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Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:

Too many businesspeople engage in public relations activities for the wrong reason: to stroke their egos.

Sure, most of us like being on the local news or having our picture in the newspaper. But if it doesn’t get the cash register ringing, then it’s a waste of time and money – at least as far as your business is concerned.

Janice is a good example.

A freelance writer, Janice had self-published a book on eating out, and was trying to promote it with little success.

Then out of the blue, she hit the jackpot: Oprah’s people called and asked her to be a guest on the show that week.

Janice was on cloud nine and already counting the money from the huge numbers of book sales she figured her appearance on the show would generate.

But when I spoke to her a week later, she was in a down mood. “What happened?” I asked. “How many copies did you sell?”

The shocking answer: not a single one.

Reason: The book was not available in bookstores (many self-publishers have difficulty getting bookstore distribution). You could buy it only from the author, Janice.

Well, in all the excitement about being on television, Janice neglected to see whether Oprah’s people would mention her toll-free 800 number for ordering the book.

They didn’t. And so anyone desiring to buy the book had no way to order (Oprah didn’t give Janice’s address either).

Result: an exciting event in Janice’s life. But a total waste as far as her self-publishing business is concerned.

Lesson: Whenever you send out a press release, always include (a) a specific offer and (b) complete contact information for the reader—address, phone number, fax number, website, e-mail address.

When I started doing this years ago, pre-Internet, some editors would publish my offer and contact information.

When those editors ran articles about me and my business, we would get anywhere from a few leads or orders to several hundred per article depending on the publication and the size of the article they ran.

Others editors refused, feeling that publishing my contact information interfered with their journalistic integrity.

This made it impossible for their readers to contact me, and as far as I could see, I never gained any benefit from having such articles published.

The Internet has eliminated the editorial objection to publishing contact information with articles; and editors routinely include Website addresses in the articles they write.

Why? Because including the Web address is actually a service, enabling the reader to obtain a greater depth of information than can be included in the article.

For this reason, every press release or article you write should end by sending the reader to your website for more information.

For turning those Web visits into leads, you need some kind of mechanism on your website for capturing the reader’s e-mail address and other contact information, for example, a box where they can sign up for a free e-zine by giving you their e-mail address.

Let’s compare Janice’s unproductive Oprah appearance with the appearance of my friend Jeffrey, another self-publisher, on a financial cable TV show hosted by Ken and Daria Dolan.

When Jeffrey was invited to appear on the show, he told the producer that they had to periodically display a “super”—a line or two of text showing his name and toll-free phone number (this was pre-Internet).

The producer indicated he wasn’t sure if he could do it. Jeffrey told him, “I will not do the show unless you agree to it.”

They did, and he received thousands of dollars in orders as a result of his appearance.

I wasn’t as sure I would have been as tough about this as Jeffrey. “Weren’t you afraid you would turn them off and lose the opportunity?” I asked Jeffrey.

A clear-headed marketer, Jeffrey replied that, unless viewers had a way to order his products, there was no opportunity for his business—and therefore no point in spending his valuable time doing the show.

It’s a valuable lesson I’ve never forgotten: the only measurable, profitable PR is direct response. If you can measure a positive ROI, you know it’s worthwhile. All other PR is questionable and immeasurable.

Do not ignore direct-response PR in your direct marketing plan. It’s almost always profitable, and sometimes the results can be spectacular, generating a huge volume of sales at little or no cost.

For instance, an expert from Trillium Health Products, a maker of juicers, was the guest on a 20-minute segment of a radio talk show on WBZ in Boston, where he talked about juicing.

Callers were invited to call Trillium’s toll-free 800 number for a free information booklet on juicing, which contained juicing information but also was a promotional piece for the machine.

Approximately 50,000 listeners called for the free booklet. Of those, 10%, which is 5,000, bought a $350 juicing machine. That comes to gross sales of $1.75 million for a single 20-minute radio appearance.

Without the mention of the free booklet and 800 number, sales would likely have been a tiny fraction of that amount.

Bob Bly is the author of “World’s Best Copywriting Secrets” and has written copy for more than 100 companies including IBM, Boardroom, Medical Economics and AT&T. He is the author of more than 75 books and a columnist for Target Marketing, Early To Rise and The Writer. McGraw-Hill calls him “America’s top copywriter”.

Writing articles is one of the most effective ways to promote your online business. By writing articles, you can build valuable backlinks to your website, brand yourself as an expert on your topic, and get more targeted traffic and sales.

The problem is that if you aren’t a writer, or you hate writing, it can be difficult to write an article, as well as write a really good article.

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