The Copywriter Underground

The emails come almost weekly. And while they take different routes, the copywriters sending them all pretty much end up in the same place:

“How do I build a career as a copywriter?”

The answer is not what they expect.

Your ability to build a lasting career as a copywriter will not be based on your knowledge of “The Ten Headlines That Always Get The Sale” or a Super-Secret, Can’t Miss Sales System or knowing by heart the “Five Reasons Twitter Will Change The Universe Forever” blog post.

In fact, no post, article or book will prepare you for what’s to come.

And while businesses would like you to believe otherwise, the success of your copywriting career doesn’t rest on your choice of smartphone, Twitter client, or high-bandwidth wireless connection.

So exactly what is the key to long-term survival?

Simple. It’s your ability to adapt.

Marketing – Now With the Great Taste of Chaos

I just hung up the phone after a lengthy client conversation – but only after agreeing to teach several more online marketing classes.

Teaching was never a career goal.

In fact, I never considered it prior to the last couple years. Yet here I am, teaching classes. A lot of them.

It’s something I couldn’t do if I was close-minded about my career.

But then, when I typed my first paying copy jobs on an electric typewriter (I wasn’t man enough to go manual), I never imagined I’d write ads for high-end racing helmets, sell $10 million semiconductor manufacturing systems, eventually derive most of my income from consulting, or be successful enough to live on a beautiful property located on the flank of an inactive volcano.

In short, you may think you’ve got it all planned.

But history suggests your long-term plan is more fiction than reality.

Guess what?

For the smart, aware and adaptable copywriters reading this, that’s a good thing.

Really.

Adapt, Adapt, Adapt

If you’re building a copywriting career today, you’re facing a fast-changing marketplace, fickle customer base – and a marketing universe which will look very, very different when you wake up five years from now.

In prehistoric times (as little as ten years ago), you could handily pay the grocery bills writing corporate capability brochures. If you sprinkled in a handful of B2B direct response packages, life was pretty good.

Annual report gigs were the frosting that funded retirement accounts and new cars.

Today, two of those markets are largely toast. The other is a shadow of of its former self.

And the copywriters who specialized in the above – and didn’t see the fast-moving bus that was the Internet – became roadkill. (Ask veteran copywriter Copywriting Maven Roberta Rosenberg what happened to a couple of her print-only copywriting friends – who never made the transition to online marketing.)

The World Is Spinning Faster

If a decade seems too long ago to feel relevant, simply consider online marketing’s recent history.

Only a few years ago, every business “needed” a Second Life presence. Then a MySpace presence.

At one time, email was hot. Then it wasn’t. Now, it’s hot again (proof common sense sometimes prevails).

And let’s not forget the latest “hot” channels: Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter’s cruising, though Facebook is experiencing the inevitable backlash against their ham-fisted handling of their users and partners.

It’s tempting to say the old media channels are fading, but they’ll likely be back, albeit in different forms.

They’ll fight for survival alongside the new marketing channels, which are springing to life almost hourly.

Simply put – even within the narrow confines of the online marketing universe – much has changed in just 12 months.

And don’t doubt for a second that more change is on the horizon.

Has your business changed with it?

All The Little Fingers, Typing

Here’s an unpleasant reality: There have never been more sets of fingers willing to type for hire.

And many of the emerging copy markets are – how do I put it tastefully – sorta low rent (the product of a [hopefully] transient lack of taste on the part of search engines, which are still in their infancy too).

And while we’re toting up the bad news, copywriting’s customer base has never been so reluctant to pay a living wage for words.

Which means today’s novice copywriter faces:

• A chaotic media landscape
• A search-engine derived emphasis of quantity over quality
• The accelerating obsolescence of existing media (which will soon include some of the current “hot” channels)
• Free-falling fee structures
• Intense competition
• Media channels which encourage “do-it-yourself” client marketing
• A guarantee of more of the same

What keeps a new copywriter fed and dry in a landscape like that?

