Received my copy of Pete Godfrey’s “Emotional Ad Writing & Marketing Letter” the other day.

The May 2011 issue is issue #60 and marks the 5th anniversary of the newsletter.

A big “Congratulations” to Pete, not many newsletters make it this far.

As always, plenty of good material in this issue including the “Big Lesson” (how to build substance and depth of character that instantly attracts a tribe of raving fans)…

…PLUS a selection of the best articles from the past 5 years.

Pete’s newsletter is one of the few I think worth the subscription (Ben Settle’s and Dan Kennedy’s are the others) and you can get the details here…

“Pete Godfrey’s Emotional Ad Writing & Marketing Letter”

Can’t believe he’s giving away a copy of his “Emotional Ad Writing System” to new subscribers.  I paid $497 for my copy a couple of years back and I only got it at that price because I was attending one of Pete’s Master Class seminars.

Congratulations to Pete once again and looking forward to the next 5 years of…

…”A Ruthless, Fair Dinkum Dose Of Reality In Every Issue!”

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”

- Albert Einstein

…or, wherever you are in life at the moment, your best thinking got you there.

Why the quote?  Well kind of sums up the message of the main speaker at the afternoon session of the Crocodile Marketing conference, Pat Mesiti.

Now, like many people who teach about success and prosperity, Pat has attracted his fair share of controversy, critics and detractors.

However, I’ve now seen Pat speak twice and he’s someone well worth listening to, in my opinion.

His message isn’t new.  The idea that how we think determines the results we get in life is almost conventional wisdom in the world of personal development.

But Pat has a unique and very dynamic way of getting his point across.

And his key points…

…if you’re not where you want to be you need to change your thinking…

…successful people think differently…

…you can learn from successful people!

Hey, you may well have heard this sort of thing before.

Perhaps many times (I certainly have!).

So, how’s that working out?

I know that for me it was a useful reminder.

Now, I confess that I left halfway through the afternoon to catch my flight home and missed the end of Pat’s presentation.

That meant I also missed the wrap up from Pete and David McMahon…

…which presumably covered their plans going forward after this last ever Crocodile Marketing Inner Sanctum conference.

From what I gleaned over the 2 days, basically Pete is going back to what he was doing before Crocodile Marketing and will be relaunching his “Emotional Ad Writing And Marketing Letter”.

David will continue to run Crocodile Marketing as a company offering training and other services to business owners (first program will be “Online Sales And Social Media Mastery”).

All in all a worthwhile trip for me.  Great to catch up with old mates and met a lot of new friends too…

…as well as picking up a few new tips and insights.  Jennie Armato’s talk on social media was particularly useful for me.

So farewell to the old “Crocodile Marketing”…it was good to know you!

Shock waves swept through the Direct Response Marketing community in Australia recently…

…when the “Wizard Of Words”, copywriter Pete Godfrey announced that he was leaving Crocodile Marketing…

…the company he had set up with David McMahon only around 18 months ago.

According to Pete, he decided to move on because…

“Frankly, I’m an entrepreneur. That being the case, I don’t make the best partner (Just ask Dave). So I’m going back solo, on my own, and taking back my newsletter and taking it to a whole new level.”

Got to say, I’m a little surprised.  The Crocodile Marketing events I’ve attended were well supported and the company definitely seemed to be providing a needed service to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Anyway, all that means that the Inner Sanctum conference this coming weekend (March 20 and 21) on the Gold Coast, will be the last one.

There’s a great line up of speakers. In addition to Pete and Dave, there’s Ari Galper (of  “Chatwise” fame), Jenny Armato covering social media and motivational livewire Pat Mesiti.

I’ll be there, ‘natch and looking forward to catching up with people I haven’t seen for a while.

Said it before, one of the biggest benefits of events like these is the opportunity to hang out with like minded people and network.  As a copywriter, most of my new clients are people I’ve met on weekends like this.

If you’re a Crocodile Marketing member, hope to see you there.  If you’re not, the event has been opened up to non members for the ludicrously small sum of $47.

All the details are here…

Crocodile Marketing Inner Sanctum Conference 20-21 March 2010

I’m going to be trying a little experiment and will be blogging furiously from the event (and probably Tweeting as well…we’ll see).  I’m aiming to include as much audio and video with interviews and the like if I can.

So, watch this space!

…well worth your attention.

Before that…

“Happy 4th of July Weekend!”

…to all in the U.S.A.

Back to the two new marketing books.

The first is…

“The Sticking Point Solution”

…from Jay Abraham.  Jay’s first book “Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You’ve Got” is an essential field manual for any modern direct response marketer.

