Zine

In this busy marketplace where consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages everyday, you must find a way to stand apart from the rest.

How?

By making a direct, personal connection with them.

And we believe this is best done through consistently and correctly applied direct-response marketing principles.

There are two aspects to making a connection with your market 

One is creating a powerful marketing message that starts with an irresistible offer.

Free offers tend to be the most irresistible kind. That’s right, give them something first before you ask them to give you money.

This is the idea behind education-based marketing. Instead of marketing your services or your products, you market free information designed to help them and educate them to become better consumers.

Once they request your free information (this is the core of direct-response advertising), you instantly become a welcomed guest instead of an unwanted pest, and your marketing messages no longer fall on deaf ears.

Two is weaving a compelling story in your marketing message that touches their emotions.

This is typically done with what we call “pain points.” What is your prospects biggest fear, pain, discomfort in doing business with companies like you? You need to talk about these things so they know you “get it” and come to the conclusion that you are best qualified to meet their need and avoid the pain and discomfort they fear so much.

Another way to get your message read and touch their emotions is by sharing your story. Be personal. Put a face to your business. Be willing to be authentic and transparent and suddenly, you become much more interesting and different.

Creating an effective marketing message requires you to dare to be different and do the opposite of what your competitors are doing. 

It also requires that the people who are in charge of creating your marketing understand direct-response advertising. (Here’s a fun article about that).

We have a more intense aversion to a poor marketing message than we do to poor design. That is why we will always take the time to help you not just with a stunning design, but also to create a powerful message that can be used over and over again in all of your print marketing efforts.

But don’t take our word for it:

I worked with Kia on developing an ad with a very short deadline. Kia was a terrific asset in brainstorming ideas and providing the kind of input necessary to create an ad that was different from our competitors. Kia took what was a vague idea and turned in into a stunning ad that far exceeded my expectations. Thank you so much for your great work and I look forward to working with you again in the future.

Greg Jimeno, Jimeno & Gray, PA
Glen Burnie, MD

 

If you have a marketing or design project in mind and would like to chat with me, send us a note. We’ll send you some additional information and get a call scheduled.

Or, if you want a deeper, more strategic consultation, request a Marketing Assets Analysis.

Happy Marketing to You,

Kia Arian and the Zine Design Team

Helpful Links

Top Ten Biggest Mistakes Business Owners Make in Their Marketing
What Kind Of Marketing & Advertising Are YOU Doing?
Take Our Cosmo Quiz: Are we for you?

David Ogilvy is known as the father of modern advertising. His insights and ideas on advertising are legendary and still adhered to today in many successful campaigns. As with many geniuses, Ogilvy lead an interesting life. And he was a prolific writer. I ran across this gem recently and had to share it here. In a letter to Mr. Ray Calt in 1955, Ogilvy explains his process for writing advertising copy. It is not unlike our creative process here sometimes, except we substitute coffee for rum.

April 19, 1955
Dear Mr. Calt:

On March 22nd you wrote to me asking for some notes on my work habits as a copywriter. They are appalling, as you are about to see:

1. I have never written an advertisement in the office. Too many interruptions. I do all my writing at home.
2. I spend a long time studying the precedents. I look at every advertisement which has appeared for competing products during the past 20 years.
3. I am helpless without research material—and the more “motivational” the better.
4. I write out a definition of the problem and a statement of the purpose which I wish the campaign to achieve. Then I go no further until the statement and its principles have been accepted by the client.
5. Before actually writing the copy, I write down every conceivable fact and selling idea. Then I get them organized and relate them to research and the copy platform.
6. Then I write the headline. As a matter of fact I try to write 20 alternative headlines for every advertisement. And I never select the final headline without asking the opinion of other people in the agency. In some cases I seek the help of the research department and get them to do a split-run on a battery of headlines.
7. At this point I can no longer postpone the actual copy. So I go home and sit down at my desk. I find myself entirely without ideas. I get bad-tempered. If my wife comes into the room I growl at her. (This has gotten worse since I gave up smoking.)
8. I am terrified of producing a lousy advertisement. This causes me to throw away the first 20 attempts.
9. If all else fails, I drink half a bottle of rum and play a Handel oratorio on the gramophone. This generally produces an uncontrollable gush of copy.
10. The next morning I get up early and edit the gush.
11. Then I take the train to New York and my secretary types a draft. (I cannot type, which is very inconvenient.)
12. I am a lousy copywriter, but I am a good editor. So I go to work editing my own draft. After four or five editings, it looks good enough to show to the client. If the client changes the copy, I get angry—because I took a lot of trouble writing it, and what I wrote I wrote on purpose.

Altogether it is a slow and laborious business. I understand that some copywriters have much greater facility.

Yours sincerely,
D.O.