Hint: It’s Not The Alphabet

Clearly, the basics of copywriting will never change; “what’s in it for me” will still be the first question asked by prospective buyers, and your ability to answer it will determine the health of your bank account.

Still, even the basics of marketing may be bending a little under the strain of the Internet.

After reading uber-thinker Nicholas Carr’s latest book (The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains), I’m fairly certain my current thinking is right; we’ll have the same sales conversations as before.

But we’ll have them in smaller chunks.

An illustration?

When I first wrote corporate web sites, the word count on the average page was far higher than today’s sites.

Then we went through a spell when “clean” design was hot (I cynically named the trend “corporate sterile”), and the pages hardly said anything at all.

Thankfully, that phase passed.

Today’s site is fast becoming a convergence point for an organization’s feeds and streams (“Feed and Stream” is likely the best unused social media magazine title ever).

Home pages can no longer be considered a site’s main landing page, and in fact, the readership of many business blogs far exceeds that of the rest of the site.

Those copywriters and marketers who can’t adapt to streams, or chunking, or insist on writing web sites the same old way because “they worked before and they’ll work now” (something I once embarrassingly said) – will see their business (especially the interesting stuff) wither away.

The Big Finish

It would be wonderful if I could boil down a foolproof survival tactic into three short bullet points.

That would be highly tweetable, but not very real.

Instead, I can offer you the following:

Challenge Your Assumptions

What’s true today could be tomorrow’s empty (and cashless) cliche. Conventional logic suggested Amazon.com was never going to turn a profit (neither was Facebook or Twitter).

Something changed, and those who recognized that change prospered as a result. I have my own ideas about the future of marketing as it concerns copywriters, but what are yours?

And more importantly, which of your assumptions (“the annual report will never go away“) are about to go down in flames?

Let me add one thought. Listening to everybody else – and accepting it as gospel – is simply a cheezy way to substitute their assumptions for theirs.

The Internet is full of parrots, con men and weak-minded fools, and like Carson Brackney said, it’s your job to avoid them.

Stay Aware Of Your Revenue Streams

This is manifestly not sexy, but it is critical. Small shifts in the kinds of projects you’re seeing – and in your own revenue sources – may herald a larger, long-term shift in your business.

Ideally, you’d stay ahead of those shifts, but that’s expecting a lot.

If clients start asking for the same kind of project, is that coincidence? Or a whole new (and largely untapped) revenue stream?

Make Things Happen

If there’s one constant on the Underground, it’s that I constantly flog my readers to go out and find the clients/work/projects they want to write.

It’s truly marvelous when the world comes to you, but you don’t have to be a statistics whiz to know your chances of achieving happiness are a lot higher when you decide what happiness looks like instead of the next guy to call.

Have a Sense of Wonder

Admittedly, this concept hasn’t found a home in too many MBA programs. But it’s absolutely essential if you’re going to survive.

It’s my final piece of advice to my online marketing boot camp students, and one of the few things that can sustain you over the course of a long career.

There are few certainties in copywriting, though we can make pretty safe assumptions about two of them.

First, you will deal with rejection. Perhaps a lot of it. New clients won’t like your pitch. Existing customers won’t like your first draft (or your second). Your mother will urge you to find a real job.

Get used to it.

Don’t take it personally. And recognize that hiding in a totally safe, rejection-free world is akin to living in a padded room because it’s safer.

It might be safe, but you’ll eventually go crazy.

And – oh yes – you should regularly marvel at the idea that somebody pays you to write for a living.

Second, we can safely assume the copywriting universe is going to change.

A lot.

You either lead the change, ride along with it, or get run over.

If you see emerging technologies as interesting, wondrous things (maintaining the kind of skepticism it takes to survive in a hype-driven field), then you’ll last a whole lot longer than if you embraced a dark, sinister worldview.

