“Consumer confidence is the degree of optimism on the state of the economy that consumers are expressing through their activities of saving and spending. This confidence is measured by the U.S. Consumer Confidence Index (CCI). In the United States, the CCI is issued monthly by The Conference Board, an independent economic research organization.”

Yakety-yak.

For the last few years, I’ve found a far more reliable indicator I can see (and taste) up close.

And though this data will never make it into a General Accounting Office publication, I trust it implicitly.

What is it?

Why, it’s the Costco Confidence Index: a simple measure of consumer confidence, easily gauged by going to your nearest Costco, and seeing how much stuff is in shoppers’ wagons.

Costco is is the largest membership warehouse club chain and the third largest retailer in the U.S.

What’s interesting about Costco, unlike Walmart, is you can just as easily be standing on line behind a single working parent who’s stocking up on toilet paper, as you can a surgeon buying brie and bordeaux for a dinner party. [Read more…] about The Costco Confidence Index

If you live in the U.S. and have ever acted on a hot stock tip, chances are you receive your fair share of pump and dump stock promotions.

These are the kind of mail pieces that trumpet everything from obscure small cap companies, touting the latest  miracle technology that’s rivaled only by time travel… to mining and mineral companies on the cusp of discovering the motherlode of the ages.

But it doesn’t really matter what the company is, or what product they’re selling because you’ve gotta get on board right now before the stock takes off.

That’s always the message: get in now or get left behind.

If you only bought 1,000 shares of xyx company last year, why now, you’d be cradling a pina colada on the beach in Maui.

[Read more…] about Chairman Mao Wants You To Be Rich!

A visit to Rome last month sparked an idea for writing a report on creating breakthrough information products.

Here’s how it happened.

I met up with an American friend who’s been living in Italy for the last few years.

He manages several modestly successful investment funds, yet complains about how expensive it is paying for everything in euros, while keeping most of his assets in dollars.

Understandable.

Besides the fact that you could buy a euro for 85 cents in October of 2001 and it now costs $1.55, many items are now priced higher in euros on a pure 1-to-1 basis.

So, later that evening when the currency complaint came up again (and after a few bottles of Pinot Grigio), I suggested to my friend that he could even the exchange rate simply by making a lot more dollars.

He and several others at the table looked at me with a mixture of suspicion and intrigue. [Read more…] about 7 Breakthrough Info Marketing Offers And How To Create Your Own

Testing.

Most marketers and copywriters know the importance of it.

They pay lip service to it.

But so few do it consistently.

In many ways, testing was a lot easier to understand (and explain) before the advent of the Internet.

Thanks to powerful software and the ability to manipulate countless factors on a web page, the terms multivariate and taguchi became all the rage a few years ago. And lots of people got caught up in the bells and whistles.

These are great but it’s pointless for marketers to dive into them if they haven’t mastered the basic A/B split test.

Here’s what I tell clients who are new to testing.

1) Remember the K.I.S.S. principle and…

2) Test big factors.

So, what are the big factors to test?

There are plenty, but it’s hard to get bigger than the headline.

The legendary adman, John Caples, evangelized about the importance of headlines and influenced the thinking of every major ad writer who’s come after him.

(Later this week, I’ll have a series of space ads he not only helped create but was the front man in.)

The direct mail package above for the red wine extract, resveratrol, has been mailing strong for over five years.

It’s one of the true Energizer Bunnies of direct mail with no signs of quitting.

If you want to really understand the nuances of what makes a winner tick, this is worth checking out.

And only one significant factor has changed in over five years — the headline.

From:

How The French Live 42 Percent Longer Than Everyone Else

To:

How The French Live Longer Than Everyone Else

Why is the second headline the new control?

That’s the kind of question that helps you really understand how to harmonize with your market.

And the fastest way to get there is by testing.

Next post: testing appeals in your ads — something Caples was fanatical about.

93 Extraordinary Referral Systems

Looking for a basic referral rewards program that works?

