I hope you don’t mind, but I have to publicly congratulate my 16 year old daughter, Belle.

Last week, she was made Head Girl at her prestigious London school!

To be honest, the result was never really in doubt.

She’s incredibly driven and ambitious.

It also helps that she’s clever, funny, articulate, popular, approachable and kind too.

Ok, so I’m completely biased…

And I’d love to claim that she gets all of these traits from me, but suspect they come from Heloise’s side of the family! 😉

Anyway, Belle’s determination to win over others was evident from an early age.

Long time readers might recall back in 2019, Belle conducted an all-out marketing campaign to persuade Heloise and I to get a dog.

(And before you ask… yes, it worked and we got our mad Cavapoochon Lulu in January 2020)

In fact, I was so impressed by Belle’s marketing skills I dedicated an entire newsletter to them, revealing how the techniques she used could be easily applied to any home business.

And I thought it was worth pulling out of the archive and republishing. I must admit it still makes me laugh and there are plenty of potentially profitable nuggets in there.

Here it is (and make sure you check out the photos!)…

“Help, I’m Being Direct Mailed By My 10-Year-Old Daughter!”

I’ll say it straight.

I am not a big fan of dogs.

Apologies, if you’re a lover of canine company – please don’t email me with an angry case for the defence, as it’s not really dogs themselves that I have a problem with.

It’s the owning of a dog that I’m not up for.

For me, they’re just too needy (and smelly… and noisy) and I don’t have the time and commitment to properly look after one.

I’ve got a close friend who’s had a dog for eleven years, and he’s constantly worrying about dog-care arrangements, walking around with plastic bags of poo, and mopping mud from his kitchen floor.

I’m a cat person, and as the owner of two of them, I think they’re much easier to care for.

They own you, rather than the other way around.

Plus they look after themselves most of the time, grooming themselves and taking themselves for walks.

So you’d think that’d be the end of the story, right?

Well no, because I have a major problem….

My ten-year old daughter does NOT agree with me.

Belle absolutely loves dogs.

Even more so, she loves the idea of owning one.

And with that aim firmly in mind, she has embarked upon an aggressive direct marketing campaign to petition me to get a dog.

Belle has used old fashioned paper items to create a combined assault on my emotions.

Letters about why we should get a dog…. cute drawings…. photos of dogs… even the free gift of a mini toy dog.

What’s striking is that her methods are not unlike those used in the traditional direct mail campaigns I helped create in the 1990s, before all this internet malarkey came along.

In those days you’d open a direct mail package to find letters, brochures, forms and freebies, all with the sole aim of getting the reader to subscribe, enquire or make a purchase.

In fact, she has nailed those techniques so instinctively that I thought I’d share her direct marketing campaign with you, with the aim of giving you some fundamentals.

You can use these for anything you want to sell (or even just to use as persuasion techniques to get what you want ;-)).

Get Attention!

In the old direct mail days, envelopes had some copy on them to make you notice them in the pile of post that came through the letterbox.

The internet version of this is the subject line of an email, or the piece of copy on a Facebook post or Tweet.

They can either:

• Flag up the prospect, alerting the kind of reader you want to reach that your message is of relevance,
• State a bold promise about the benefits of reading on,
• Or they can build a sense of anticipation for what’s inside, using intrigue and mystery

Here’s Belle’s…. (she keeps her copy simple and gets straight to the point).

Talk Directly To The Customer

You should persuade just ONE person – the ideal target customer – and speak to them directly. This way you establish a personal, direct form of communication.

It can be an email, a landing page (a single webpage laid out like a letter) or a traditional letter, which is the option Belle chose – addressing it directly to me.

Note that she addressed my negative views about dogs right up front.

That’s why knowing your customer intimately is so important. Do your research so that you know in advance their world view, likes and dislikes, fears and hopes.

Pitch The Ideal Outcome

To persuade someone to take an action, for instance clicking on a link or buying a product, you need to convince them of the benefits of doing so.

In direct marketing sales letters, this often takes the form of an ‘ideal outcome’.

That is, what would the best-case scenario of owning this product be?

To start with, Belle has drawn her ‘dream doggie’ – one that I will like, which is calm and well-behaved.

Secondly, she has found a photograph and used it to help me visualise my future with a dog.

This technique is especially effective because she has used images of young people in an idyllic setting in order to entice me.

When I look at that, I’m now thinking – “a dog will keep me young, keep me fit and get Heloise and I out into the scenic parts of London”.

Remember, you’re not only selling a product, you’re selling a lifestyle – a dream – a transformation!

Free Gift

One of the best ways to delight and surprise the potential customer is to offer them something for free.

It’s a quick way to gain trust, establish that you genuinely have something to offer, and give them a taste of what to expect.

It also taps into the principle of reciprocity.

That is, when you are given something of value for nothing by a stranger, you feel instinctively like giving them something in return, be it your continued attention, your mouse click, your “like” or “share” on social media.

It could be a free sample, free trial, free report or webinar.

In this case, Belle decided to leave a cute toy of a dog on my bed.

Tap Into Deeper Emotions

Really good sales pitches don’t just lay out the features and benefits of a product…

They get deep into core emotions like guilt, fear, envy, hope, desire and anger…

People buy almost entirely based on emotion, not logic, so if you identify some of those core emotions, you can often fast-track your way to sale.

Belle decided to tug on my heart strings by creating a fictional unhappy dog, abandoned by its owners, waiting in a rescue shelter to be adopted.

Look at his sad little face!

Damn, she’s good.

Emotive Images

You can appeal to other senses than just logic by including images and illustrations.

Images are powerful elements of effective product packaging and should be displayed on your website as well as in emails, Facebook posts and Tweets.

They catch attention, yes, but more importantly, they can communicate subtle messages in milliseconds that words take longer to deliver.

Belle combined her slightly psychedelic image with an emotional plea, “PLEASE?!” and also a bit of factual information.

The ‘Halo Effect’

One proven way to persuade a potential customer that you have something great to offer is to show that other esteemed celebrities and experts ALSO like similar products.

This is called the ‘halo effect’.

It doesn’t even have to be that the esteemed person has bought your actual product.

An example might be that you sell bubble tea – and you find a photo in the papers of Prince William drinking bubble tea.

By talking about that in a blog, email, tweet or Facebook post, you can bask in the glow of that famous person’s endorsement.

What Belle did was write out a poem called ‘Nice Doggie’ by Spike Milligan, a comedian I admire.

Overcoming Objections…

Whenever you’re trying to sell something, the person on the other end will have a certain resistance to your offer.

If you have a product or service, think of every objection a customer might have, write them down and then painstakingly overcome each one. Once you’ve covered every possibility, get that into your sales materials.

You need to overcome each of their objections if you’re to succeed.

To try and get across why I didn’t want to get a dog, I wrote out a list of objections (in part to teach her about how to overcome them).

These included…

• We already have two cats whose emotional well-being we need to consider…
• Dogs need two walks per day and you (Belle) will be at school, so who will walk them?
• What do we do about going on holiday? Who will look after the dog then?
• What happens when Heloise and I are at work all day?

As you might notice from some of the images I’ve already shown you, Belle is adding statements that overcome them – although admittedly she has a way to go yet.

Ultimately, while I REALLY don’t want a dog, I am very impressed by Belle’s determination.

Thanks to her persistent methods of persuasion I have agreed to – like Brexit – a delay in making a decision.

She needs to practice for her entrance exams for school and get the interviews out of the way first, then we will sit down as a family and discuss the pros and cons.

Hopefully by that point her enthusiasm will have abated a little.

But I won’t hold my breath.