I started the Copywriter Underground simply to see if blogging really was an effective lead-generation strategy – something I’d have to know if I was going to recommend it to my clients.

Four years later, my business has morphed to the point this blog has become a pointless artifact.

The time I invest here largely reflects that. Yet this is where it truly gets interesting.

I could look at the Underground and suggest it’s been a colossal waste of time. Or marvel that I could reach so many people just by typing a few ideas into a text editor every now and then.

How could anyone not have a sense of wonder about that?

Keep writing (and adapting), Tom Chandler

I’m behind. Way behind. I’ve been sick almost continuously the last month – the result of my adorable daughter bringing home every bug in the county. I’m recovering, but several iterations of the flu (and a cold, and a wave of power outages) clearly don’t respect a deadline.

In simple terms, I’m well and truly behind the 8-ball. Deadlines loom, and clients are waiting.

It’s an uncomfortable place for any freelance copywriter – especially given that my marketing consultant business continues to grow.

What’s a freelance copywriter to do when circumstances put you way, way behind the curve?

#1: Pare Down

This is the blatantly obvious – yet wholly painful – step where you stop investing energy in the things that can wait (the personal or vanity projects, speculative ventures, test sites, new technology, etc).

Instead, you focus on keeping your paying clients happy.

It sounds simple, but frankly, it’s not.

Because I’m trying to meet my clients’ needs, I’m in the embarrassing position of finishing my third project for my “marketing” company – yet my marketing Web site is only half completed.

And it will stay that way – at least until I catch up on my other commitments.

Painful? You bet.

Necessary? I think so.

#2: Stay In Touch With Your Clients!

I rarely sprinkle exclamation points in my copy, but made an exception for #2.

Sadly, I have to admit I’m not always great at keeping my clients in the loop when I’m struggling – usually the result of delusional, “I’ll pull a couple all-nighters and get caught up” thinking.

Or worse, I’ll embrace what I call embarrassing thinking like: “For several days – despite being sick and tired – I’ll be just as productive as I was when I wrote that entire ad campaign in two hours.”

Never mind your most productive day ever occurred over ten years ago, and you’ve not come close since.

As writers, we tend to remember the high points more readily than the daily slogs, and sometimes, fate doesn’t tap you on the shoulder and hand you a project after ten minutes work.

Sometimes you can pull all-nighters and catch up – your client none the wiser – but as I approach the half-century mark and now raise a little daughter, those all-nighters hurt a lot more.

And truthfully, are you really doing the best work you can for a client when you’re exhausted from working all night?

The moral? Tell your clients about your problem. See if you can’t buy a little more time (you do this by uncovering their real deadlines, or if there’s wriggle room left in the schedule).

If you don’t keep in touch, you run the risk of blindsiding your clients, which is where the real trouble begins – both now, and in the future.

#3: Don’t Make Things Worse

In the midst of my second brush with the flu, my Web host – which had been experiencing increasing problems with a server, but hadn’t addressed them – crashed spectacularly, losing several days worth of data for me and my clients.

When the dust settled (after a couple of long nights), I decided to switch to a new host. Immediately.

Good decision, but bad timing.

The move cost me several more all-nighters, a week’s worth of hassle, and yes – I got sicker in a hurry.

Simply put, I should have waited until I was better, and my deadlines weren’t so pressing.

If you’re sick, working on three hours sleep promises to make you sicker, creating a cascade which will put you even farther behind.

Don’t do it.

Other Strategies?

I outlined three critical strategies, but life’s never really simple enough to boil down to three bullet points. That’s why (absolutely free of charge) I’m including a few other useful strategies:

• Hire help (Find another writer who can help you out of the jungle.)
• Telescope existing projects (Find out which project bits must be finished now, and what can wait until later.)
• Look for productivity gains (Grinding along on a ten year-old laptop? Maybe it’s time to upgrade. Write long, detailed emails? Time to shorten them.)

