Writing your own copy? Here are 3 things to consider.

Writing your own copy? Here are 3 things to consider.

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

In the competition between quantity vs. quality – quality wins every time.

 “In years past, a copywriter was someone who wrote ad copy to sell a product or service. Today, customers want education, inspiration and satisfaction.” – Neil Patel

 In the 1970s, CBS News reported that the average American saw between 500-1,600 advertisements each day.

Thirty-some years later, the Yankelovich marketing research firm estimated the average person then saw 5,000 ads per day.

In 2017, according to Forbes, the average American was exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every day. And that number is likely only increasing with the evolution of technology and the passage of time.

What that means as a collective, is that we are becoming savvier about what ads we ignore and screen out of our awareness, and what ads we pay attention to. And our children are even more discerning, at even younger ages than we. We are much pickier about what we will give our attention to.

To capture the attention of your audience, your copy shouldn’t sound just like everyone else’s. We’ve seen it all and are easily bored. You must put in the work to get anything out of your copy.

Clarity is your friend.

 “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” – Dr. Suess

 Your audience has other things to do besides reading advertisements and ad copy.  Before they give you their time to consider your offer, you have to provide them with a reason to read in the first place.

You need to know what you want to say. Good copy uses specific language with clear, concrete details. Your content should have purpose and direction and contain all the critical information required.

Remember that unnecessary words can dilute your message, or worse, lead to confusion. The easier your content is to read, the easier it is to be understood and acted upon.

Authenticity and resonance are kings.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” – Ernest Hemingway

Copywriting is the art of persuasion through the written word, compelling an audience to take action.  Persuasion is mostly a matter of education and building trust. When you write like a robot and use dry, uninteresting content, it’s difficult to build trust.

Nobody enjoys boring, stale content they can’t connect with.  “You don’t get me or my life!” Nor do they enjoy reading material that seems to be written by a machine.

Human beings are naturally wired to desire connection with other humans. No reader can be forced to consume content they don’t want to consume.

Take the time to put humanity, feeling, and personality into your copy. Your copy should add something positive to your audience’s experience, evoke emotions, and create a connection.

It takes experienced copywriters years to master their craft, but you can easily improve your copy by keeping these points in mind as you write.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
Attending To Marketing

Attending To Marketing

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

“The cost of being wrong is less than the cost of doing nothing.” – Seth Godin 

While they do go hand in hand, marketing is not sales, and sales is not marketing. For your business to be successful at making sales, marketing is crucial.

Too often, small businesses focus on the sales aspect of their business but spend inadequate focus and resources on their marketing. They may consider marketing to be an expendable entity, or an afterthought when revenue seems good. With such anemic marketing efforts, businesses that don’t take their marketing seriously can hardly expect to reap many rewards.

Marketing isn’t just key to your business success–it’s a responsibility. It’s a vital vehicle for developing and maintaining long-lasting relationships with your customers. During your busiest times, during your most uncertain times, schedule and keep a regular chunk of time set aside exclusively for studying your audience, discovering opportunities, and future market planning.

What should go into your marketing budget? 

Here are some of the most common marketing expenses (depending on your industry) that you’ll need to include in your business’ marketing budget:

  • Website (design, security, hosting, and maintenance)
  • Newsletters
  • Email marketing services (Aweber, MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, ConstantContact, etc.)
  • Social media management services (i.e., companies that manage your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram accounts, etc.)
  • Online advertising (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media ads, Google Adwords, LinkedIn ads, geotargeting, Yelp ads, etc.)
  • Online directories that you pay for (depending on your industry)
  • Network referral memberships, public relations
  • Referral and Affiliate programs (perks or pay offered to customers or affiliates who refer your business)
  • Business cards (including design)
  • Birthday and holiday cards
  • Promotional materials on the business premises (posters, sales signs, educational material, sound system announcements, pamphlets, etc.)
  • Direct mail (postcards, letters, etc. – including design, printing, and postage)
  • Traditional Advertising (including phone books, TV, radio, billboards, etc.)
  • Appointment reminder services
  • Booths at local events, (home shows, open house, art fairs, city events, etc.)
  • Sponsorships
  • Welcome bags or “goodie bags”
  • Branded promotional “swag” (t-shirts, pens, hats, mugs, etc. with your logo or other marketing on it)
  • Raffles, prizes, or giveaways

How much should a small business budget for marketing?

It’s a mistake to base your marketing budget on just whatever is left over once all other business expenses are covered. Instead, the investment should be a percentage of your company’s gross income set aside every month. What the percentage should be can vary depending on the industry.

Both the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and Entrepreneur.com agree that companies that have been in business for five years or less need to invest more funds into their marketing budget than established companies that have been in business longer. 10 to 20 percent of your gross (or projected) revenue if you are ramping up a new business and 6 to 12 percent for more established companies. For slim operations, no less than 3 percent is recommended.1

A healthy marketing budget is one that balances short-term and long-term needs. Focus on creating a calculated, focused marketing strategy for your brand that invests your money wisely.

