T H E M IS S I N G
51 H E L P F U L
MA R K E T I N G I D E A S
More simple, tested, yet often neglected ideas guaranteed
to improve results
D R AY T O N B I R D
D R AY TO N B I R D A S S O C I AT E S LT D
2013
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Oil discovered in hell.
HOW YOU CAN GET MOST OUT OF
THIS (AND ANY) BOOK
Please read these instructions completely before you begin.Youll save time and
learn more.
1. BATTLE TESTED RECESSION SURVIVAL STRATEGY
FOR THE REST OF US
Force your mar keting to make money by measur ing.
2. CRM CHECKLIST. OR A TEST: ARE YOU SOBER?
CRM systems can help or hur t you.
3. HOW NOT TO CHOOSE AN AGENCY
If you want to waste your money and time, have beauty parades of prospective
agencies . If you want results , do what smar t marketers do: test.
4. WHAT A DEAD DICTATOR CAN TEACH YOU
ABOUT MARKETING
Fame may help sales , but its not ever ything. You need proof.
5. IF YOU WRITE WELL AS THIS CHARMING MAN,
CALL ME, YOU ARE HIRED
Read it and weep then copy.
6. SUSHI AND THE FUTURE OF BRANDS
Building your brand is wor k. It doesnt end with a wr itten strategy, it star ts there.
7. ONE OF THESE 99 WORDS COULD SLAUGHTER
YOUR EMAILS
Know the words that could stop you from making money you deser ve.
8. HOW TO SELL TO BUSINESSES
(PLUS A TIP ON DEALING WITH GEEKS)
If you treat people as people, youll do well.
I N T RO D U C T I O N
Oil discovered in hell.
DO YOU LIKE TO THINK FOR YOURSELF? Or do you
prefer to follow the crowd?
Why should you want to think for yourself? Why not do
what everyone else does?
Benjamin Graham, who trained the worlds greatest investor
Warren Buffett, told a story over 40 years ago that illustrates
why its not always a good idea:
An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met
by St. Peter with bad news.
Youre qualified for residence, said St. Peter, but, as you
can see, the compound reserved for oil men is reserved. Theres
no way to squeeze you in.
After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might
say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless
to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled: Oil
discovered in hell.
Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all the oil
men marched out to head for the nether regions.
Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and
make himself comfortable.
The prospector paused. No, he said, I think Ill go along
with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that
rumour after all.
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You see, the temptation to follow the crowd is almost overwhelming. It removes the need for hard work and study.
But only through studying what has happened in the past
can you start to think properly - for all sound decisions derive
from relevant knowledge
That is what these marketing ideas give you.
I hope you find them helpful and applicable
They are based on practice, not theory. Often in difficult
situations, in small and large markets across the world.
They have cost millions to uncover and took me five decades
to gather.
Ive often said I wished I had known about them sooner. I
mean it. I would have been spared many sleepless nights. And a
depressingly vast amount of money.
You have my unconditional money back guarantee: if you
put them in action they will work. And I hope you do, because
this book is an action book.
There are enough lemmings happily following any new fad
or trend over the nearest cliff. The current one is social media.
Why not join those who are guided by what works?
Drayton Bird
P.S. This is the second of these books. You can get the first here:
http://draytonbird.net/51ideas/
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H O W YO U C A N G E T M O S T O U T
OF THIS (AND ANY) BOOK
Please read these instructions carefully before you begin.
Youll save time and learn more.
There are two motives for reading a book; one,
that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
- philosopher Bertrand Russell
DID YOU KNOW that according to a University of Waterloo
study you forget 80% of what you read after 24 hours?
For example if you read a 200 page book today, you can recall
only about 40 pages of it tomorrow. But it doesnt stop there. It
gets worse.
After a month you may remember only 2% - 3% of what
you have read less than 9 pages out of 200.
Imagine how much time and money you waste! But luckily
you can improve your comprehension and even save time with
few simple learning tricks.
Please read these instructions completely before you continue.
How to extract the most out of what you read in the least time:
1. Skim the book through quickly: flirt with it; see how its
written.
2. Preview every page, a second or two per page no more.
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If you follow these steps, you will be able to cut your reading
time and improve your comprehension and recall. Why?
Because just as in advertising, repetition pays.
Now you have hammered the information into your head
several times, so it will stay there longer. But this process doesnt
take you much longer than reading the old way. It may take
less.
Heres why.
When you do a little warm ups with the text, your brain
adjusts to what you are studying. Just as you warm up your muscles
before sports. Makes sense?
You will read faster because you are now more familiar with
the text. And by previewing, reviewing and intelligent note taking
you will remember more of what you have read.
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Whats more you can now quickly review your notes, so your
investment keeps paying off in the future instead of vanishing
from your mind like a shadow in the night.