Freelance long enough, and you’ll find yourself the victim of circumstance – whether through sickness, accident, natural disaster or other calamity.

Some things can’t be avoided, but your response to those moments is always in your hands.

What will it be?

Keep writing (despite disease, power outage, etc), Tom Chandler.

It turns out that pitting our tiny new daughter against my previously comfortable writing routine results in the following: the wholesale slaughter of the routine.

Embarrassingly, I had to read my own blog to discover where my last post left off (hint: Zombie Copywriter attacks Slacker Building Contractor).

The Good News?

• The new kid is doing great (she is a sweetheart and my cynical marketer’s heart soars every time I see her – unbearably adorable photograph added below)
• Despite the madness, I launched a tourism Web site project (with all the trimmings), and the client is happy (they should be)

The Bad News?

I remain barely a half-step ahead of my client commitments.

Which leaves little time for a blog. Or personal writing. Or sleep. Or even a shared (fun) Web site project (aided and abetted by another copywriter).

Naturally – now that the Thanksgiving Madness is over (as is the last-minute Black Friday client rush) – I’m teaching four nights a week for the next three weeks.

Like raising a kid, teaching is hugely exhausting and wildly gratifying at the same time (more on that in an upcoming post).

I expect to have a lot of fun.

What Else is Coming on the Underground?

I’ve got some great stuff ahead.

I’m putting the finishing touches on an update to the profile I wrote of Airgun niche writer Tom Gaylord, who now hosts a TV show and is even signing lucrative product development contracts.

In his typically direct, impassioned style, Tom offers ample food for thought for anyone dominating their niche – but wonders what comes after you own the space.

Then there’s my call for a Modern Word Processor for the Contemporary Online Writer. Today’s writers are using yesterday’s writing tools, and it’s time that changed.

In other words, the Copywriter Underground’s not dead, just moving at whatever pace the world’s best one year-old daughter allows.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

Adorable Photograph of Reason You’re Not Reading This Blog Very Often:

I used to spontaneously craft lists just for fun, and today seems like the perfect day to revive the practice.

And rather than beat around the bush, let’s just call this list the “Eight Gratifying Moments in the Life of Any Freelance Copywriter or Consultant:”

• Reading a short, pithy, “The copy’s perfect” email from a client
• Shipping solid draft copy, and checking it off the list
• Getting a check
• Getting a check before it’s due
• Getting a big check
• Finding a signed work order – for a prestige project initiated by your lumpy mailer – nestled in your inbox
• Discovering the blog/email program you recommended is working exactly as you said it would
• Explaining modern Internet marketing to a class of entrepreneurs, and realizing they get it

I’ve experienced all the above in the last 1.5 weeks, and while I’m not threatening to burst into song (Tonight on the Underground: Copywriter Karaoke!), I’m reminded that even after 23+ years in this business, good stuff happens with gratifying regularity.

Keep writing & consulting, Tom Chandler.

In my prior post, the concept of writer’s market oversaturation found a little traction, and today, I’m here to discuss the Biggest Menace Facing Copywriters Ever (So Far This Week):

Sleepwriting (or Zzz-mailing if our wacky group of sleep experts are to be believed).

Will you write your best copy with your eyes closed?

The UK Telegraph reports on this sinister new trend, which threatens the very foundations of the copywriting industry should certain mutant genetically gifted writers learn to craft hard-selling sentences in their sleep:

The 44-year-old woman, whose case is reported by researchers from the University of Toledo in the latest edition of medical journal Sleep Medicine, had gone to bed at around 10pm, but got up two hours later and walked to the next room.

She then turned on the computer, connected to the Internet, and logged on by typing her username and password to her email account. She then composed and sent three emails.

Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well formatted and written in strange language.

One read: “Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only.”

Another said simply, “What the…….”

The new variation of sleepwalking has been described as “zzz-mailing”.