1 U.S. Small Business Administration, 2013. (https://www.sba.gov/taxonomy/term/15051?page=37)

Entrepreneur.com, 2015 (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/243790)

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
Create Magnetic Calls To Action Using A Personalized Touch

Create Magnetic Calls To Action Using A Personalized Touch

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

A “Call To Action,” a.k.a. a CTA, is a specific image, element, or phrase on a webpage that guides a visitor to take a specific action.

The purpose of a good CTA is to catch the attention of potential leads and existing customers and guide them towards taking a specific action. Hence the term “call to action.”

If you think of a visitor who is visiting your website as someone who is taking a road trip, the calls to action on your website act as traffic signs along a highway. These signs are there to guide the user to the right onramps and exits that help them to reach their final destination.

Calls to action help the user find their way and navigate through your website, sales funnels, ordering process, etc. by telling them what to do. Most simply, good CTAs provide direction and drive conversions.

Typical calls to action are often recognized as webpage buttons with short quips stating something like “Buy Now,” “Join Now,” “Click Here!” and the like.

However, a good call to action should highlight the benefit that the user will gain by taking action.

A case study cited by Unbounce demonstrated that swapping out a single action verb, “Get information” vs. “Order information,” resulted in a conversion rate increase of an impressive 38.26%. The verb “get” helped users to see how they would benefit, whereas the verb “order” simply gave them a task to complete.

Words mean things, and being selective with your language and vocabulary can make or break the final desired outcome. Strong action verbs are essential to the overall picture.

While short, two-word CTAs can be useful, even sometimes important, they can also be rather nebulous and boring. A website full of only this kind of call to action will get old fast.

The most effective call to action phrases will be more interesting, personalized, and will speak directly to the user. Good CTAs use strong action verbs and give your visitors a reason to take the desired action.

Which would you find more attractive and likely to drive conversion? “Join here,” or something more creative and personal like, “Discover the tribe that has been waiting for you!” A “click here” button, or “Get my playbook if you want to be better at copywriting.” Which one is better at telling the user where they are going and why?

Hopefully, these examples will inspire you to evaluate your current CTAs and start optimizing.

Focus on:

  • Writing compelling, engaging copy
  • Prioritize the action verbs you use
  • And place your CTAs on your website strategically

Following these tips will help motivate your audience to take action.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
It’s Not About You…

It’s Not About You…

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

“Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.” – Stanley Marcus

What are you focused on? Your benefit, or your customer’s?

Whether business-to-business or business-to-consumer, it’s essential to interact with the real world of your customer. Get to know their challenges. Get to know their prospects. The moment your focus is self-centered is the moment you begin to lose your capacity to serve your customer.

According to a McKinsey survey, 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated.

Marketing is not just about advertising—It’s about listening to your customer, tuning in to their responses, and developing more profound insights into your client’s behaviors, needs, and aspirations. It’s about finding better ways to help your customer and deliver results.

Keep your friends.

Instead of preparing for what you will sell and what you will say next, pay attention to what your client is saying and be a steward for their ideas. Be conscious of your next encounter. Don’t assume you know best – let your customer tell you.

When you partner with clients to design and deliver the solutions they want, you can nurture a growing relationship with a loyal audience who welcomes your increasing success.

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, loyal customers are worth, on average, up to 10x as much as their first purchase. Paying attention to your customers’ needs is more than just a feel-good methodology. It has the power to increase customer loyalty and reduce your marketing costs while driving engagement and profits.

Active listening improves strategy and magnifies results.

When you’ve taken the time to get to know your clients better and understand their point of view, you clarify efforts and reap more focused results.

Your marketing efforts must be relevant and up to date. Your audience won’t trust you if you don’t speak their language. Develop a strategic marketing plan, so you don’t waste money advertising the wrong message in the wrong place to the wrong audience.

To improve insights, smart marketers glean from consumer feedback, interactions, and experiences. Excellent listening and observational skills contribute to better quality marketing— and better marketing leads to improved relationships with customers. ­­ 

Serve your people. Solve their problems. 

There are few things more valuable than trust. It’s not enough to just get your product out there: focus on making real connections and developing deeper relationships. Trust takes time to build.  Understanding the needs of your clients will go far to help you create win-win relationships that lead to mutual success.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
The Key to Dwayne Johnson’s Success

The Key to Dwayne Johnson’s Success

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

How can you get noticed…by a lot of people?

Ask Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

He currently has about 176 million followers on Instagram alone. That’s more than the combined populations of France, Spain and Italy! If The Rock were a nation, it would be populous indeed!

How has this man become a megastar? How did the troubled son of a family struggling at near poverty become one of the world’s most recognizable and beloved people?

What does Dwayne Johnson do better than anyone else in his league?