And if you really want to boost your learning, write answers
to these two questions before you begin:
1. Why am I reading this?
2. What do I want to get out of it?
By doing that you are giving your mind a sense of direction
and purpose
Please begin now and remember: to get the best results
studying should be fun not a chore. So I hope you find what
follows not just helpful but entertaining.
MY RATHER EXTRAVAGANT
100% MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE
Some of these ideas may seem almost laughably simple.
Some may relate to you and your plans; some may not.
You probably already know a few yet one of the
most common comments I have received about them is,
I knew that, and we should be doing it, but were not.
Its so easy to overlook even the most obvious things,
isnt it? I do all the time.
The important thing is that every one of the Helpful
Ideas in this book is based on experience, not theory.
One of the worlds most successful direct marketers
told me that not knowing about one of the ideas in the
first of these books cost him at least a million dollars.
Put them to the test for yourself.
If your profits dont increase by 100 times what you
paid for the book, Ill give you your money back gladly,
if a little puzzled.
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HELPFUL IDEA 1:
Battle tested recession survival strategy
for the rest of us
Force your marketing to make money by measuring.
Marketing is one of the first things to feel the axe when
times get tough and no wonder if you have no idea what
it's doing for you.
DO THE FOLLOWING FIGURES interest you?
By moving nine words from the bottom to the top of a form,
a loan firm increased the number of applications by 240%
Adding two words in an email subject line doubled the
number of enquiries about a telephone service
Putting someone's face in a letter about investment increased
sales by 20%
Removing one piece from a direct mail piece for a bank
increased return on investment by 92%
If those figures don't interest you, stop reading now.
If they do, keep going.
Why managers cut marketing
When recession strikes, where do managers save money? Well,
very logically they cut out things that don't seem essential.
Often that means marketing ... a rather vague discipline which
often seems to ask you to spend a lot of money for an unquantifiable
return.
This is because very little marketing is conducted in a measurable
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way. Yet all the really successful marketers - Procter & Gamble
for instance - measure everything. What is more on today's dominant medium, the internet, everything can be measured.
If you look at some of the world's most successful firms Amazon, eBay or American Express, for example - they rely entirely
or almost entirely on direct marketing. Moreover, all internet
marketing is direct marketing. That is, messages reach people
directly via email, or they go directly to it when they go to a
web page.
There are many other kinds of direct marketing - direct
mail, mail order advertising, SMS messages for instance. And
today the overwhelming majority of selling messages direct you
to a website, giving you the chance to build a direct relationship.
But what they all have in common is they make it easy to gauge
what you get for your money.
Until you force every single message or action to prove, as
far as possible, its value as an investment, you are conducting
what I call kindergarten marketing.
Why it makes sense
There are three reasons, all simple, why direct marketing makes
sense.
First, as I have explained, by coding all your messages you
can measure your results, and when times are tough you need
to know what results your investment is producing.
Second, it is an ideal way to target and acquire the right kind
of customers - the ones most likely to spend the most money.
And third, it is the perfect way to retain those customers for
longer - and the customer you have got is from 3 to 8 times
more profitable than an identical person who is not a customer.
In short, direct marketing, whether online or in traditional
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media allows you to spend your money where you will get the
greatest return on investment.
But there is another reason which I first pointed out to an
audience in India in 1987. Direct marketing is the closest thing
yet to perfect marketing. Quite a claim, so let me explain.
What is marketing?
Marketing is defined by the British Chartered Institute of
Marketing as: "Identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably".
There is another, simpler definition given by an American
millionaire many years ago who said: "Find out what people
want and need, and give it to them - and you'll get rich".
Peter Drucker wrote that the aim of marketing is to "know
and understand the customer so well that the product fits him
and sells itself." This is, if you agree with him, perfect marketing.
And it is what direct marketing does better than any other
method.
To give a simple approach, first through the use of postal,
telephone and internet questionnaires it can establish very
cheaply what people say they want.
But as we all know, what people think they want or say they
are often not what they really want and not a good guide to what
they will actually do. That is why a lot of research is very misleading.
Direct marketing solves that problem by clearly answering
the BIG question: will they buy it? It does so by asking them to
do so.
As my old boss David Ogilvy put it, "General advertisers
can only guess. Direct marketers know." By testing different
messages you can see what works and what doesn't.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 2:
A CRM checklist. Or a test: are you sober?
CRM systems can help or hurt you.
Dont fall for marketing automation mania. Many have lost
a fortune trying to make computers do all the work. But
computers can only do what you tell them. Not the opposite.
And no system can think for you.
DO YOU BELIEVE in magic?
Marketers tend to. They are suckers for miracle cures - and
here's why.
