Questions? Comments? Please call: 610-642-1000

How to Get Prospects to Call You!

How To Get Prospects to Call You!  Winning Promotional Strategies — 

Hey, thanks for all the cards and letters about my last article, although I never knew some of my readers had such a mean streak.

Hey, come to think of it, they all look like they’re in the same handwriting.

Hey, it looks like my wife’s handwriting…

Anyhow, my editor said I should write something useful in this article and I’d be able to write whatever I wanted to write about in the next article.  OK, I might have made that last part up after a few drinks. But here’s how to get your best prospects to call you, and the cost to you is just $20.

Send me the $20 first and I’ll tell you.

It was a joke. Come-on, lighten up. Jeeze. You can send me the $20 later.

Here’s how to get prospects to call you. And it will cost you $20 a lead, but hey, they’re your best prospects.

Gather a list of your top 100 prospects.

What?  You don’t have a ready list of your top 100 prospects?  Shame on you. If I was your boss, and… and…  you were one of the most beautiful women in the world… Well, I thought as long as I was wishing I’d wish for something I really really wanted – and frankly, who cares about being your boss…

If these 100 top prospects aren’t worth $20 to get them to call you, you need to rethink your list—and your business and revenue models. But for now, suppose they are worth twenty smacks to get each of them on the phone – and you have this top 100 list.

Write a nice letter —

About how great your service is and how great your products are and blah blah blah – it doesn’t matter what you say here, they won’t really read it. But up in the top right, type in the following:

If this number: 6675657
Matches our WINNING NUMBER

~ 6675657 ~

You have won a CROSS PEN!
You’re a WINNER!

Please call me (610-642-1000) to redeem this letter
for your FREE CROSS PEN. Thanks and congratulations!

No one knows all the numbers are winning numbers, and every letter – every customer – won!

And they don’t have to know.

They’ll just see that they are a winner!

Everyone likes to be a winner, and everyone likes Cross pens. You can buy them for about twenty bucks if you shop around.

If possible, print the winning matching number in the center of your “contest” in a different typeface or a different color so it looks like you stamped it on the page.

We did this contest where everyone wins as a promotion for a trade show to get high-end prospects to stop in my client’s booth.

You could see people perk up at the end of our isle when they saw our booth!

It was easy to tell these folks from a mile away – they came streaming down the isle unflinchingly, big smile on their face, and making a beeline for our booth — without taking their eyes off our booth for a nanosecond – as if our booth was going to disappear if they looked away for a moment.  Yes, these were the people waving our letter in their sweaty little hands as they approached.

Fake contest where everyone wins results:

We ran out of pens in the first hour.

Then, despite buying all the Cross pens from every local office supply store in the area before lunch, we ran out again by 1:30. Finally – we had to give “Cross Pen Gift Certificates” (rain check), and send everyone a pen when we got back. It really was a great and successful promotion.

We even made out well with the gift certificates – we had a valid prospect with an address and now a phone number. Nice!

Do this right and your own prospects will all be winners.

You’ll be a winner having your best prospects calling you. My wife will stop writing me those nasty notes. And the whole world will be at peace. Wow, what a nice way to end this article, with world peace.

Not so fast.

First, cough up and send the $20 you owe me for this campaign. Next, even though people will be so happy they’ve won, your letter should be nice, make that extra nice.

Email me a copy and I’ll look it over, no charge.

If it really stinks, I’ll just scribble “This Stinks” on it with my big red pen and send it back. New letters from me are available to really kick up your response, but I ain’t really cheap – just really good.

If your letter just needs a short touch-up, no charge. Glad to help a fellow scribblier.

And if it’s great – I’ll let you know that too…

 

Jeffrey Dobkin

Jeffrey Dobkin

 

Jeff Dobkin is a humorous speaker specializing in direct marketing, sales and motivation. He has written 6 books on marketing and humor. 610-642-1000 rings on his desk. Buy his books, he needs the money. Just kidding – you don’t need to buy his books… just send the money!

 

 

Regarding my article about the Handicapped:

Some people have been complaining to me about an article I wrote about handicapped people.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.

It wasn’t the original article I wrote. It was a beautiful article about… the aged and the handicapped.

Unfortunately, the newer version turned out, was against them. Frankly, everybody’s just too nice-nice about the touchy subject of getting old, or being handicapped and getting all those great parking spaces. Practically no one gives them shit – But what can they do if an article I wrote was against them – hit me with their walkers?

Heck, if it wasn’t for old folks in the left hand lane doing just 10 MPH under the speed limit – which I think is usually just a “suggested” limit anyhow, I could be doing 80 on the freeway. And we’d get back all those great parking spaces now assigned to handicapped people just in case they feel like showing up.  I feel hey, if you can’t walk more than 20 feet more to get to the store, maybe you shouldn’t be driving a 5,000 lb. vehicle at 65 mph. Of course, that’s just my opinion.

If you want to see how I really feel – drop me a note. Write your name and address on the back of that $20 you’ve owed me since the 4th paragraph, send it to me and I’ll send you the entire article for free. Or email me (jeff@dobkin.com) with your request. Hey, when you get right down to it I’m pretty nice-nice. Right. Right?