The late Gary Halbert said that “Successful marketing is about impact.”

You can have effective marketing that makes an impact by using strong, emotion-driven copy.

Or you can add impact to create effective marketing with a powerful, irresistible offer.

With effective marketing you can even have visual impact with a unique, attention-grabbing look and feel and that’s what I am going to focus on in this article.

Recently two events gave me the idea for a unique, attention-grabbing effective marketing piece that I am going to start using in my marketing and now you can too.

The first event was my recent trip to Europe. My family and I were able to spend two weeks cruising around the Mediterranean Sea on a Disney cruise. We visited eight different ports including Barcelona, Naples, Rome and Corsica.

It was a great time and the sights and history we experience are unforgettable.

As you know, to travel around Europe, you need a passport, which I pretty much carried on me at all times. If you have a passport, you know it’s a unique-looking document in a compact format (which triggers ideas to my marketing brain).

But it was the second event that triggered my idea to create a brand new effective marketing piece. Recently my wife gave me a membership into a cigar-of-the-month club (yes, enjoying a good cigar is one of my vices) and when I receive my welcome kit, they included a passport-looking piece that described the benefits of my membership.

Since I am always on the lookout for unique and effective marketing ideas I can use in my business, these two events triggered the idea I could do the same thing with my CopyDoodles Access Club welcome kit and include a passport in it for new members.

So I created my “Passport to Profits” CopyTemplate, which I shared with CopyDoodles Access Club Platinum members this month. It is a done-for-you effective marketing template that is perfect for anybody with a membership program or even as part of a marketing sequence to fill an event.

This CopyTemplate includes everything you need to create your own effective passport marketing piece for your business and the only thing you need to figure out is how to apply it to your business and use it as effective marketing!

If you’re a current CopyDoodles Access Club Platinum member, log in today and check it out and if you’re not, I invite you to visit www.copydoodles.com and become a member today to start creating more successful, effective marketing pieces!

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In more practical terms, what I mean by “marketing context” is the appropriateness and sensibility of a particular marketing message delivered to a particular target in a particular way.

For example, you should be talking to your current customers/clients/patients differently than you would talk to a cold prospect.  When talking to a customer, the context of your relationship allows you to be more informal and personal because of the existing relationship.

With a prospect, the relationship has yet to be created, so the context of the relationship is one of a “warm-up period” where, over time, you allow them to get to know, like and trust you.  I always use the analogy of dating.  Chances are most people do not ask their spouse to marry them on the first date.  There is a courting period, an engagement period and finally marriage.

Let me share a specific example of marketing context and how it relates to day-to-day marketing.  My friend and mentor, Bill Glazer, often talks about his most successful marketing piece which was a four-page letter on yellow legal paper that appeared to be hand-written.  The piece generated a ton of business and Bill even won an industry award because of its success and uniqueness.

Other marketers see this letter and try to emulate Bill’s success.  In particular, I heard about one story where a marketer basically did the same thing Bill did, but got ZERO RESPONSE.

The reason Bill was successful and this other person was not was because Bill understood the context of how to use the handwritten letter, whereas the other person did not. In Bill’s situation, he sent the letter to people who already knew him and knew what he stood for (including some pretty outrageous marketing).  The context of the relationship was familiarity and a hand-written letter from Bill was congruent with the relationship.

On the other hand, the marketer who copied the letter, sent it to COLD PROSPECTS!  Think about this for a second.  You receive a funky-looking, handwritten letter from somebody you don’t know.  Does this make sense?

Probably not, which is why his response rate was zero.

I teach people how to improve the attention-grabbing power of their marketing by using copy cosmetics.  These are proven techniques to grab attention and keep the reader reading.  In the case of Bill Glazer’s sales letter he used several techniques, including simulated handwriting.

So even though I am a huge fan of copy cosmetics there are times when the marketing context dictates I use only a few copy cosmetic techniques.  For example, when I create a multi-step, lead-generation direct mail sequence, I tend to use only the basic copy cosmetic techniques like underlining, boldfacing, subheads, etc.

However on subsequent steps, I may techniques that convey a more informal approach, such has handwritten notes, because I have already started a relationship with the reader.  Their use is suitable as the reader starts to get to know me.

You should always be considering the context of your marketing message and consider whether or not it makes sense for your target.  Is it appropriate for the current state of your relationship and the situation surrounding it?  Most importantly, remember, the context is from the point of view of your target - NOT YOU!

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If you do the math… that’s a return on investment of $130 for every dollar he spent – not bad, huh?  I want to share what Justin did because it’s a classic example of three important strategies.

First, Justin understands the importance of getting attention and standing out.  Second it uses the power of testimonials and third it shows Justin’s ability to get things done and not worry about perfection.

I also want to share it with you because it’s such a simple strategy ANYBODY reading this post can use.

So what did Justin do to get such an amazing return on investment?  Did he spend weeks reading books on how to create an ad?  Did he look at what his competition was doing and do the same?  Did he spend hours upon hours “researching?”

Not quite.

Justin took out one of those little business card ads in a local publication (a good market to media match), but rather than simply photocopy his business card (like everyone else does) Justin used my CopyDoodles.com site and created something that looked like a handwritten testimonial from one of his clients.

Click on the ad to see the larger version and tell me that Justin’s ad doesn’t get your attention when compared to all the other “business cards?”

It’s beautifully simple in its effectiveness and its ability to capture attention.

Now the funny thing is when Justin shared this with our group, we all immediately started to try to “fix it” and make it better.  Sure he could have made an offer.  Sure he could have offered multiple ways to respond.  But you can’t argue with success.

He’s already gotten one deal worth over $3K and several other new leads that could turn his measly $25 investment into one of his most successful marketing efforts this year.

In this day and age of marketing that looks the same wherever you go, it’s critical you create marketing that stands out and gets attention.   Whatever you do, don’t create “plain vanilla” marketing!

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