We all know our customers are lazy. That's why the words
"quick" and "easy" always increase readership of any headline.
Show them how they can do something - lose weight, learn
a language - with less effort, and you probably have a winning
proposition.
You must package it well, though - preferably with an
impressive name.
So it's not listening to and repeating words and phrases; it's
"programmed learning". That makes you feel you're doing
something important, doesn't it?
Why smart people do dumb things
Guess what? Marketers are just as lazy as customers - hardly
surprising, as they are customers every day. Most (as I learned
from asking them to define it in many countries) are too lazy to
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nor should they be. We have to earn their loyalty every day".
His firm forgot that and it nearly ruined them.
Sober people know the obvious: nobody sane wants a relationship with their bank or supermarket. They have enough
trouble getting on with their families. And a "programme"
won't cure any dodgy relationship.
The intelligent use of data does pay. Here is a good example. Ocado sent my
partner Marta this, based on things she had bought before.
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Step 5
Many firms still have separate databases for customer and
transactional information If your marketing database can't access
both, you're in trouble.
Can you record what happens at all every point in
the transaction?
On a database all those who may need to know can access?
The moment of truth.
Did you answer the first 5 steps mostly 'yes'? If so, you stand a
chance of CRM working for you. If you said mostly 'no', stop
right now and get it right.
If you're talking to CRM consultants politely ask them to
leave. Their time is expensive, and you'll lose your shirt.
Step 6 - start the ball rolling
Tell your customers what you plan to do
Manage their expectations
Involve, motivate and train all your staff
Make sure everyone - particularly retail staff - gets
the same respect
Step 7 - attend to detail
Remind yourself what you've promised, and deliver it. Often,
essential processes are not part of firms' structures. They don't
appreciate what skills and structures you need.
Step 8
Most customers won't tell you they are unhappy. They tell their
friends - and walk away.
Set up a monitoring process in your company
Make sure you identify any weak links that appear
in the chain
Step 9
Ask your customers how they think you're doing
Loyalty can improve just by making it easy for them to tell
you what they think
Allow your customers to suggest improvements. It's the best
research you'll ever get
Step 10 - it doesn't stop
Don't imagine this is something you just "put in place".
Keep listening to your customers
Keep learning from your customers
Keep refining your system
Keep training and re-training your people
When should you refer to these questions?
When your IT director says, "We've got this wonderful CRM
software..."
When the board says, "That's a brave move you're making
there, this CRM stuff..."
Just take out this quiz, and re-read it. You'll know more
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than many CRM consultants. You might even keep your job.
P. S. I quoted Ocado earlier. They fail to do one essential, very
simple thing with their database. I believe it is costing them
millions.
P.P.S. If, like many, you have fallen in love with social media,
you might end up making the same mistake as the CRM
groupies.
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 3:
How NOT to choose an agency
If you want to waste your money and time have a beauty parade of
prospective agencies. If you want results, do what smart marketers do: test.
Theres a much quicker and smarter way to choose the
right agency than going for the people you like. Test your
candidates. With real work.
ONCE UPON A TIME, I used to bang out 6 or 7 articles a
month for sundry marketing magazines around the world.
Now I write two or three times as many, only most are called
blogs.
Someone once asked me how I managed to find things to
write about. "No problem," I replied. "I just have to flick through
any marketing publication and I'm bound to find something
absurd or stupid to comment on within minutes."
This came back to me when a while ago day I read with
some amusement how a man who worked for me years ago had
chosen a new agency for his big account.
Here's what made me laugh.
1. The whole process took over six months.
2. It was a "five-way pitch".
3. The agency he chose was staffed entirely by people he had
worked with before.
Dr. Johnson said of sex: "the expense is damnable, the position
ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting."
This came to mind when considering this pitch, with three
other thoughts.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 4:
What a dead dictator can teach you about marketing
Fame may help sales, but its not everything. You need proof.
Perhaps the easiest way to increase your advertisings selling
power is simply to add more proof: testimonials, as seen
on TV, mentions in press, experts statements, associations
favorite. Research. Specific sources. Faces of happy
customers...
DO YOU RECOGNISE this man?
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 5:
If you write well as this charming man,
call me, you are hired
Read it and weep then copy.
Its surprising how much better your copy will be if you try
to be a little more human. Sounds elementary? The most
powerful things usually are. Heres a superb piece of personal
communication that sells.
SOME TIME AGO I did a seminar for 11 Virgin Wines people.
They said they learned a lot (8 "fabulous" ratings, 3 "very
good") but I learned a lot, too.
I always do from one man who was there, and who is just
brilliant.
Not surprising, because he founded the business - and before
that ran Virgin Finance. Now he has started another business,
Naked Wines which is going through the roof.
