Archives for 2010

Emotional Direct Response Meerkating?!?

The great Drayton Bird, direct response marketing and copywriting maven par excellence, recently held a free webinar for his subscribers.

The topic was the “10 Best Ads Of The Last 10 Years”. The ads were selected primarily on the basis of how effective they were and the results they produced.

One of the ads (campaign, really) was for UK insurance comparison site “CompareThe Market.com”.

This is the campaign featuring the (now) famous meerkat Aleksandr Orlov, proprietor of meerkat comparison site “CompareTheMeerkat.com”.

Here’s the original ad…

Now, this campaign has been extremely effective.

The immediate results of the campaign were…

[Read more…]

Interbrand Report – Best Global Brands 2010

Interbrand have just released their annual review where they assign a “Brand Value” to the world’s leading brand names.

Here’s the Top 10 for 2010…

1. (1) Coca Cola

2. (2) IBM

3. (3) Microsoft

4. (7) Google

5. (4) GE (General Electric)

6. (6) McDonalds

7. (9) Intel

8. (5) Nokia

9. (10) Disney

10. (11) HP (Hewlett Packard)

The figures in brackets are the 2009 rankings.

No change to the top 3 and interesting to note the number of technology companies that rank highly.

You can get the full report at “Best Global Brands 2010”.

Viral Marketing With Frank Kern

Internet marketer (and also outstanding copywriter, although that is less well known) Frank Kern is a somewhat controversial figure.

He attracts widespread praise…

…but also some pretty vicious criticism and brickbats.

Over the years I’ve spent a fair bit of money with Frank and one thing’s for sure…

…it’s always well worth studying what he does.

So, I was intrigued by a recent email from Frank letting me know about a video he’s posted and with this comment…

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Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar October 2010

Gee, we’re almost in the final quarter of the year…it will soon be Christmas!

So, there’s no room for complacency in your marketing. Here’s my regular look ahead at upcoming events in October that could be used to organise a promotion.

In Australia, October tends to be something of a “lull” ahead of the year end frenzy of Christmas.

However, Halloween falls at the end of the month and offers an opportunity for promotions with an offbeat or “Spooky” theme.

It’s also the start of School Term 4 (the date depends on the State).

4 October – Labour Day (NSW)

31 October – Halloween

Remember to keep an eye out for local events such as…

Melbourne Arts Festival (October 8-23)

Kurrajong Scarecrow Festival (!) (October 23-24)

Elsewhere around the world…

[Read more…]

Marketing Experiment With Ray Edwards

Is it a smart marketing strategy to give away good content with no strings attached…not even asking for a simple email?

Ace copywriter and marketer Ray Edwards is running an experiment to find out.

Over at his blog he’s giving away a mind map of the process he uses to write effective sales copy…

…and it’s pretty good IMHO.

My guess is that this will be more useful for people who already understand at least the basics of writing good copy.

Complete beginners will probably be left scratching their heads somewhat.

Of course, what this does provide, which is highly valuable, is a glimpse into the thinking of a top copywriter.

As I’ve commented before, it’s what goes on BEFORE you put pen to paper (or tap in that first character in your word processing document) that makes the difference.

Here’s where to get Ray’s “Free One-Page Copywriting Guide”.

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