Imagine competing with a zombie writer who pounds out a white paper and two landing pages while you’re unproductively snoring away, blissfully unaware your clients (and your revenue stream) were finding a new home at the “dreamwriters.com” freelance bidding site.

The implications are clear; it’s not enough to be productive 14 hours a day, scheduling ourselves to the second, generating free content by the bushel and incurring raging carpal tunnel.

No, tomorrow’s competitive copywriter has to text high-conversion-rate landing page copy to clients while sugar plums dance in our heads, and those incapable of “sleepwriting” will be branded slackers, or worse – hopelessly old fashioned .

Simply put, Undergrounders, I’ve seen the future of copywriting, and it’s dark out.

More on this breaking news story – as soon I’ve achieved productive REM sleep.

Keep sleepwriting, Tom Chandler.

It’s easy to fire up a whole list of things we should be thankful for – our lives are easier by almost any measure than those who came before us – but this is a writing blog, so I’ll stay on topic.

The simple truth is I’m thankful I get to write for a living, and do so from a beautiful place on the side of a mountain – the kind of remote place you couldn’t really make a living from prior to the Internet.

Writing is not the glamorous existence that the media make it out to be, but neither is it digging ditches in 100 degree heat.

I’m lucky to enjoy the support of my wonderful, beautiful wife, who knows I could make more money writing projects that appeal a lot less to me, and wants me to write the good stuff anyway.

To all my readers, commentors and everyone who makes up the online writer’s community, enjoy your Thanksgiving, and revel in what you have.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

In addition to the usual workload, I’ve wiled away my “spare” time developing and teaching classes in online marketing for entrepreneurs.

And yes, answering emails from copywriters wondering what to do about our cratering economy.

A couple of things have become very clear.

First, even non-techie micro-entrepreneurs quickly grasp the competitive power of the Internet. They’re excited by the possibilities. Thrilled by the idea that authenticity might actually become a competitive advantage. And often stymied by the technology.

After all, they’re running businesses, not marketing departments.

What’s also clear is that “piecemeal” doesn’t work. At least not for today’s small businesses, who are facing more choices than ever.

After my recent email marketing class – where I offered an overview of the benefits of blog/eNewsletter integration – every participant asked us to schedule yet another blogging class.

They wanted more.

In simple terms, they wanted the whole enchilada, and they wanted it to work without creating a second career for them.

It’s why the non-profit is making noises about funding an Online Marketing Bootcamp – a multi-class effort that covers the basics and the technology, step-by-step.

By the end of the class, a small business would have a working, functioning online marketing infrastructure – one built atop technologies that empower a small business instead of trapping it.

That involves creating a Web site (preferably via some kind of CMS), email list building, content generation, online PR, blog/eNewsletter integration, social media… you get the picture. It wouldn’t just list technologies, but also delve into specific vendor choices.

As the instructor, I’d be responsible for building that infrastructure, and while it’s clearly less profitable than churning out words for bigger clients, it’s also satisfying stuff.

It’s also a good reminder about the changing role of today’s marketer.

More Choices = More Confusion = More Opportunities

Used to be I wrote for people who were playing in a handful of media channels. It wasn’t complicated, largely because there were so few choices.

Today, even professionals are overwhelmed, and the businesses we serve are even more so. In light of that reality, the young copywriters who email me almost daily about “making it” in a falling economy receive advice which is far from new.

Move beyond the words to offer customers capabilities and (yes, I hate the word, but you know it’s coming) complete solutions to their marketing problems (some of which they didn’t know they had).

There are a lot of writers out there. How many offer potential clients a blog installation and content – all of which is integrated with an eNewsletter, list-building program (including generating the white papers used to draw leads), and “traditional media” repurposing of content?

Not only is that a powerful offering, it’s also one that sets one copywriter/marketer apart from most all the others.

Take it from someone who’s survived more than a few economic craters; in the long run, succeeding in a down economy has never been about cutting prices or seeking work farther down the food chain.