After the seminar, he sent me this e-mail. Read it and weep,
as I did.
Why is so little of my stuff as good as his?
But when I read something this good, I wonder what I can
learn - and copy
From: Rowan Gormley [mailto: Rowan.Gormley@virginwines.com]
Sent: 12 July 2007 10:03
To: Drayton Bird
Subject: Help me keep my job. Please
Dear Drayton,
I would like to offer you a case of sensational, very hard to find wines,
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Well to start with, we would like to offer you a welcome case at half
the normal price. A saving of 40. Why? The more members we have,
the better we can buy, the better we buy the more members we can have.
And then every quarter, after tasting our way through literally
thousands of wines, and we will pick out the absolute best for our
members. We will write to you to tell you about the wines we have
selected. You can then change the case in any way you want (more of
this, less of that, or even no case at all). OR sit back and relax, and
we will ship them to you.
And the best bit...after you have tried the wines, members get a
minimum of15% the price that the general public pay. So you get the
lowest possible prices, on the wines you have chosen, out of the wines we
have chosen, out of the 1000's that we have tasted.
Is there a catch? Let me think....er....no. This is not one of those
ghastly book clubs. If you don't want the wines, all yo u have to do is
say so. We will refund your money instantly, without fuss, if you are
not happy with the wine, the service or anything else. We will even
come and collect the wines off your doorstep if you want us to.
So what makes this so good?
1. Great subject line. Surprising, makes you want to know more.
And everyone likes to help.
2. Starts with an irresistible offer.
3. Bags of charm - makes you laugh.
4. Relevant surprise: the contrast between those who sell and
those who make is so clever and appropriate.
5. That theme is carried through.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 6:
Sushi and the future of brands
Building your brand is work.
It doesnt end with a written strategy, it starts there.
Heres what you can learn about marketing from eating sushi.
WHAT CAN A BOX OF SUSHI teach you about the future of
brands?
A lot of people think I lunch every day in smart restaurants,
me being a "guru" and all.
Alas, not true - though I used to, and don't regret a drunken
moment of it.
The other day, I had sushi from Pret a Manger.
Years ago one of their founders came to a seminar I ran for
the Institute of Direct Marketing, so I would love to say their
astounding success owes something to me.
But I doubt it. Because what they do well besides bloody
good food is attend to detail - and they do a complete selling
job, especially to the most important people.
Who are these important people?
They are, as I'm sure you know, their customers. Not their
prospects. And not just any customers. The ones who just
bought and carried their food to the table, or in my case to the
office.
If you could read the little black and gold messages on my
lunch, you would see that one tells why their wasabi - the ginger
mustard you eat with sushi - is a rather muddy colour, unlike the
bright green you get with most sushi.
It's because they don't use, as they say, "a colouring called
Brilliant Blue E133. Yuk!" - and how right they are to tell that
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 7:
One of these 99 words could slaughter your emails
Know the words that could stop you from making money you deserve.
Things that work in direct mail usually work on email - but
there are exceptions. Unfortunately some of the most powerful sales words like FREE may sometimes get you in trouble.
PROBABLY THE MOST SUCCESSFUL creative formula in
any medium is 'problem-solution.'
In most thrillers, the plot revolves around problems being
solved - e.g., the hero is falsely accused of a crime and will be
executed if he doesn't find the real murderer.
In classical music, the fulfillment comes when the music
moves from an unsatisfying dissonance to a final consonance
where everything seems to come together.
In marketing messages you have the before and after too:
lined face, smooth skin; dirty floor, clean floor; poor, rich - and
so on. You see it all the time in headlines and TV commercials.
Generations of copywriters (like me) have worked like mad
to devise good problem solution headlines. And they worked
very well in internet subject lines - to start with.
But spam has killed many of them. Here are 99 words or
phrases that can stop your messages getting through, compiled
by Jordan Ayan of SubscriberMail.
Jordan is a Guru, just like people keep telling me I am - but
at least he has the right kind of name for the job.
1. 100% free
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2. 50% off
3. act now
4. all words that relate to sex or pornography
5. all words that related to cures or medication
6. amazing
7. anything that looks like you are YELLING
8. apply now
9. as seen
10. as seen on Oprah
11. as seen on TV
12. avoid
13. be your own boss
14. buy
15. call now
16. cash bonus
17. cialis
18. click here
19. collect
20. compare
21. consolidate
22. contains $$$
23. contains word "ad"
24. credit
25. Dear Friend
26. discount
27. don't delete
28. double your anything
29. double your income
30. e.x.t.r.a. Punctuation
31. earn
32. earn $
33. earn extra cash
34. easy terms
35. eliminate debt
36. extra income
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72. notspam
73. now only
74. numerical digits at the end
75. offer
76. online degree
77. online marketing
78. online pharmacy
79. only
80. open
81. opportunity
82. promised you
83. refinance
84. removes
85. reverses
86. satisfaction
87. search engine listings
88. serious cash
89. starting with a dollar amount
90. stop or stops
91. teen
92. you're a winner!