This new book takes a different approach and adopts more of a problem solving approach for business owners who aren’t getting the results they want…

…or in Jay’s words they’re in some way “stuck”.

Jay identifies the 9 primary ways that a business may be “stuck” and how to get out of that situation and return to growth (and not just moderate growth but stunning growth and profitability).

An excellent companion to Jay’s earlier book but it can also be read on a standalone basis.

Highly recommended.

Next up is “Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful” by Bill Glazer.

If you’re not familiar with Bill, he’s the business partner of Dan Kennedy and Dan’s designated successor.

Now, I confess that I don’t have my own copy of this book just yet…

…it’s winging it’s way to me from Amazon along with a number of other copywriting and marketing books.

(OK, since you ask, the others are “Uncensored Sales Strategies”, “20 Master Plots” and “Complete Writer’s Guide To Heroes And Heroines”…more about all these in due course.)

But, I managed to scrounge a look at a copy that a good friend brought back form a recent trip to the U.S. (Thanks Murray!).

He had a hard time getting it back from me!

The book is a “How To” of direct response marketing the Bill Glazer way together with numerous case studies plus a collection of tips and useful resources that any marketer will be able to use to get better results.

The overall theme is really how to stand out from the crowd and make people sit up and pay attention to your marketing .

Bill was kind of forced into this approach out of necessity.  His original business is a men’s clothing store and that’s been a tough business.  Over the year’s most of his local competitors have gone out of business.

Bill, on the other hand, has not only survived but thrived.

Even if you don’t want to be “outrageous” you’ll find numerous ideas and strategies that you can use to boost response in your marketing campaigns.

Again, highly recommended.

The July 2009 issue of Reader’s Digest Australia contains their annual “Most Trusted Brands” survey.

For the sixth year in a row, Cadbury comes out on top.  Panadol and Band-Aid are #2 and #3.

The rest of the top 10 are…

…Sony, Colgate, Dairy Farmers, Nokia, Johnson & Johnson, Streets, Peters and Bunnings.

Not too much change in the 2009 Top 10 from last year…

…Kellogg’s and Elastoplast drop out, replaced by Peters and Bunnings.

Looking through the categories, interesting to note that in the Retailers section Bunnings is the winner with Target and Big W the runners up.  No mention of Woolworths or Coles (the biggest supermarkets) or David Jones or Myer (department stores).

So what’s it take to be a trusted brand?

“Stay free from scandal, be reliable, safe and deliver on promises”

…according to the article.  Nothing earth shattering there, but well worth noting for all marketers.

In direct response marketing, we don’t have the luxury of being able to throw big money into advertising campaigns (although that’s no guarantee of success as the absence of many of Australia’s biggest advertisers demonstrates).

But we are in the business of building a relationship and trust with our prospects and clients.  So. well worth paying attention to those companies that are successful in doing this.

UPDATE:

Here’s what I had to say about last year’s poll…

“Some Direct Response Marketing Lessons From Big Brands”

Sad…shocked really…to hear the news of the death of Billy Mays on June 28.

I confess that living in Australia and not watching a great deal of TV, I was not familiar with Billy and his ads until recently.

When I started to look more closely at marketing with video, the name Billy Mays came up as a master of the modern infomercial…

…especially the shorter variety that last only a couple of minutes.

And that makes his work perfect for us to get some pointers we can use in our own marketing videos.

Digressing slightly, infomercials are viewed with some disdain in the mainstream marketing world.

But that’s a big mistake because the good pitch man knows how to sell.

And for we direct response marketers, at the end of the day that’s our objective…

…to make the sale.

I’ve mentioned before the excellent video “Gadgetmania” from the Discovery Channel (hat tip to marketing guru Stephen Pierce once again for introducing me to the video).

It’s a wonderful exploration of the art of the pitch and the infomercial (featuring classics such as Ronco, Ginsu Knives and…the Thighmaster!) and well worth checking out.

Back to Billy Mays.

There is a lot to learn from his infomercials.  I’ve been checking out a number of them and they all do a great job of grabbing attention, developing interest (with usually some astonishing and entertaining demonstrations of the product) and then making a great offer…

…but wait, there’s more!

Yup, he’s a master at piling on the value to an already great offer to make it virtually irresistible.

I considered a number of videos to include here for you to take a look at.  I love the “Might Putty” ad…

…but in the end I chose this one because of the offer, which I think is an excellent example.

I salute a modern marketing giant and I’m sure the Great Pitch Man In The Sky will smile when he hears…

“Hi, Billy Mays here!”