There are better actors; bigger, stronger action heroes. Dwayne’s movies and his agents are certainly intrinsic to his success, but what made him surge—in the words of author, Jim Collins—from good to great?

Quite possibly, the number one key to Dwayne’s meteoric rise is not that he says, “Look at me!” but because he says, “Look at me looking at you!” He knows that the love of his fans is the key to his career, and he’s a master at being loveable, approachable, a gentle giant. And he means it—he’s a genuinely caring human being from humble roots, and this inspires him to constantly put his fans into the limelight. He knows where he came from.

It is not hard for people to feel like he’s someone they’d love to hang out with. He’s likable; he’s genuine; he’s us, but with more muscles and “the smolder.”

He has not forgotten his roots, or the people on whose shoulders he rides. In sharing their stories, and relating them to his own, he adds to his own ever-growing popularity as a bigger-than-life symbol of us.

As Roy H. Williams, the “Wizard of Ads” says, “Bad advertising is about you and your product. Good advertising is about your customer and their life.” The same goes for publicity, brand building and everything else about your business.

When you’re planning your brand messaging, avoid the temptation to say, “Look at ME!” Instead, focus the attention on your audience—tell their stories speak to them in terms they can relate to. To GET attention, GIVE attention!

Take it from the Rock himself: “If you check your ego at the door…you’ve got a pretty good shot at making a great movie that you can commit yourself to, you can jump off the proverbial cliff with, and have a great time, and the audiences respond to that.”


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales

The Write Stuff, Pt. 1: Copywriting Tips for Selling Your Ideas

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

You are selling ideas. It doesn’t matter if your stock and trade comes bubble wrapped or sits on a display shelf, or is a service you provide. Before anyone reaches into their wallet, ready to buy what you sell, you have to give them a reason for doing so. That’s why everyone who sells anything is, first and foremost, a merchant of ideas.

This series of blogs will share powerful techniques for selling ideas that you will want to employ even before you say a word about the features of your offerings. Sell someone on an idea, and the monetary transaction will follow.

Before we begin sharing tips, here are a few guiding principles to lay the groundwork.

  1. You’re selling an experience, not a product.

Many businesses make the mistake of focusing their pitch on the details of their products or services, rather than on what they can do for a person’s life. Harley Davidson, among other successful companies, is a master at selling an emotional experience.

Take this classic, award-winning, ad for example. Notice how it does not speak to the engineering of their bikes, the newest model or any other detail of the product, except with a subtle nod to the power of the engine. The ad appeals to the deep soul longing of its target audience: Freedom from the grind. It contrasts the impotence of struggling with a plastic bag on a crowded airplane with the power and freedom of riding the open highway.

Somewhere on an Airplane a Man is Trying to Rip Open a Small Bag of Peanuts

Give us life at ground level, riding along the endless highway on a Harley-Davidson. 100% depressurized. Just sunlight on chrome. The voice of a V-Twin ripping the open air. And elbow room stretching all the way to the horizon. Maybe you too think this is the way life ought to be lived.  Time to spread some wings.

Harley peanuts ad

Every professional commercial copywriter knows that the headline is the most crucial part of any ad, and typically spends most of their creative time on a campaign coming up with powerful headlines. The “Father of Advertising” and founder of the agency, Ogilvy and Mather, David Ogilvy, once said, “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

We will expand upon writing powerful headlines that sell in a future blog.

  1. Every purchase is an emotional decision.

“Oh,” but you say, “Some people make purely logical choices based on product research.” There is no such thing as a purely logical decision. Even a research-based decision is based on the emotion of feeling secure in one’s decision.

Take this study, The role of emotion in decision-making: evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage (Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, Bechara A.) The abstract reads:

Most theories of choice assume that decisions derive from an assessment of the future outcomes of various options and alternatives through some type of cost-benefit analyses. The influence of emotions on decision-making is largely ignored. The studies of decision-making in neurological patients who can no longer process emotional information normally suggest that people make judgments not only by evaluating the consequences and their probability of occurring, but also and even sometimes primarily at a gut or emotional level. Lesions of the ventromedial (which includes the orbitofrontal) sector of the prefrontal cortex interfere with the normal processing of “somatic” or emotional signals, while sparing most basic cognitive functions. Such damage leads to impairments in the decision-making process, which seriously compromise the quality of decisions in daily life.

Human beings are essentially incapable of making purely cerebral decisions, as the “gut” constantly communicates with and informs cognition.

  1. Loyalty starts with likability.

People buy from people or brands they like, and liking someone starts with them liking us. Take the study entitled, Similarity versus liking as determinants of interpersonal attractiveness. This psychological study showed that, “Liking has a significant effect upon the Subject’s feelings for the other person—regardless of attitude similarity or dissimilarity.”

Connect with people in a way that makes them feel like you or your brand likes them and cares about what’s important to them, and you’re likely to gain brand loyalty.

Stay tuned for powerful tips and recommendations to help you use written content to sell like a pro!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales