Oklahoma Business #8: Coney I-Lander and Winning Marketing Plans III

Hello and Welcome Oklahoma Business Community!

I'm excited to bring you the eighth edition of the Oklahoma Business Newsletter, your go-to weekly update for the latest news, insights, and advice regarding Oklahoma's thriving business scene. I strive to inspire, inform, and engage business leaders by spotlighting local success stories, providing expert insights, and sharing essential growth and sustainability tips.

In this issue, I’m featuring a local business that is a personal favorite. I'll also share part three of my Winning Marketing Strategy and tell you about some of my personal progress in the same efforts.

Featured Business: Coney I-Lander

Coney I-Lander, a beloved regional chain of restaurants based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been serving its iconic slow-grilled hot dogs since 1926. Established by Greek immigrant Christ Economou, the chain boasts a unique and flavorful menu featuring their signature chili-topped hot dogs in steamed buns, garnished with onions and mustard. In addition to their famed coneys, they also offer small tamales and spaghetti dishes, both topped with the same mouthwatering chili.

Originally known as "Coney Island in Tulsa," the chain rebranded itself as Coney I-Lander in 1983. The rich history of this Oklahoma institution was documented in an oral history given by the founder's son, Jim Economou, in 2011. Today, Coney I-Lander continues to delight customers with its scrumptious offerings, representing not only the legacy of its founder but also the unique culinary heritage of Tulsa and Oklahoma as a whole.

Next week: BOK Financial Corporation

Business Advice: Winning Marketing Plan III – Pen to Paper (or fingers to keyboard, or voice to a microphone, etc.)

Thus far in our process, we have learned about direct marketing as a concept, how to pick a group of people to serve or figure out who you are already serving, and the basics of a Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Today it is time to take these basic ingredients and start to combine them together in order to make something that could potentially be the first thing your customer sees or learns about you. Today we are going to learn about writing persuasive copy, aka copywriting.

I spent way too long thinking about how to approach this subject. Courses, books, college courses, seminars, and careers are made to teach this skill alone. Rather than trying to lead you down too many paths and fill you with TMI, I’m going to keep things very simple and talk about a core concept of emotional connection and persuasive language and then a technique that is easy to implement known as AIDA. Once you learn about these things you will start seeing them used everywhere to get your attention.

Making Emotional Connections

You might have already noticed that the best marketing doesn’t just hit us with facts and figures to drive our decisions—it tells a story. Of course, this story must be specific to your product or service and resonate with your target market, but when you can crack that code, you will see a marked difference in response to your marketing and in the quality of your customer.

Good stories contain the “information” we all want to see, but they are driven by emotional factors such as your reader's fears, desires, and aspirations. When done correctly, you can evoke powerful emotions that drive people to take action. This is important because research shows a vast number of the people that see marketing messages for products they want don’t actually take action. Instead, they tell themselves, “I’ll save this and do it later.”

To achieve an emotional connection, here are a few things that can help:

• Use relatable stories and real-life scenarios to illustrate your points or demonstrate your USP
• Address your reader’s pain points and emphasize how your product or service can alleviate them
• Highlight the emotional benefits of your product or service, such as the feeling of better security, relief, success, or happiness
• Write in a conversational tone and speak directly to your target persona
• Avoid saying yes to all the corrections offered by the spell checker
• Don’t rely on AI

Let me know if you would like me to expand on any of these points!

AIDA Technique, Time-Tested Foundational Formula for Success

There are thousands of techniques and approaches to copywriting that people have come up with over the years. If you are interested in learning more about some other techniques and approaches, you can follow this link to get a free list: https://techsico.it/copywritingbooks

However, before you read a bunch of books and turn yourself into an expert, I will show you a very simple technique and leave you with some advice that you might find helpful for starting out.

AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action and outlines four key stages to guide your reader through to get them to respond to your copy. Now I’ll walk you through each and show you a real-life example I’ve been working on.

1.??????Attention: Grab the reader’s attention with a powerful headline, picture, or opening sentence that speaks directly to the concerns of your target persona.

2.??????Interest: Build interest by highlighting the USP of your product or service and explain why it is the best solution for them now.

3.??????Desire: Ignite the reader’s desire by vividly showing how your offering will improve their life, solve their problems, or fulfill their dreams.

4.??????Action: Set them into motion with a compelling call-to-action (CTA) that motivates them to take the next step, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting more information.

Let’s look at an example I’ve been working on for my IT services directed at people I feel need it most. Seniors who still use the computer and have a large number of assets tied to their computer such as online investment accounts, online banking, etc.

Attention: You’ve worked hard for what you have, don’t let a cybercriminal take it from you. In this digital age, seniors are often targeted by ruthless hackers seeking to exploit them.

Interest: Techsico IT is like your personal cybersecurity guards, always on duty to ensure no cybercriminal can exploit you. Techsico IT offers a 24/7 Security Operation Center and a unique review service where you can send emails, text messages, and other correspondence to our team. We will alert you if anything seems like a scam.

Desire: Imagine a life where you confidently surf the internet, open emails, and engage online without fear. Imagine the confidence and peace of mind of knowing that an expert team is always there to help discern genuine messages from scams.

Action: Don’t wait until it’s too late. Arm yourself against cyber threats today with Techsico IT.

This message isn’t fully fleshed out, but I like the direction. I’ve built the basic framework, and I can take these simple parts and build them into entire advertising campaigns, videos, articles, and more!

What I’ve Been Doing

I got the book I was working on published. I was able to hit #37 in sales rank on Amazon for my category, which is ultra exciting. You can check out the book now here: https://amzn.to/3oa7iGq (Link to Amazon)

But I do ask you not to buy it yet for two reasons.

First, I’m still working on edits. I got this book done so quickly as I signed up for a book writing challenge, and even though I’ve read through it a few times, I need to make another editing pass. Of course, you can feel free to purchase if you don’t mind pointing out mistakes to me.

Second, even though I reached #37, I would like to get a higher sales rank. I will coordinate a day on which I will lower the price to $0.99. I ask everyone to buy on this day to increase my chances of reaching the top 10—details to come.

Warm regards,

Spencer Heckathorn

Techsico Information Technology LLC.,

https://techsico.it/