Volume #3
“In marketing I've seen only one strategy that can't miss -- and that is to market to your best customers first, your best prospects second and the rest of the world last.”
John Romero
How to use special reports to quickly
attract dozens of ideal new clients
I’m a big fan of marketing strategies that require very little effort to use yet produce remarkable results when you use them.
A perfect example of this is using special reports to attract new clients. I’ve personally used special reports for myself and my clients for over 19 years.
Special reports are still one of the most effective marketing strategies I know.
What is a special report?
Think of a special report as being a ‘how to’ guide related to your product or service.
In your special report you will answer the common questions a customer has about your product or service.
Your special report will show your customer the steps involved in buying your product or service and also show them the common mistakes to avoid.
Your special report will often have insider secrets and special tips that a typical new customer will probably not know about. Ideally it will also have a number of real life examples so the person reading it will understand clearly the points you are making.
So your special report is something that a potential new customer will find very helpful if they are thinking about purchasing the products or services you sell.
Here’s a good example of how well special reports can work...
The home relocation firm that attracted millions of dollars of new clients:
A few years ago I met a person named Grant who owned a very successful home relocation business. The service Grant’s firm offered involves physically moving an entire home from one location to another on the back of large trucks. This is an expensive service costing at least $20,000 or more for each home they relocate.
It is also a very complicated service. Often a house had to be cut into several sections and each section was then transported individually. Each section then had to be put back together at the other end. There are numerous permits and consents needed from the local councils for every home relocation.
Skilled trade’s people are needed to disconnect wiring and plumbing. Grant’s firm has to be very careful no damage was done at any stage. Traffic and weather were important factors and on it went.
There were several other home relocation businesses in Grant’s area and he had the biggest and most successful one. However he was still keen to get more sales.
I explained the special report concept to Grant and suggested he use it.
Over the next two weeks he wrote a short special report called ‘11 secrets to successfully relocating your home”. In his special report Grant included 11 tips on what you should do if you wanted to successful relocate your home.
One tip was ‘Make sure you have all the required permits and consents before you do anything.’ Grant then listed all the resources and consents you would normally need to get. (And there were quite a few.)
He then gave an interesting example of someone he met that didn’t get the required permits first. This person relocated his home and then found he had to wait six months to live in it because the permits had not been done first.
Grant found his special report very easy to write. All he was doing was writing down the major steps his company normally followed with every home relocation.
With each step Grant would give a paragraph or two of helpful information and a relevant example or story.
He then added a few interesting photos of actual homes being relocated and his report was complete. Grant told me it took him about fifteen hours in total to write his special report. I also showed Grant how to quickly collect some wonderful testimonials from his best clients and we included many of these in his report.
Grant next placed a very small ad in the local newspaper in the real estate section.
His ad looked something like this:
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Home Relocation Warning:
If you are thinking of relocating your home, don’t do anything until you get a copy of my Free Special Report ’The 11 Secrets to Successfully Relocating your Home’.
Get your free copy by phoning 1234-5678 |
The first time he ran this ad it he received close to 40 enquiries from people ordering his special report.
So he now had 40 prospects to talk to about his home relocation service. And all of these prospects now thought of Grant’s company as an expert because of the helpful information in his special report.
Grant made a sale of his home relocation services to several of the people who ordered his special report off this initial small ad. At $20,000 minimum for each sale, the whole exercise was very profitable. Grant told me it was also very easy to do and a lot of fun.
Grant told me recently that he has used this same special report for over eight years now and it is still an amazingly effective way of generating new clients for his firm.
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“Graham I first used two of your marketing ideas about eight years ago. Using these two ideas has been one of the most profitable things we’ve ever done. I conservatively estimate we have generated over eight million dollars ($8,000,000) of new sales since we began using them. Yet they were so simple to do. In less than two weeks we had the ideas up and working for us. Thanks for all your help”
Grant Laing Managing Director Laing Building Relocators |
One of the best things about using special reports is that it
eliminates the hard work of ‘chasing’ new clients.
It’s a lot more fun when they are ‘attracted’ to your business instead.
How do you create a good special report?
1: The starting point of a good special report is having a title that would appeal to a potential client.
Think of the title of your special report as being like the headline for an advertisement. An interesting headline will get the reader to read the advertisement.
If you sold luxury boats a simple title could be
“The insiders guide to buying a luxury boat”
If you renovate homes your title could be
“The six biggest mistakes in renovating your home”
2: Include valuable and useful ideas and tips in your special report.
This is a critical key to making a special report work well. It must contain useful tips and helpful hints that a potential client would benefit from reading.
Here are the types of ideas and tips you could include in your special report...
- Show them the potential problems that can happen and how to avoid them.
- Tell them the mistakes that people make when buying your product or service and give them the most important questions they should always ask.
- Show them what to look for and what to avoid when buying your type of product or service. Give them some valuable insider tips.
- Make sure you do all this in a way that is simple and easy to understand.
3: Once you have completed your special report you now want to get a good number of potential clients to order your special report:
There are dozens of different ways to do this. You could use an ad on a website, a display advertisement in a publication your potential client will read and you can also send them a personalised letter.
Special reports can be used to magnetically attract dozens of ideal new clients for any business. And best of all they are very easy to produce and put together.
Best of all they don’t even have to be that good to work well.
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The ‘Plain Jane’ special report:
The very first special report I ever wrote was called “The seven biggest mistakes that salespeople make every week”. At the time I wrote this special report I was selling sales training programmes. I wrote this special report initially as a free bonus and mailed it to about 50 clients who had purchased my sales training programmes. My special report was 8 pages long and very plainly presented. It was photocopied in black & white.
I called this my ‘Plain Jane’ special report because it was definitely very ordinary looking. Over a year later this ‘Plain Jane’ special report was found in an employee’s desk by the training manager of one of the largest banks in the country.
This training manager phoned me and told me she really enjoyed the ideas in this special report. She made an appointment to meet with me a few days later and purchased on the spot a large amount of the training programmes I had for sale.
We never did find out how the special report got there; because the bank (up to then) had never been one of my customers. |
So don’t wait until your special report is perfect in every way before you use it.
Just give your special report an interesting title and then decide on a few key points or ideas you want to cover. Then invite a number of potential clients to order it and you are in business.
Summary:
I recommend you use special reports in your own business. You’ll be amazed at how well this will work to attract dozens of delighted clients who are keen to spend money with you.
Have a wonderful month and I’ll be in touch again soon with the next volume of Easy Business Success.
Copyright © 2009 by Graham McGregor All Rights Reserved
You can contact Graham at www.twomac.co.nz |
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