93. undisclosed recipient
94. valium
95. vicodin
96. winner
97. work from home
98. xanax
99. your family
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 8:
How to sell to businesses (plus a tip on dealing with geeks)
If you treat people as people, youll do well.
If you struggle to sell to businesses, you could making this
common almost universal mistake.
I DON'T KNOW IF YOU READ the agony column in papers
and magazines but I have my own.
I get lots of questions from people, and just occasionally I
come up with an intelligent answer.
One is quite common, in one guise or another. So when a
reader from IBM in Slovakia asked me it, I thought I'd show
you what I said. Here's her e-mail:
What do you think about being emotional regarding IT people in
B2B - managers/geeks, etc.
I wrote an e-mail and asked around what people thought ...I tried
to use emotional words balanced with dry technical "must be there"
descriptions....
And many of the comments were a bit like: "Don't assume that IT
people are stupid...they hate such words...
So as an expert what do you say?
I replied:
IT people are (as far as we can see) quite human.
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They love, hate, laugh, fear, hope, have ambitions - and so on.
We've done a fair amount of work for a very big firm called Tekronix
on their copy. I actually did a seminar for them in Oregon.
They sell highly sophisticated testing and measuring equipment
- similar types to the IT folk - and what we suggested seemed to work
very well.
We find that combining emotional and practical benefits works, and
it pays to speak in plain English, not techno-gloop - but you must be
very clear and strong on the practical features.
In fact that excellent US expert Bob Bly states that he has found this
is one kind of business where features matter more than benefits.
As to whether IT - or any other people - are stupid or clever, here is
one fact and one golden rule.
1. Some are stupid, some are clever but you need to persuade all of
them.
2. Therefore, write so clearly that even the stupid ones understand because the clever ones will too.
Also, do what you would in normal life when talking to someone. Be
polite. Don't make it obvious that you think someone may be stupid.
In copy the magic phrase is, "As you know" at the start of a sentence
where you say something everyone should know - but perhaps many
don't.
What about jargon? Use enough to let people know that
youre on their wavelength, or they wont respect you.
Just to end this on a suitable note, here's an IT joke you may like.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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HELPFUL IDEA 9:
Why the profit is seldom in the first sale
To understand the lifetime value of your customer is magic.
To ignore it is a sin.
How one man went to jail before he understood this secret of
success.
"THE DEVIL HAS ALL the best tunes" - old saying.
I hope this isn't going to shock or surprise you, but you
probably know already that if you want to know how to sell online,
the people who know most are those who sell 'adult' material.
However, I'm not talking about
that today. I'm talking about this ad,
or rather the business that ran it, from
which you can take note of something
simple but important.
This ad was sent to me by Lawrence
Bernstein whom you can reach at
http://www.infomarketingblog.com
Lawrence runs a service any serious
creative person can benefit from - he has
a file of great ads going back 80 years,
all of which teach important lessons.
The man in the ad, Ralph Ginzburg, He went to jail but came back as a
financial newsletter publisher
was - back in the Swinging '60's - a
who
understood the value of a long
pioneer in two wildly different fields term customer.
'adult material' and investment advice.
I suspect his lewd offerings were far milder that what you see
in the Daily Sport every day, but after he got out of jail, he
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
53
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
Yet here's the rub: marketers are almost all going to on-line
experts for their creative.
And what do they know about selling? Not nearly enough.
But, as I have been pointing out to audiences all over the
world for 12 years now, the medium may have changed, but the
customers haven't - and they respond to the same old stimuli. In
fact here's a fact you might like to think about.
I use almost identical copy for e-mails as for direct mail, just
as I use almost identical copy for door to door as for direct mail
- and in both cases it works just as well. And I write the same
way in my blog as I do in my printed articles.
You might like to think about the implications of that.
You might also like to read anything written by Clayton
Makepeace. He was the highest paid copywriter in the world
until he semi-retired.
No wonder: around the time I first wrote this one of his
little pieces pulled in $60,000 in four hours.
Not to be sneezed at.
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
63
highly instructive.
As you know, practically every organisation has a newsletter.
Most, in my view, are perilously close to rubbish.
The reason is, I suspect that those who produce them are so
busy doing so that they never stop to ask some pretty simple
questions.
The first is this: what is a newsletter?
That may seem such a simple question as to be stupid, but
please bear with me if - even more simply - I divide the word
into two. Clearly, your newsletter delivers - or should deliver news in the form of a letter.
