Devoted to lead generation, lead generators, and successful lead gen campaigns

That's according to marketing guru Bob Bly, anyway.

In your marketing campaigns, Bly says it's a good idea to encourage your prospects to take some sort of physical action.

For instance, a mail-order marketer of pipes (the kind you burn tobacco in) told his buyers: "If you are not 100 percent satisfied with the pipe, snap the stem off and mail it back to me in an envelope for a full refund."

One reason this worked is that it was dramatic and unexpected: The marketer actually told the customer to destroy his product if dissatisfied. But it also made the guarantee more tangible by linking it to a physical action: The copy creates a mental image of breaking the pipe in two with your bare hands.

Another example was in a successful mailing that sold an annual directory of drug information: Physicians Desk Reference (PDR). The challenge in selling an annual directory is to get your customers to buy it every year. To do that, you've got to convince them that (a) there are so many changes in the new directory that the old one they have is out of date, and that (b) using outdated information is bad.

The PDR promotion included a sticker that said, in bright red letters, "WARNING! This PDR is out of date and should not be used for clinical decisions." Copy in the sales letter told the recipients to put the sticker on their old PDR until they received the new book and could replace it. It was a clever and effective way of dramatizing the claim that the old directory contained dated and potentially dangerous material.

Another great use of physical action in marketing is to tell the prospect how he can test or demonstrate the product by himself at home.

One mailing for a nutritional supplement to sharpen vision said, "Measure your vision today with an eye chart. Take the supplement for six weeks. Then measure it again and note the improvement." To make it easier for the consumer to check his vision before and after taking the pills, the marketer enclosed a free optometrist's eye chart.

Another mailing for a nutritional supplement featured a pill for "oral chelation," claiming that taking the pill could improve cardiac health by removing plaque from your arteries. The copy brilliantly described a simple test the consumer could do at home to prove that the supplement was working. It said that if, after taking the pills for several weeks, you urinate into a glass container and swirl it, you will see a "white tornado" of sediment in the urine... proving that particles of plaque have been flushed out of your body.

Do you see how asking your prospect to take a physical, memorable action can help you sell your product or service more effectively?