My Marketing Checklist

 By Ben Hart

This is a checklist I have in front of me whenever I sit down to write a sales letter, an ad, or map out a marketing campaign. 

It's a checklist I have developed and perfected during my 20+ years in the direct marketing field -- a checklist that has helped me generate more than $500,000,000 in sales over the last two decades. 

I think you will find it extraordinarily useful as you map out your own marketing campaigns. So here it is:

Your Marketing Checklist

___ Are you writing/marketing to people who you know want the product you are selling?

___ Is your main headline on your ad or sales letter an intriguing attention-getter that stresses the very best benefit to the reader?

___ Can your reader grasp what you are offering in three seconds or less?

___ Have you written your letter or ad from the prospect’s perspective, not from your perspective?

___ Are your claims backed up with facts, a track-record, testimonials?

___ Does your ad or sales letter answer the six key questions:

WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? and HOW?

___ Are your claims 100% true? (Readers and listeners will sense a snow job.)

___ What is your Unique Selling Proposition (U.S.P.)? What makes you different?

___ Are you treating your readers and listeners as if they are idiots. (Big mistake if you are.)

___ Is your offer irresistible?

___ Is your guarantee bold, eye-popping, and attention-getting? (i.e. double-your-money-back)

___ Do you have a deadline for the offer to expire and a good reason for the deadline?

___ Is it easy to order?

___ Have you told your prospect exactly how to respond with step-by-step instructions?

___ Have you told your prospect who you are?

___ Is your letter, your ad easy to read, scannable, with lots of headlines, sub-heads, strategic underlines?

___ Is your letter written in a conversational, friendly style?

___ Have you anticipated and answered all your reader’s possible  objections?

___ Does your order form or reply form (landing page) look like an  order form? (It should.)

___ Is everything you want your reader to do clearly stated on the order form?

___ Does your order form have a headline restating the main benefit?

___ Are the graphics and packaging of your offer attention-getting?

___ Are your graphics enhancing your message or obscuring your message?

___ Are you giving away something to boost response?

___ Have you stripped out empty “hype” words like “best ever” and “amazing”?

___ Have you replaced empty hype words with facts and proof?

___ Have you put your guarantee on a separate document that looks official, like a certificate or a savings bond? Have you signed your guarantee?

___ Have you included a FAQ (Q&A) insert?

___ Have you written an entire package (with all necessary elements), not just a letter?

___ Are you tracking and measuring results meticulously?

___ Are you testing (one element a time)?

___ Are you zeroing in on your best 20% of customers, treating them with extra care and attention?

___ Does everyone in your company understand that they are marketers?

___ Is your company worthy of referral?

___ Are you posting important marketing numbers at your company so that everyone
understands what the goals are?

___ Does everyone in your company understand that their paychecks come from customers/sales?

___ Does everyone in your company know that the mission of your company is to create a “Happy Customer Experience that exceeds the customer’s expectations and causes customers to say ‘WOW!’”?

___ Have you raised your prices 10%? (This will increase the profitability of most companies by 50%)

___ Do you have a computerized database that includes all relevant information on customers and prospects that will allow you to segment your customers and precisely target your communications?

___ Do you know how much it’s costing you to find a lead?

___ Do you know how many leads it takes to find a customer?

___ Do you know which sources, ads and letters are producing the most leads and the most productive leads?

___ Are you keeping your database clean and accurate, eliminating duplicates? Are you a fanatic about list hygiene?
 
Your Marketing Tool Kit

• Direct Mail

• Sales letters

• Lead generation letters

• Referral generation letters

• Monthly newsletter

• Postcard announcements

• Card decks and co-op mailings

• Self-mailers

Phones

• “Free 24-Hour Recorded Message Hotline”

• Voice message broadcast (thank yous and announcements left on voice mail)

• Teleconferences and teleseminars

• Toll-Free 800 Numbers

Traditional Advertising

• Yellow Pages

• Classified ads

• Print ads

• Radio ads

• TV Ads

• Bill Boards

Internet

• Your Web site (Does your site have a clearly defined purpose?)

• Tailored landing pages for particular offers

• Email

• Audio and video on Web site and in email

• Autoresponders

• Ezines and Enewsletters

• E-books

• Webinars, Web conferences, and webcasts

• Google AdWords and Overture

• Banner ads

• Search engine optimization

• E-commerce essentials (shopping cart, credit card processing,landing pages)

• Domain names (tailored to product or service you are selling)

• Forms to capture email addresses

• eBbay and other auction sites

• Monster.com and other job listing sites

• Classified ads on the Internet

• Affiliate Marketing

• RSS Feeds

• Podcasting and Webcasting

Other Media

• Fliers and door-hangers

• Business cards

• CDs, DVDs

Methods to Boost Response

• Super-charged guarantee

• Irresistible offer (14 that never fail)

• Benefits tailored to what you know prospect wants

• Deadline emphasizing most important benefit to prospect

• Deadline (with good reasons for deadline)

• Incentives to respond now

• Easy to order . . .