Drayton Bird is…in my view…one of the greatest marketers and copywriters of recent times. The video above shows some highlights of a presentation he gave in New Zealand billed as “Drayton Bird’s Last Hurrah”.
In a short 6 minutes, you’ll find a to-the-point primer on what marketing is really all about and what really works in marketing. Following is a summary of the points Drayton makes…
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If doctors knew as little about medicine as marketers half the population would die every year, but most marketers do not know what they are doing and therefore businesses all over the world are going to hell on a handcart as a result. If you’re in marketing – and you haven’t read “Scientific Advertising”, you haven’t, read the bible (of effective marketing).
What Really Matters In Marketing
So this is what really matters…. get more customers… get them to buy more …keep them longer. There are no other ways to make money. If anything you are thinking of doing doesn’t do one of those three things, and preferably more than one forget it. Here are the weapons that i believe you should understand to be a proper marketer.
The Key Marketing Actions
(1) Research
Research will not necessarily tell you what people will do.
It will tell you what they think they will do. It will tell you what they are doing.
(2) Public relations
PR, pound per pound, is very often the most effective thing.
(3) Advertising
We all know what advertising is. When people think about marketing…they tend to think about advertising, and one of the points I’m trying to make at the moment is…that’s not the only thing to think about.
(4) Point of Sale
There is not a single person in this room who has not gone in somewhere and come out with something that didn’t plan to buy and forgotten to buy something they should have bought.
(5) Sales promotion
When you run a big promotion, what happens with sales promotion is that sales go up because of the promotion. After the promotion, sales go down and you’re back where you started.
So the only purpose of sales promotion is to collect names that you might be able to use to build your database.
(6) Direct and Interactive Marketing
Along came the internet and I thought well. Everything on the internet is direct and interactive. So my little book on direct marketing is highly relevant.
(7) Product Placement
You’ve all bought products that you’ve seen in movies or on TV because they were prominently placed.
(8) Word of Mouth
Now it’s this new (American) thing. It’s not word of mouth anymore…it’s VIRAL!
(9) Salespeople
The most expensive commodity you have, but also the most effective commodity at selling. Nothing is stronger than someone facing you that you’ve got to tell to s*d off to get rid of.
(10) Experiential marketing
Experiencing the product is very powerful.
(11) Pack design
There are quite a number of products around that have never been advertised. You’ve never seen an advertisement for them, but they’re selling very well, because the pack design draws attention to them very well off the shelf,
(12) Sponsorship
(13) Workplace marketing
Communications for the people who work for you are intensely important.
Businesses are made of people. One of my favorite quotes is “The proper study of mankind is man”. Spend all your time thinking about people because that’s where the money comes from and that’s where the work comes from and that’s where the ideas come from.
(14) Cause Related Marketing
(15) Passion
This is the most important commodity not just in business, but life as well.
(16) Guerrilla Marketing
You really have to have some understanding of all these things in order to be a complete marketer. I cannot imagine what is the point of being an incomplete marketer.
Why People Buy
People do things for emotional reasons. So always remember it doesn’t matter what you’re selling you should be appealing to emotion. Here are the emotions to keep in mind…
(1) Fear
I always thought the most important element of persuasion was the promise of a benefit. But in fact…certainly in financial services…it’s fear of loss. We’re more worried about losing something we’ve got than getting something we don’t have.
(2) Flattery
Everybody likes it.
(3) Greed
We all like something for nothing. That’s why free is such a powerful word.
(4) Guilt
We all feel guilty about something.
(5) Anger
We all get fed up
(6) Exclusivity
(7) Salvation
The feeling when you give to a charity.
If In Doubt…
Ask yourself what a salesman would do. Everything you do is just a substitute for salesmanship. No salesman would ever go to somebody who’s, a bit overweight and say…”Hey fatso!”…for fear of getting kicked in the b*lls.
Spend Time On These Things
Here are the things you’ve got to spend your time on…if you want to succeed.
First of all, the most important thing by far to think about is how can you improve the product and its positioning.
Research and testing is the next most important thing because they will tell you whether you are doing the right thing or not.
Targeting, because even the dullest message sent to the right person will do better than the most brilliant message sent to the wrong person
Incentives, because what I give you is always going to be more likely to get a response.
A very, very high percentage of successful businesses on the internet start with a free offer of one kind or another.
The least important thing…on which I’ve lavished not short of 60 years of my life…is creative.
Finally…
This thing about keeping going, I think, is very important. Never give up.
Now the most important thing to my mind in business, apart from what you sell, is the people you work with. Business is all about people, it’s all about the people you sell to and the people you work with. If it’s not fun and if you don’t make it fun, it’s bl**dy miserable.
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Drayton covers a lot in those highlights but he’s only scratching the surface of what he knows about marketing in general and direct response marketing and copywriting in particular. It’s well worth checking out his books “Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing” and “How To Write Sales Letters That Sell”. You’ll also find more from Drayton at DraytonBird.com.