For thousands of years humans have been telling stories. From the sketchings on cave walls, from The Epic of Gilgamesh around 2000 BC to different religious texts that circle the Earth. The story is so central to the human experience that one can not separate the story from what it means to be human.

In marketing, one of the huge benefits of telling a story is that people can remember stories better than any other form of marketing. Marketers call this “sticky”: it sticks in peoples minds long after they read or hear it. If you are a Christian, then you already know that Jesus knew the power of storytelling with his parables. Perhaps the greatest marketer to ever live, Claude Hopkins, in 1919, was hired by Schlitz beer to create an ad that would save the company. Indeed, Schlitz was ranked fifteenth in beer sales and was on the verge of closing its doors. Hopkins made a trip to Wisconsin to visit the brewery. He knew that he needed to know more about how their beer was actually made. Hopkins knew that in order to make a profitable ad, he would have to learn as much as possible about the product.The managers at Schlitz gave Hopkins a tour of the brewery and showed him every step of the brewing process. They showed him how deep they had drilled their wells to find the purest water. They explained how the glass sealed rooms kept the water pure, the yeast they used and from where they got it. They explained to Claude Hopkins where the bottles were cleaned, re-cleaned, and sanitized a dozen times.“My God,” Hopkins said, “Why don’t you tell people in your advertising about all these steps you are taking to brew your beer?”But, answered the Schlitz people, “all companies brew their beer about the same way.”“Yes,” Hopkins replied, “but the first one to tell the public about this process will gain a big advantage.”Hopkins then launched an ad campaign for Schlitz that described in detail the company’s step-by-step brewing process for making the beer. Six months later, Schlitz sales exploded and they became the #1 selling beer. Hopkins proved with his ad campaign the power of storytelling marketing If Claude Hopkins was alive today, he would literally dominate Internet marketing.

This is a good example of how marketing that you would think would fail, actually works. Most people would think that someone doesn’t have the time to read a long story and so it is better to not use story telling in your marketing and instead go for the short sales pitch. Who really has the time to read all this?–is what most new marketers think.This is just not true and we can prove that it is not true because of the marketing giants that have gone before us. Hopkins did marketing research on this very topic, he writes: Mail order advertising tells a complete story if the purpose is to make an immediate sale. You see no limitations there on amount of copy. The motto there is, “The more you tell the more you sell.” And it has never failed to prove out so in any test we know. One of the greatest marketers to have ever lived, Ben Hart, has done his own research on this subject. His findings show that his two page sales copy does better than his one page sales copy, and his four page sales copy does better than his two page sales copy. He has even written sales letters that are more than 12 pages long!

I am reminded of a client I had who felt that the sales letter I created for him was just too long to post on his landing page. He took out huge portions of my sales copy and posted the final version on his website. After a few months, I called him to find out how his web sales were doing. He said his sales increased about 10% but was really hoping for more. I recommended that he put the longer sales copy that I wrote for him up. This time he listened to me and did as I instructed. His sales increased 40%. He is a big believer now in using longer sales copy to tell a story.

Perhaps the greatest example of storytelling marketing is the sales letter that literally made the Wall Street Journal. This letter alone brought fame and fortune to the Wall Street Journal. You can take this letter and tweak it to fit your business.

Dear Reader:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both -– as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future. Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there. But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

What Made the Difference?

Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives? It isn’t always a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn’t that one person wants success and the other doesn’t.The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of that knowledge. And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall Street Journal. For that is the whole purpose of The Journal:
To give its readers knowledge – knowledge that they can use in business.

A Publication Unlike Any OtherYou see..

The Wall Street Journal is a unique publication. It’s the country’s only national business daily. Each business day, it is put together by the world’s largest staff for business-news experts. Each business day, The Journal’s pages include a broad range of information of interest and significance to business-minded people, no matter where it comes from. Not just stocks and finance, but anything and everything in the whole, fast-moving world of business … The Wall Street Journal gives you all the business news you need— when you need it.

Knowledge Is PowerRight now..

I am reading page one of The Journal. It combines all the important news of the day with in-depth feature reporting. Every phase of business news is covered, from articles on inflation, wholesale prices, car prices, tax incentives for industries to major developments in Washington, and elsewhere. And there is page after page inside The Journal filled with fascinating and significant information that’s useful to you. A daily column on personal money management helps you become a smarter saver, better investor, wiser spender. There are weekly columns on small business, marketing, real estate, technology, regional developments. If you have never read The Wall Street Journal, you cannot imagine how useful it can be to you. Much of the information that appears in The Journal appears nowhere else. The Journal is printed in numerous plants across the United States, so that you get it early each business day.

A $28 Subscription

Put our statements to the proof by subscribing for the next 13 weeks for just $28. This is the shortest subscription term we offer – and a perfect way to get acquainted with The Journal. Or you may prefer to take advantage of a longer-term subscription for greater savings: an annual subscription at $107 saves you $20 off The Journal’s cover price. Our best buy -—two years for $185 – saves you a full $69! Simply fill out the endorsed order card and mail it in the postage-paid envelope provided.

And here’s The Journal guarantee:

Should The Journal not measure up to your expectations, you may cancel this trial arrangement at any point and receive a refund for the undelivered portion of your subscription.If you feel as we do that this is a fair and reasonable proposition, then you will want to find out without delay if The Wall Street Journal can do for you what it is doing for millions of readers. So please mail the enclosed order card now, and we will start serving you immediately.

About those two college classmates, I mention at the beginning of this letter. They graduated from college together and together got started in the business world. So what made their lives in business different? Knowledge. Useful knowledge. And its application.