Well as I write this I am looking at a selection of newsletters
from all over the country and asking myself some more simple
questions.
1. How many look like letters?
2. And if they are supposed to be letters, what sort of character
should they have? How should they read?
3. What sort of news should they contain?
The answer to the first question is, again, simple. Hardly
any of them look like letters. Most of them look a sort of minimagazine or a leaflet that got a bit too big for its boots. Quite a
few seem quite expensive little productions, with fancy typefaces. They certainly don't look like letters, and they don't read
like letters.
This begs four more questions:
1. Why is the newsletter such a popular idea?
2. What should be its character - its strength?
3. How come they turn into something else much grander?
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is the bad kind - about the people who send it out; pictures of
chief executives and celebrations - which are of no interest to
people you are trying to influence.
Here are some things to think about.
Good newsletters can charge far more for their subscriptions
than even the best magazines because they are seen as giving
"inside information" to a limited number of people - a community.
No newsletter should be without a very prominent personal
message, in the form of a letter to the readers, that introduces the
content and explains why it is of interest to them.
All the language should be friendly and personal, as in a letter,
not impersonal or official.
The closer it is visually to a letter, the better.
Don't use expensive and elaborate visual work. It isn't
needed, and takes away from the personal nature of a newsletter.
If you really hanker to publish a magazine, look at some like
Grazia or GQ. Then stop and think: do you have the skills to do
that well - as you are competing for people's attention with such
professionals.
Your newsletter should make people feel they belong to a
real community ... one where they can join in and comment, not
one run by other people who like to see pictures of themselves.
By the way, you have now been receiving these little messages
for quite a few months. An amazing number of you have written
saying nice things about them.
And what are they? They are really just newsletters that
come out once very three days. And they follow the rules I have
just mentioned.
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10. Were the visual and verbal tone appropriate to what you're
selling?
11. Did you say what it is - or what it does?
12. Were the benefits impossible to miss? Did you quantify them?
13. Did you emphasise low price before it sold the benefits?
14. Was it complete? Every reason why given? Every objection
overcome?
15. Did you prove your claims were true?
16. Did you show enough people?
17. Did you demonstrate the benefit?
18. Did you waste money on needless elements?
19. Conversely, was there anything you could have added, but didn't?
20. Did you ask firmly and repeatedly for a reply?
21. Did you tell people exactly what to do?
22. Was there more than one place to order?
23. Was there more than one way to order?
24. Did you repeat your benefits at least three times - especially
when asking for a reply?
25. Was it as easy as possible to reply, register interest or order?
Was the coupon/order device big enough, easy to understand
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and send off? You didnt ask people to verify or copy one of
those incomprehensible sets of letters did you? Only do that
if you want to make things hard for people or discourage
frivolous replies
26. Was the letter/email strong and personal if possible charming?
God forbid there was no letter if you sent a catalogue or
brochure
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See if you can improve many little things. They add up.
Dont get lost in the sea of management jargon.
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Under it, the line: "If you really want to touch someone, send them a letter".
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life. She's trying to get a job, which means she has to write letters.
Admittedly it's only for a summer job while at university,
but it's still pretty important. But since she is young with hardly
any experience of this part of life, she's at sixes and sevens on
how to go about it.
Let me tell you what happened
She sent her unsolicited CV to a famous jewellery firm she
is pretty keen to work for. I asked her if I could have a look at
what she sent, in case I could help in future.
My heart sank when I read what she had sent, as I knew if
the letter arrived on my desk I wouldn't have wanted to interview
her. I felt like kicking myself, too, since I do sales letters all the
time and here was my own daughter not even getting the basics
right- because I hadn't helped.
And let's face it, a letter to get a job can either start you out
on a career - or fail to do so. This could be the most important
letter she would ever write.
It got me thinking that there must be lots of other parents
out there with children in the same boat so I thought everyone
might benefit if I looked at how Ally could have done a better
job - and she would also do better next time.
If you find these tips useful, please pass them onto any
young people you know who are about to look for a job. They
probably need all the help they can get.
You might even be looking for a job yourself and be a bit
rusty.
Let's look at what she sent in.
The application had no covering letter to speak of except
something along the lines of, "I would like to work for your
company this summer so I am enclosing my CV". This 3 page
statement of facts began like this:
"I am a hard working, intelligent and sharp
person who works well on her feet. The experience
from working in retail has helped me immensely
in becoming very confident in selling goods to a
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
Getting a job means you are selling yourself and the aim
of what you write is to get an interview.
Make an offer.
Dont send your CV without a tailored letter.
Persevere.
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This little picture is here to remind you of an old rhyme which runs
"Always keep a hold of nurse, for fear of catching something worse."
