Marketing – Page 35

No B.S. Direct Marketing – Book Review

No BS Direct Marketing - Book Review This book review covers the 2nd Edition of No B.S. Direct Marketing by Dan Kennedy…more fully, “Direct Marketing For Non-Direct Marketing Businesses”. Let’s clarify that last point. Traditionally, “Direct Marketing Businesses” have been defined as mail-order, catalogue or online companies that directly solicits orders for business. So, “Non-Direct Marketing Businesses” are everything else…you might say the majority of businesses.

In fact, this book is really the “nuts and bolts” blueprint for the GKIC style direct response marketing that Dan Kennedy prescribes. It is primarily aimed at business folks who are NOT familiar with direct-response marketing. However, even experienced practitioners will find this a useful recap of fundamentals…and a reminder to implement what they already know!

The book kicks off with an introduction titled “The End of Advertising And Marketing As You Know It”. Essentially this is a primer on why what you see BIG BUSINESS doing in advertising and marketing is NOT appropriate for small business and why direct response is the best approach to build a successful business.

The main part of the book is divided into 3 sections – Foundation, Application and Resources.

Section 1, Foundation, makes up the bulk of the book and is pure Dan Kennedy. Over the course of 11 chapters, Dan lays down his “10 Rules To Transforming Your Business Into An Infinitely More Powerful Direct Marketing Business”. For example, Rule #1… [Read more…]

GKIC London Chapter – Meeting 21 April 2015

GKIC London April 2015 Meeting Near St Paul's Cathedral

GKIC London April 2015 Meeting Near The Magnificent St Paul’s Cathedral

A full and very informative meeting of the GKIC London Chapter this month on 21 April at “The Happenstance” near the magnificent St Paul’s cathedral. Three guest speaker plus the always insightful David White.

David kicked off the afternoon talking about…

…“6 Ways To Strengthen Your Business”…

…where he took a look at 6 areas common to every business, where sales and revenue are being lost. Making improvements in these areas can result in a significant boost to your bottom line.

Here are the first 3 of those 6…

1. Leads

2. First time buyers

3. No sale: prospects who got a sales presentation but didn’t buy

As an example of what you can do to improve results, in category 3 you could take a look at the follow up process. If you don’t have a follow up system in place, then that’s one thing you can do straight away.

The second part of David’s presentation covered…

…“8 Questions To Consider For Reinventing Your Business”.

If you’re wondering why you might want to “reinvent” your business, one very common reason is the need to adapt to changing circumstances.

That might be a change in market conditions or a change in the economy.

For example, a BIG THEME in Dan Kennedy’s recently updated… [Read more…]

Is Social Media FOMO Hurting Your Marketing Results?

There seems to be a collective anxiety in the world of marketing as business owners and managers ask themselves…

1. Do I need to be involved in social media?

2. If so, how do I do that?

Or, in the case of the second question, of the numerous social media platforms around, which ones do I need to use?

Underlying some of this anxiety is what we might call…

“Social Media FOMO”

…the fear of missing out!

(As an aside, that in itself is a powerful marketing lesson to note. Most people hate to feel that there is some sort of party going on that they are not part of!)

Three recent items taking a look at this issue.

First from Malcolm Auld…

“Happy birthday Twitter, but still no consumer brands in top 200 accounts #brandfail?”

Yes, Twitter recently celebrated it’s 9th birthday, but there’s little evidence that it has proved to be of much use for business purposes.

Malcolm points out that there are no consumer brands in the Top 200 Twitter accounts and that there are more inactive accounts than active ones!

Also… [Read more…]

Looking Ahead – Marketing Calendar May 2015

May 2015 is approaching…

…so time for smart marketers to plan ahead and look at some of the holidays, events and anniversaries in the coming month that can be used as part of an “event driven marketing” strategy. You can then use these ideas to put together your own Marketing Calendar May 2015.

Two notable occasions are…

…firstly “May Day” (May 1, of course)…

…and then in most places apart from the UK, “Mother’s Day”, which this year falls on Sunday May 10.

“May Day” (May 1) is an occasion widely observed in the northern hemisphere and originally was a pagan festival linked to Spring and fertility.

Wikipedia has more about May Day traditions…

…including in the UK the May Pole, the May Queen and Morris Dancing.

Like many originally pagan festivals, May Day has been co-opted by the Church and in many Catholic countries May is a month honouring the Virgin Mary.

In the modern era, May Day has also come to be known as “International Workers’ Day” and associated with the labour movement.

Also in May…

…we have “Be A Millionaire Day” on May 20! This is a day to think and dream about what it would be like to be a millionaire.

It’s understood that the term “millionaire” was first used in the English language by Lord Byron in a letter written in 1816. At the time, there were only a handful of millionaires. Today it’s reckoned there are more than 13 million millionaires scattered around the globe. The origins of “Be a Millionaire Day” are not clear, but the day honours the desire to enjoy the freedom and power associated with being financially secure.

Here’s a more detailed list of events… [Read more…]

Anything But Fix The Real Marketing Problem…

Nothing like a marketing cartoon from the great Tom Fisburne to brighten up the day and make an incisive marketing point at the same time!

In this post…

“technology can’t save a boring marketing idea”

…Tom reports on his recent trip to SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. Increasingly, SXSW is attracting big brands as a marketing venue to influencers (this year, even McDonalds has a presence) and as part of the search of the next new thing.

This year everyone was talking about Meerkat, a live-streaming app. There was also the robot petting zoo, drones, virtual reality, and wearables of all types. All very exciting, but Tom cautions… [Read more…]

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