It’s about solving problems, and doing so in a way that offers real value to customers, who are never so interested in “value” as they are now.

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

I’m beat.

My wife and I both worked a very, very long work week. And when it lands hard on both of us at once, neither can pick up the slack.

It’s not true, but the last few days, I feel like I’ve eaten nothing but cereal.

Does it look like I’ve been sleeping here? (It feels like it.)

Still, the worst is over. Yet I’ve only got time for a short update.

In a prior post, I urged my readers to pursue their dream clients (and dream projects) instead of sitting and waiting for clients to choose them.

I even outlined a process, and employed it myself to win a meeting, where I pitched a sizable membership project. I left the meeting feeling pretty good.

And I’d love to report on my success (as in “I’m writing this from the French Riviera, where my English butler is doing the typing for me“) but in truth, the reality isn’t that rosy. Still, you get the bad with the good here on the Underground, and the project that seemed so promising is now on… hold.

Why?

After all, I invested several hours educating the marketing person.

Who just left the organization.

Damn.

But you know, stuff happens. And if you’re deterred by every setback, you should consider a different line of work (no crybabies on the Underground).

The good news?

The higher ups now know my name. They liked the original proposal. And because of the visibility gained, I’ve been given a shot at a different project (my proposal’s on several desks as we speak).

In fact, I’ve got three separate proposals circulating at two different organizations, and I’m talking to the industry leader about some very, very intriguing engagement marketing stuff (and yes, I’m getting sick of spreadsheets).

Best of all, each is the kind of project I want to do — the kind of work that fires my imagination.

Starting tomorrow, I’m spending a week in Maine, where I’ll have limited connectivity (they have web servers in Maine, but apparently they’re wood fired).

I’ll leave you with this thought. When you sit down at the keyboard in the morning, what kind of project would it excite you to write?

Keep writing, Tom Chandler.

I just finished a conversation with a client who wanted to send me money. Sadly, they expect me to perform a written act of marketing before sending a check, and they wanted a project estimate.

Long ago, I made a rule to never give off-the-cuff estimates on complex projects.

Perhaps I do it badly (perhaps everyone does), but I grew tired of burning myself — typically the result of forgetting a time-intensive aspect of a project.

So I did what I always do; fired up my project checklist/estimate spreadsheet, and started moving through the list.

Money, after all, matters, which leads me to wonder; could the spreadsheet be the successful freelance writer’s most important piece of software?

Words Matter, But So Do Numbers.

Writers have long fought wars (with a religious zeal) over word processors, and for good reason.

When you sit down at the keyboard and open up that vein, the interface between you and your now-manifesting neurosis should be a smooth one.

Still, in all the glitz, angst and fervor heaped by writers on word processors, I think writers don’t give the humble, non-flashy spreadsheet its due.

I use OpenOffice — the Open Source (free) equivalent to Microsoft’s Office suite. While I never use the included spreadsheet software at anywhere near its full potential, I use it often:

• Invoices
• Estimates
• Job tracking
• Job planning/project schedules
• Checklists
• Analysis

On complex jobs, I often put together a spreadsheet-based timeline accompanied by a checklist.

Estimating projects on a spreadsheet allows you to run a bazillion different pricing scenarios.

Where spreadsheets really shine is in analysis — both project/response data and when conducting “what if” scenarios.

Do higher offers really result in better response rates (not always, and without a spreadsheet, how do you know what the optimal offer is)? What can we spend on trade show promotion? What’s the lifetime value of our average customer?

In fact, learn to use pivot tables, and I guarantee that no question will ever go unanswered again*.

Years ago, my most-reliable, client-butt-saving direct mail tool was the breakeven spreadsheet, where — rather than try to predict a response rate — I figured out what response was needed for a program to break even.

If that rate was too high, the program was in trouble before it started — and the client received a warning before it was too late. They weren’t always happy, but they weren’t poorer either.