This is a bare-bones template for new customer acquisition I used with some of the hardest hit restaurant owners in Post- 9/11 Downtown Manhattan.

I wish I could report that I rescued every client who was wise enough to retain me. That would be crazy though — just as crazy as starting a marketing consulting business in Post-9/11 New York.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it would have been worth paying for the privilege to work in that time and place and under those conditions.

What I found out was there was a fair number of Uptown residents who felt an obligation to help their Downtown neighbors, so when these little referral invitations made their way into their hands, many Uptowners made the effort to take a bus or subway downtown to patronize these restaurants.

The business owner should not expect an overnight stampede.

What you’re doing is planting a lot of little seeds and waiting patiently for the harvest. The goal here is getting the recipients of the referral invitation to convert to returning customers.

[Read more…] about Referral Marketing: Setting Up a Basic Referral Rewards System

Phyllis Robinson was one of the major forces in late 20th Century advertising.

When Bill Bernbach opened the doors to Doyle, Dane & Bernbach in 1949 — what would soon become one of Madison Avenue’s dominant agencies — he recruited Phyllis Robinson to run the copy department.

She became the mentor to numerous copywriters and designers who blazed trails in the advertising world including: Paula Green, Julian Koenig, Mary Wells Lawrence and George Lois.

Phyllis Robinson, the original mad woman, died on December 31st in Manhattan.

Got quite a few emails since blasting a message out about Dr. Mark Stengler’s High Energy for Life Video series.

Emails like:

this promotion is not congruent with the reasons people signed up to your list! (Yes, I know, a high percentage of people want to lose weight.)

And another:

I was expecting something about marketing…so was going back and forth in my mind as I was reading it:

“Is this a weight loss marketing example?…no it looks like a straight promotion…but I’ve never  gotten one from Lawrence before…there must be something about marketing…lemme look again…etc.

And last:

Weight loss promo? Does not compute. Would  Clayton or Gary mail a weight loss promo?

So, I see how this message may have caused a disconnect.

[Read more…] about High Energy for Life Video Series (Dr. Mark Stengler)

Alternative medicine practitioners and marketers in the United Kingdom have been bracing for this for a while.

The Belgian bureaucrats are putting the clamp down on sales of herbal products across the board.

Herbalists, Chinese medicine practitioners and supplement sellers will now have to obtain a “license” for each herb they sell.  All this loveliness starts on May 1st.

And the cost?

A mere 100,000 pounds for each herbal component. Of course, this is going to spur a massive black market of unsafe product.

Marketers and writers in the States complain about compliance copy — seems like we’ve got it easy.

Here’s an article on this from The Independent last week.

Welcome to 2011!

It’s not only the start of a new year, as well as a new decade, but 2011 is a mathematically loaded year.

1/1/11 is a week away, 11/11/11 is a mere ten months from here.

2011 is also the first prime number year since 2003.

The definition of a prime number (in case you were out smoking during math class) is a number that can be divided evenly only by 1 or itself.

The number 2011, it turns out, is the sum of 11 consecutive prime numbers: 2011=157+163+167+173+179+181+191+193+197+199+211.

Exciting news if you’re into prime numbers or have an eleven fetish, but what’s this New Year really mean?
[Read more…] about 2011: Your Not To Do List

Exactly seven years ago, I was holed up in a military barracks in the far flung Andean city of San Cristóbal, Venezuela.

To this day, whether you’re in downtown Caracas or an Andean village, Venezuela is not the place you want to walk around the streets wearing a t-shirt with the American flag…unless you’ve got a giant chip on your shoulder.

And in those days, our cuddly President of the time, “Dubya,” had just botched a coup attempt against the colorful, Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez.

No, I wasn’t engaged in some risky “import-export” operation, though I can imagine professions less conducive to interned life than copywriting. 🙂

So, what was I doing there?

