mind tinkers with what is working? There is no point trying to improve what is already working and is not a bottleneck in your business. (To understand more about bottlenecks see the “Finding Exactly What is Holding Your Business Back” booklet included in this package)
Do they guarantee results? The overhaul provider has complete control of everything that is being delivered strategy, copy, design… There should be a guarantee of performance.

They are giving you a new marketing system that should outperform your current one. Surely they would guarantee that it will work? And if it is going to work why would they not want to share in some of the improvement? What sort of business person wouldn’t be willing to partner with a marketing strategist and share 15 cents out each additional dollar made if they couldn’t have made it without the partnership. 85% of a pie twice as large is much more than 100% of the original pie.

And again they are asking you to shoulder all the risk. Makes no sense really. Unless they are in the business of churning out overhauls using a cookie cutter formula and chucking them over the fence hoping that there aren’t too many refunds.

Mistake Number 7: Not valuing the work properly

Sounds stupid but – the creation and implementation of marketing assets is highly valuable. This is what you are asking to have done when you retain a marketing strategist and copywriter. You are asking them to improve the assets in your business so that it can better turn strangers into leads. Leads into sales, and sales into lifetime customers. All with the purpose of increasing profits.

What determines how well a company does this, is its sales and marketing. In particular its marketing system. A great asset to any business is a system that you put a dollar in and a dollar comes out plus a customer that will repeatedly purchase from the business. What would you be willing to pay well for the construction of the asset?

Look at the valuation of apartment buildings. They are valued based on their future earnings. A capital cost is paid for a recurring revenue stream. (Never are they talked about in terms of their cost to build). Think of your marketing the same way.

It is a capital cost to build a revenue stream, and it keeps working long after it has paid for itself. Viewing this effort as the investment it is, will make marketing purchases seem incredibly cheap because they are effectively going to put more money in your pocket than you had before and keep putting it there long after it has paid for itself.
There you have it.

In order to get maximum value out of your relationship with a copywriter and strategic marketing advisor you need to bring a clear head to the table so that you can focus on the right things to improve your business. Hire a strategist that can also write your copy and be sure that they have relevant experience and are willing to assess your situation on its merits to find the best opportunities to suit you.