A spreadsheet also taught me the value of incremental improvements when dealing with large mailing lists, and once saved me from making a very, very bad royalty deal (I was assuming most of the risk and getting little of the reward).

When I was writing and submitting articles to trade magazines for a client, I used (you guessed it) a spreadsheet to track submissions. It even reminded me when it was time to follow up.

How could I not like something that’s meant so much to my business?

Easy to Use. And Easy to Get.

Microsoft Excel sits atop the heap of spreadsheets, though if you don’t own MS Office, don’t despair; OpenOffice offers a spreadsheet that’s largely compatible with Excel, and you can download it (for Linux, Mac & Windows) free.

There are other choices available, but if you must look beyond powerful & expensive (Excel) and power & free (OpenOffice), feel free to do so.

For example, Google Docs and Zoho both offer an online spreadsheet, though I’m not overkeen on the sometimes sluggish response.

Whatever tool you chose, you might struggle with a piece of software that’s a bit more linear than most writers are used to.

Given the flood of data washing over most marketers, a spreadsheet is a powerful tool against (what I call) data blindness; the inability to see the forest for all the burning trees.

Give a spreadsheet a little time – and download a few of the bazillion templates available on the Internet – and you’ll have a lifelong friend (and revenue-enhancing business partner).

Keep writing, Tom Chandler

(*Not a guarantee)

Technorati Tags: copywriting,freelance copywriting,copywriter,spreadsheet,microsoft excel,microsoft office,open office,google docs,zoho

Say you wanted Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream, but the ice cream folks kept handing a single scoop of Mango Fruity Bubblegum across the counter.

You’d leave and go where you got to pick the flavor, right?

So why do so many copywriters passively let the universe pick their clients for them — when they should be actively picking their own?

The Part Where I Take My Own Advice

I’ve long told my readers to pick their own clients — that waiting for clients to pick you renders your copywriting career about half as gratifying as it could be.

And no, I’m not talking about the basic marketing activities everyone does.

Instead, I’m talking about targeted pitches, where you pick the clients, projects (or causes) that interest you, and then pitch them. In a rare example of  me taking my own advice, that’s exactly what I’ve done.

How? (I lay out a six-point plan for pitching higher-value clients in this post.)

Once again, I’m firing up my favorite foot-in-the-door tactic; the lumpy mailer. I covered it in some detail in this post, but in simplest terms, I’m defining a short list of high-value prospects, and sending something fun and three dimensional (in this case, a toy).

It’s Fun. It’s Affordable. And It Works.

The lumpy mailer is designed to stand apart in a pile of mail (it’s a parcel, after all), and once opened, it delivers a fun, short, powerful message (via a drop card attached to the toy).

In this case, I sent two clients wind up chattering teeth (communications being the common thread), and customized the message for each client.

The goal here isn’t instant success. It’s to open the prospect’s door to a pitch, softening them up so my phone call isn’t a cold call.

And yes, it almost always works.

That’s not to say I always close the deal; the prospect may have little interest in what I’m offering. But the lumpy mailer demonstrates interest, creativity and yes — that I’m fun to work with.

It’s Working

The score so far? Excellent. My highest priority target received the mailer last Thursday, and sent a very promising email over the weekend (I’d planned to call this week, but now don’t have to). We meet in two weeks.

I called the recipient of the other mailer, who immediately recognized me (Oh yeah, you’re the chattering teeth marketing guy.")

While their budget doesn’t include the project I pitched, I was asked to get back in touch in two months, when the new budget would be drawn up.

Sure, the dance has just begun, but at least I’m out on the dance floor. And yes, I’ll share my upcoming lumpy mailer results with you (including the results of my engagement marketing project pitch in two weeks).

The moral? Pick your client and projects instead of letting them pick you. Years from now, you may not be any richer, but you will be a lot happier.

Keep pitching, Tom Chandler.