[Read more…] about Millionaire Marketing Student Vs. Drug Dealer

Bill Steinhardt was at the center of direct marketing and mail order copywriting for 60 years.

He was not only one of the highest practitioners of our direct response craft but a lifelong “amateur” in the truest denotation of the word: he loved direct response advertising, persuasion and learning in all of its forms.

He passed away on July 28, at Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas at the age of 83. He told me, less than a month ago, that he wanted to make it to his second Bar Mitzvah and that he did. He knew his days were numbered and he gave such an address after the ceremony that he received an ovation — something usually never done in the synagogue.

Bill began his career in 1950 as a copywriter with the mail-order advertising firm of Huber Hoge & Sons in New York. He worked arm-in-arm with the legendary copywriter, Eugene Schwartz, and numerous other mail order luminaries.

Like his friend and colleague, Gene Schwartz, Bill became intensely involved with spiritual matters at the end of his life and wrote several world-class ads related to the role of faith in everyday life.

What I learned from Bill was if you love your craft — really love your craft — money, friends and fulfillment will come in abundance.

Here’s a passage from his address of June 4, 2010.

At this point, my time is running low while standing before you. Anyway, my wife kept reminding me to keep my comments short . . . short . . . short — and then, to hammer in a final exclamation nail, added that — for my remarks to be immortal, they need not be eternal!

Albert Lasker was surely one of the most fascinating advertising figures of the 20th Century.

At the age of 12, he wrote, edited and owned a newspaper: the Galveston Free Press.

When he moved to Chicago at the turn of the 20th Century, the teenager took the tiny agency, Lord & Thomas, by storm. He became a client-getting magnet and within a few years, he increased his partial stake in the firm to sole ownership.

Now, there’s a new book about him called: The Man Who Sold America: The Amazing (but True!) Story of Albert D. Lasker and the Creation of the Advertising Century by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and Arthur W. Schultz.

I amazoned my copy as soon as I read Ken Roman’s book review in the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

Just found a slew of amazing Lord & Thomas houses ads which I’ll be posting soon.

Imagine a company that spends tens of millions a year on lead generation — everything from TV and radio to full page space ads and direct mail and banners all over the net.

One such company is Fisher Investments with over $35 billion under management and headed by Forbes columnist, Ken Fisher.

How does such a behemoth screw up the email marketing basics like this?

Here was the email sent by Fisher Investments on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 2:38 PM PT. Imagine how many names this went out to with a marketing budget like theirs.

Subject: Surprising Prediction by Forbes Columnist Ken Fisher

Body: “If you have a $500,000 portfolio, you should download the latest report by Forbes columnist Ken Fisher. In it he tells you where he thinks the stock market is headed and why.

This must-read report includes his latest stock market prediction, plus research and analysis you can use in your portfolio right now.”

And now for the capper. There was no link in the email message.

This is an email marketing sin if ever there were one. The subject line was intriguing enough that it got me to open it — no small accomplishment these days.

Then I’m told an expert will be sharing a valuable prediction for where the market is headed. Okay, I’m ready for the content — beam me up Scotty.

And then…

They drop the ball. No link and no possibility for finding out this information. Moreover, there’s no chance for Fisher to gain a shred of business from such a gaff.

They did take the trouble to qualify the reader with the phrase: “If you have a $500,000 portfolio…” but that certainly wasn’t a condition for receiving the latest report. Was it?

Or maybe it was just a really sophisticated way of conveying that Fisher thinks the market is going sideways by omitting the link.

Either way, you always need to verify you’ve got a functioning link in your email message if your intention is to give your subscribers valuable content on a web page.

If you’re an email marketer, one way to get an immediate pop from your marketing efforts is to concentrate on your email marketing subject lines.

Hundreds of email marketers have already grabbed this subject line collection and discovered…

“How To (Almost) Guarantee Your Emails Get Opened…Read…and Acted Upon…Even While Your Customers Are Twittering, Skyping, Facebooking…and Bouncing Among 10 Browser Tabs”