Drayton Bird lauds the value of offering a good freebie to entice people to your product. He explains why it works and offers a prime example courtesy of successful magazine The Oldie.
Making a start with your account-based marketing strategy can seem an overwhelming prospect. This blog post provides a detailed summary of how to begin. It will surely help point you in the right direction…
This article was originally published in Direct Marketing International in 2008. A collection of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ works is available in our free eBook: Killer Copy in a Crisis. Download this treasure trove of timeless marketing advice.
Some advertising agencies may not agree with the philosophy I advocate.
Most direct marketers should agree with the philosophy I advocate.
Just what is that philosophy? Whether your medium is direct mail, newspapers, magazines, television, telephone, or the web, the purpose of your message should be to generate a positive response.
And what is a positive response?
It isn’t a prospective customer or client saying: “I love you.” It’s a prospective customer or client saying: “I want to marry you.”
In clearer terms, it means the message should aim itself at a valid inquiry or an order. ‘Image’, as such, may win the beauty contest; but as an overall criterion of success, image winds up in second place.
I take issue with the mantra, ‘Marketers are creatively using the internet to raise awareness and affection for their brands.’ No, no, not because the statement is untrue. Rather, it’s because the statement glorifies an apparent waste.
If I’m sending an email on behalf of a television programme or a political candidate or a funeral director, branding and image are logical rationales and copy can exalt to the heavens.
But that isn’t marketing. It’s retention. Tuning to a TV channel and deciding to consider voting for a politician requires some thought but no expenditure of money. And few are prepared and willing to commit suicide because a mortician is offering a ‘special’ this week.
The web, that insatiable science-fiction monster whose cornerstone is emphasis on comparison, is price-driven. I welcome as a competitor anyone whose copy is supposed to offer something for sale and whose copy values image over offer.
Some of the most venerable ‘names’ in the world of commerce are teetering on the edge of insolvency or have toppled over it.
Some of the new hotshots in the world of commerce have leapt into the foreground of their fields because their attention has been to ‘Here’s the deal’ . . . not ‘Here is who we are’.
Back in the antediluvian era – say, 1995 – Web pioneers pointed with glee to their click-through rates.
At the time, that may have been a criterion carrying some validity, because the medium was still in its experimental, embryonic phase and the hypercompetitive era hadn’t yet dawned.
Ah, but that was yesterday. And, as much as we may look backward with nostalgia, we look at our computer screens today with hunger.
Click-through rates are the appetiser, not the main course. Competition in any field we can think of is brutal; and branding, a safe haven for its advocates because comparatively they don’t measure response by actual and countable response, may look superb when comparing design and taglines… but not so superb when comparing bottom lines.
A ‘name’ brand has an implicit advantage going into the arena: People have heard of it.
For the brand to triumph in today’s battle for (to corrupt the famed A E Housman quote) crowns and pounds and guineas, the marketer should use its reputation as a competitive weapon against the inevitable intruders . . . not as a traditional crutch.
Want to sell something to today’s impatient, sceptical, internet-wise consumer or business target?
Your message should answer the inevitable final question: ‘What’s your deal?’
Download our free eBook of Herschell’s marketing wisdom. Guaranteed to entertain and inspire any marketing professional!
Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
Don’t be vague. It kills.
You probably won’t die.
But the response to your copy will.
Imagine someone tells you, “I’m going to make you rich someday”.
I bet the first thing you’ll want to know is “how rich?”
Followed by, “when?”
If you’re like most people you won’t bother asking.
Because you’ll assume their claim is a load of twaddle.
Don’t make the same mistake.
Tell people exactly what they’re getting.
Here’s an example:
In 1964 I wrote copy for a device called, the Bullworker.
Which made you “stronger, quickly”.
After a closer look at what the Bullworker did I wrote an ad with this headline:
That headline sold 30,000 Bullworkers in the first year.
The Bullworker still sells all over the world.
Go online and look.
Here’s a shortened version of the ad I wrote 55 years ago.
That headline anticipates and answers the important questions.
All their questions were answered.
With facts.
Not vague, sweeping statements they couldn’t trust.
There was no reason to say “no”.
And 4 compelling reasons to say “yes”.
If this ad had been headed “do this and you’ll get fit, sometime” would you have cared enough to open it?
I doubt it.
Be precise. Be persuasive. Be believable.
Or if you’d rather we do it for you, get in touch – http://draytonbird.net/agenq/
Between us, we’ve been telling people precisely what things do for them for 82 years – so we have a pretty good idea what we’re doing.
And if we don’t get you better results you don’t pay.
So what have you got to lose? – http://draytonbird.net/agenq/
Best,
Drayton
Another gem from the Herschell Gordon Lewis collection. This time the late copywriting great explores the importance of not just sharing responsibility, but assuming responsibility. Don’t blame bad results on Department X!
This is a quickie – but worth a lot to you.
At my first big job in London at Leo Burnett the marketing director Mickey Barnes – a very clever man – said something I immediately understood – then ignored for most of my life.
God alone knows how many hundreds of thousands of pounds it’s cost me.
He said:
What he meant was that your price says something about you.
Think about these three facts.
1. If it’s expensive people assume it must be good.
2. They will boast about how much they paid. It’s a way of convincing others – and themselves – that they’re successful.
3. Even if it isn’t that great they convince themselves it must be. They daren’t admit, especially to themselves, that they made a mistake.
I have sometimes charged the right price, thank God, but often failed to.
The more you charge the more you can afford to pick and choose your clients, the more it implies about the quality of what you offer. And the more you can afford to discount if you need to.
What we offer is damn good. It hardly ever fails to work.
But I still haven’t entirely profited from Mickey Barnes’s lesson.
You will find that what you’ll get from us is very, very hard to beat indeed and our prices are ludicrous.
We can afford it because we don’t have any fancy offices. In fact none at all. That was true before Covid.
But I’ll tell you what. As soon as this pandemic is over I’ll be putting them right up.
It’s never too late to make up for a stupid mistake.
So please don’t make it.
If you want results – and God knows we all need them now – rip me off while you can – http://draytonbird.net/agenq/.
Best,
Drayton
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
Herschell Gordon Lewis was never a man to go easy on bad marketing. The late marketing great dissects some of the poorer examples of sales messaging and offers his thoughts on how to avoid the same mistakes.
Copywriting great Drayton Bird recalls one of the finest talks on copywriting he’s ever witnessed. Entitled “20 Opinionated Answers to 20 Questions Nobody Asked,” it’s full of wit and wisdom which is just as relevant today – even if the mediums have evolved. Take away just one lesson and you’re sure to benefit.
Brand identity lies at the heart of all your marketing efforts. Get your brand positioning right and it can inspire thousands of winning marketing campaigns. When was the last time you seriously considered who you were? Maybe it’s time…
Herschell Gordon Lewis tells the story of how he transformed a technical product description into something rather more attractive. He really grabbed this one by the lion’s mane!