An Investment In Success..

I cannot promise you that success will be instantly yours if you start reading The Wall Street Journal. But I can guarantee that you will find The Journal always interesting, always reliable, and always useful.

Sincerely Yours,
Peter R. Kann

By Lance Jepsen author of Profits That Lie Hidden In Your Web Site

How A Fool Story Can Make You a Million Bucks

Author: Lance Jepson

In 1993, when I first began making websites, I knew nothing about marketing. I was a graphic and layout guy. I was not a sales copy writer. I designed web sites that had a sidebar on the left with links and a header at the top. In many instances I would make two sidebars filled with hyperlinks, one on the right, another on the left, with content in the middle.

One day I received an email from a business owner who had paid me $650 to make a beautiful looking website:

“Dear Lance,
Your website design looks fantastic but a strange happened after I put it up. My sales dropped by 20%. I don’t understand it. My website looks so much better than it use to. Why are people no longer buying my products?”

I was totally mortified. The issue was the number of links on the website. Where blank, dead space had been, we replaced with the following links: Press Release, Awards, Screen Shots, Books, Magazines, About Us, and Privacy Statement.

I put the old website back up and sales, almost instantly, improved.

KISS (Keep It Super Simple)

What this experience taught me about web design is that you need to keep it super simple. Website visitors had so many hyperlinks to choose from that the website had no focus. There was no clear instruction on what we wanted visitors to do. Way back in 1993, we did not even know the single action we wanted visitors to take, other than to buy from us. The web logs showed that very few people even visited the new links we added.

The lesson I learned is that people do not care about your business. Your visitors could care less about your awards or press releases. All that your visitors want to know is what your service costs and is it the solution they are looking for. It really is as animal simple as that.

Many beginners in ecommerce make the critical mistake of hiring a web designer to design their site. The result is a fancy looking website, that can’t convert prospects into customers.

You have 10 seconds to grab your prospects attention. If she feels overwhelmed by 5, 12, or 20 different hyperlinks, she will simply click the back button on her browser and pick the next site listed in Google. If she has so many options presented to her that she can not find what she wants, she will click the back button on her browser and pick the next site listed in Google.

A simple, attention grabbing headline with good sales copy, and a single call to action that you want her to take, beats layout and design when it comes to converting prospects into paying customers.

You must use the precious seconds you have to grab your prospect’s attention and present them with only one option, THE option that you want them to take.

By Lance Jepsen author of Profits That Lie Hidden In Your Web Site

A Little Mistake That Cost An Internet Business Everything (video)

44 US Presidents

This is the barstool version of Barack Obama’s tax plan by David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics – University of Georgia

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all Ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.” The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his

beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).

The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four Continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a Dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I did!” ” That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man.

“Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up an anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier

When you are looking to save yourself time and to make sure that your online business is running to the best of its ability, you will find that one of the things that you should look at is outsourcing. You may consider outsourcing to be something that only huge companies do, but you’ll find that online business and outsourcing are a perfect fit. Because online business calls for a wide variety of skills and talents, no one person can or should tackle them all on their own. There are several tasks that can easily and, more importantly, beneficially be outsourced elsewhere. Here are just a few of them.

Writing
For many people, writing is not a strong point in their business. Therefore, putting well written, action provoking content on their website is a difficult task. However, this is NOT an area to be skimped upon when it comes to online business. The content on a website has a direct effect on search engine rankings. Copy that is neglected will show when it comes to a business’ bottom line. If you find it difficult to get the results you are looking for with your writing, consider outsourcing it to a qualified writer. You will find that there are a ton of freelancers who can help you get the content you want, to help generate sales from your visitors.

Recommendation: Shelancers

Website Design
If you are running an online business, you need to put as much time and effort into your website as you would a brick and mortar store. Getting an attractive, easy to use website is not easy and you will find that there are many professional website designers who are looking to wow you with their expertise. This is something that is well-worth the money spent. You’ll be able to rest assured that your website design is attractive and easy to navigate, which is always a plus for turning visitors into buyers.

Search Engine Optimization
If you run an online business, you already know how important search engine traffic is to your success. In order to rank high for your keywords and phrases, hiring a search engine optimization expert or link-building service will help to put you on the map. Search engine optimization, when done correctly, will increase the traffic to your website and is an easy way to get your business name out there for the entire world to see.

Recommended Service:
http://easyplr.com/vana.htm – Sit back and let this service write blog posts on their network of blogs and link to your websites.

http://easyplr.com/kings.htm – This new service will create a youtube video about your website, submit your blog to RSS directories, and handle your social media for you, while you focus on other parts of your business.

Customer Support
For those who sell a product, whether it’s candles or ebooks, more than likely you will need customer support. Outsourcing is a great deal easier than putting together a full support staff, training them, and then getting them set up with equipment. When outsourcing customer support, you will be making the most out of your time and ensuring that your customers get the most out of their products.

Blogging
If you’ve been online for any amount of time, you already know that Web 2.0 and all that goes with it are important parts of your business. One way to add value to your business is to create a blog. You can easily find a qualified contractor to help you update the blog and provide ghostwritten blog posts for you. A great way to keep in touch with customers, clients and others interested in your business, outsourcing your blog tasks will keep you from overextending yourself.

Outsourcing is something that every business owner, whether large or small, can do to help make their business more successful. Put the work in the hands of the experts and you can focus on the things that you enjoy and come easier to you.

These are only a few of the many business activities that you can outsource.
Check out Outsource Weekly for a step-by-step guide to get started.