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He wrote: "As a reader of your tips and your blog, I just had
to send you this piece of vacuous, disappearing-up-their-own89
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William Blake
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Being precise can make the difference between failure and success.
Worry about right things: results not just costs.
It may take more than once to get your ad right.
Generally the more you tell, the more you sell.
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think if people can't write English, what else are they bad at?
This e-mail reminded me of those occasions when I've ended
up with something I really shouldn't have bought - but I did.
You know how it is. You see something in a store that's such
a good deal you just can't resist it. You're worried that someone
else might get it before you, and the thing is, the store is closing
in 10 minutes, so you don't want to miss it.
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Better to take a sample and mail it at a higher price than blow your
money on mailing the lot.
No deal is must-do deal.
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So, tell me, dear reader, do YOU find your bank exciting?
Do you see it as the ideal party venue? Will you be waiting nervously
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It is not the girl with the sexy high heels who will do the
trick - though I'm sure the art director had a lot of fun choosing
the models; it is the donkey pretending to be a mule. There was a
whole series of girls with this delightful animal, and I think it did
a great job - assuming the drink tasted OK.
This campaign did not run very long. Probably not long
enough to do a decent job. As wiser people than I have often
commented, advertisers often get tired of their advertising long
before the public.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
Dare to be different.
A relevant surprise in advertising rarely fails.
There are no dull products or services, only dull
copywriters.
A big idea doesnt have to be expensive.
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So money that should be going to help them is being squandered to satisfy some little genius's idea of a clever line. It will
almost certainly do no good, and quite possibly a fair bit of
harm.
What has happened is that some idiot has decided to be
clever and play on the fact that a lot of people see black faces as
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
Brands are the same. You can spend all the money you like
buying chunks of airtime in which to compose messages saying
how great you are, paying celebrities and beautiful people to
espouse your charms, and using PR to manipulate the media to
say great things about you. But if the time comes when the
customer tries your product and finds it sucks or rings up to
complain and gets a "nothing to do with us" attitude or gets a
series of overly heavy correspondence about some trivial matter
- then they start to get a real picture of your brand; the brand
reality.
The converse is also true. If your advertising and PR isn't
particularly hot but 'wow' are you nice, pleasant people to deal
with and 'hey' does your product work well, that kind of brand
message gets passed around. True it takes a little more time if
you don't advertise it but it is most certainly the approach that
works best in the long term.
Now direct marketing by definition involves a company
interacting with its customers. And that is why I say that
direct marketing is a far more powerful brand building tool than
conventional broad brush approaches. Evidence for this is plain
to see: Reader's Digest, American Express and Tango are all
examples of powerful brands built on direct marketing. Recently
Viking office supplies was sold for over 1 billion. We've all seen
their catalogues - not the most attractive in the world, but have
you ever dealt with them? They really deliver. And the power of
their brand is reflected in the sale price of the company.
Also I have to say that for many products, especially those
that are low cost everyday items, like most foods for example,
this broadcast approach is often enough - but not always.
That is why Tango is such an interesting example. As a soft
drink brand you might have thought they don't need to interact
with their customers - my point above - and the product is too
cheap to merit conventional direct marketing methods. But they
were languishing on the sidelines until their famous orange man
campaign. Some of their campaigns have generated over
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you are further down the sales process you won't know what
they are. So you have to cover every angle.
Another good reason for doing this is it's very hard to stay
in touch with prospects when you have nothing new to say and
keep repeating yourself. Mind you, continually sending out the
same message to existing prospects is better than doing nothing
at all.
Continually qualify your prospect
Every so often politely ask your prospect whether they'd prefer if
they didn't hear from you again. This not only saves time and
money weeding out duff prospects. Another real advantage is
forcing your other prospects to ask, "Are we interested in what
you have to say and offer?"
Naturally, when you do this, you get more people than normal
asking not to hear from you again. But in the same light also you
get more than usual letting you know their intentions and where
they are in the buying process.
I suspect when you read the bit about long copy you muttered
to yourself "Easier said than done." It's true. So one good trick
is to write next to each paragraph a phrase summing up what it
says. Then you can see whether the sequence of argument makes
sense.
Lastly, here's a point you'll know I'm very fond of:
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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the beginning of the sentence by the time they get to the end.
You must make it easy for people.
The same applies to paragraphs. Vary them, but keep them
short, containing only one or two thoughts - especially the first
one. A long opening paragraph is daunting. And happily Microsoft Word has a tool partly based on Flesch which will help
you. Just go to Tools/Option/Spelling & Grammar/Show readability statistics. If you use that option it automatically tells you
how readable your stuff is. Oh - and whatever you do, ignore
their grammar suggestions - they're 100% useless.
Good examples
Read any popular novel, newspaper or magazine. They are written
for people who are not clever, or not concentrating. Words,
sentences and paragraphs are very short. And here are some other
suggestions.
1. A heading must make the reader want to find out more, and
not reveal so much they might not feel they need to read it.
2. Try to avoid 'we' instead of 'I' - the writing most likely to be
read is me to you. People don't relate to organisations.
3. Count the number of "you" words - yours and your - versus
"me" words - I, us, our, ours and we. The ratio should be at least
2:1, preferably 3:1.
4. Use "carrier" words and phrases at the beginnings of sentences
to keep people reading. Such as Moreover, That is why, In addition,
What's more, On top of that, Also and And. These tell your
reader there is more to come. And forget what your teacher told
you: "And" is often used to start sentences in The Bible.
5. You can also use questions at the ends of sentences or
paragraphs. Why is this?
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4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
Active is always shorter. A biblical example is "Abel was slain by
Cain" - better as "Cain slew Abel".
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon
word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
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many years. And if you read the copy, you can see that it is in a
field that's very popular now on the Internet - making money by
selling stuff.
Just salesmanship
It is easy to forget that your advertising merely acts as a substitute
for a live salesperson. If you could afford it, you would send the
finest salesperson you have to do the job for you. So when you
look at your marketing copy, you must constantly ask yourself,
"Is this how a great salesperson would do it?"
If you want to make a sale, you must:
Remind people what they get when you ask for the
order.
Put a value on what they get. ("You could pay more
for a lunch for two.")
Remind them what they will miss if they don't
respond to your offer.
Emphasize the deadline or the limited numbers.
(I've seen that boost response by 50%.)
"Why not make this the very next thing you do?"
"Why not reply the minute you finish
reading this?"
"It's so easy to put things off, isn't it?
Why not reply now?"
"Why not order now, while this is fresh
in your mind?"
I always try to ask for the sale at least three times at the end.
And if I'm working with long copy, I ask early on too. (That
gets people who are keen to buy right away.) And then I keep
asking at intervals.
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Some of these people want better copy. Some want their stuff
critiqued. Some want training. Some want cheaper, better leads
on line. They all want to do better in tough times. Sixteen of
those nineteen have come back for more - twelve repeatedly. The
other three were just one project - so far.
The other day one came back after a year's careful measurement
and said the results were "staggering". This is not entirely
unknown.
Do you want to increase your sales and profits?
If you're interested, don't sit on your hands. We can only take on
a very limited number of jobs, because I only work with
colleagues who know what they're doing - and I am involved in
everything.
Email me at: drayton@draytonbird.com. I try to reply to
every message personally.
THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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Benefits, free trial and money back guarantee still works well.
Some of the worlds greatest copywriters and advertisers
used old proven principles and flourished. Why not do
the same?
Study could be your secret to success.
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THINGS TO CONSIDER:
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I try and find out as much as possible about the product and the
market and I try and think about someone who might want to buy
it and where they are at when they see that piece of advertising.
I also try and sell the product to people (usually my wife)
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You can live off the "fat" of your brand for years without even
advertising. It is like a business safety net. Your brand lives on
when people die. Managers come and go. Factories may move from
one country to another. Products change. But your brand can live
on forever.
Your brand should be in the back of your mind every time you
write or send out a message or make a business decision.
What does it stand for?
And when you answer that question, dont get marooned in a
swamp of fancy marketing jargon about business missions and
corporate values.
Ask yourself what you want your customers to say about you.
Theyre the people who
What is your ideal answer? What kind of business do you
want to be?
When you answer that, you create your own future.
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BONUS TIP:
Discover the hidden marketing power
of easy-to-make videos
This may be one of the most useful things you read this year.
UNLESS YOU'RE LIVING ON THE MOON moon you know
videos have become a powerful selling tool you can't ignore.
And you probably know you OUGHT to be using video - but
have never got round to it because you don't see quite WHY it
works so well. So here's why - and it's not just because of the
internet. In fact my partner Bill Fryer says that a video on a web
site on average triples conversions.
It's also because there are two types of media. Those you welcome and seek out. And those you avoid or ignore.
You don't look forward to receiving direct mail. You don't
wake up thinking you'd like to read the newspaper ads. If you're
like most people you are irritated by the inserts that tumble out of
your magazine. You don't stop the car to look at the posters.
When the TV ads come on you go and make tea. And you
want to kill the people who send you recorded telephone messages
- and even more those who make you listen to their automated
horrors when you just want to find out something important to
you.
But there are other media you like and welcome. Customer
magazines are an example. They work because people like
magazines, and they don't feel they're being sold to or if they do,
they dont mind.
What people really do online?
You and I know that the one medium that's still growing is the
internet. And what is growing on the internet? Video.
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