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Tag Archives: direct marketing

Cut COVID-Capers, focus fully on the fundamentals you must…

29 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding, Customer Service, Digital, Digital marketing, Marketing, Sales

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

advertising, COVID-19, customer service, digital marketing, direct marketing, marketing, Pandemic

I’m no die-hard Star Wars fan, but was just told that International Star Wars Day is next week, so thought I’d say what Yoda would probably say in this crazy marketing world we are living in.

I’ve been asked to republish a popular article I wrote last year, mainly due to the embarrassing plethora of fake COVID marketing experts pushing their ‘expertise”  since the pandemic started. So many people are complaining about these bandwagon-jumpers.

Ever since we were placed in lock down we’ve been inundated with COVID-CRAP by ‘experts’ espousing the miracles required for marketing in a Corona virus world. In some cases in markets where people have no income and the retails stores are closed and do not provide online services, so commercial activity has stopped.

Yes, the world has temporarily changed, but if you stick to the fundamentals of marketing and do them well – which many marketers don’t do in the good times – you’ll get through this difficult time.

You might have to reconsider how you deliver or configure your product or service, or even create new products – as I explained last week. Even better, why not review all your marketing activity and start to plan for the inevitable reopening of society.

Regardless, just remember these simple rules of thumb and you’ll do OK:

The three goals of your marketing communications – and there are only three…

  • Acquire new customers
  • Get customers to spend more money with you more often
  • Get customers to keep spending with you for as long as possible.

If your marketing communications are not helping you achieve one or more of these goals, you’re probably wasting your money, regardless of the media channels or vanity metrics you use.

The two ways of marketing – and there are only two…

  • Mass marketing
  • Direct marketing

Mass Marketing – you communicate with as many consumers* as possible for the lowest media cost, to position your brand in the mind of the consumer, so they consider it when they are in the market to buy – online or offline. Generally used in broadcast, print, outdoor and some online channels. Messages are aimed at generating either a think, feel or do response.

Direct Marketing – any marketing communication delivered directly to individual consumers* or to which they respond directly to you. All responses are measured and there is always an exchange of either data or dollars – online or offline. Generally used in broadcast, mail, email, telephone, print, events, social, search, mobile and online channels. For example, give me your email address (data) and I’ll give you a newsletter, or give me your credit card details (dollars) and I’ll sell you some wine.

*Consumers is generic for both prospects and customers

The two reasons people use the internet – and there are only two…

  • To save time
  • To waste time

That’s it. You need to design your website, landing page, email, social channels, apps etc to make it easy for your customers and prospects to either save time, or to waste time, depending upon their reason for visiting.

Saving or wasting time?

There’s no such thing as a customer journey – just two contact strategies…

People don’t go on customer journeys. This is a marketing buzzword designed to make the user sound sophisticated – it’s complete bollocks. There are only two contact strategies to use, and they’re linked to the most relevant touch-points. After all, a prospect isn’t a customer until they buy something:

  • Prospect contact strategy – to generate new customers
  • Customer contact strategy – to keep profitable customers and generate referrals

Marketers determine the most appropriate touch-points to reach prospects and customers, then communicate as necessary in the most effective channels for those touch-points. These touch-points can be mapped for easier visual interpretation. This mapping is why folks mistakenly call it a journey. Map-journey, get it?

For example, a prospect may identify themselves by responding to an advertisement by telephone, downloading a white paper from a website, or at a trade show. This is the beginning of the prospect contact strategy designed to get them to either request a presentation (if required), to trial the product/service, or to buy. This can involve lots of channels, some of which can be automated.

Once the prospect becomes a customer, they join the customer contact strategy. This involves communicating with personal messages designed to create a positive customer experience, encourage loyalty, obtain referrals and generate further sales.

The customer contact strategy can also be divided into two separate executions. One execution is linked to the date the product or service is bought and includes messaging around warranty, service, renewal, upgrade and the like.

The other execution is linked to time of year and includes messaging such as monthly newsletter, seasonal offers, event invitations and more.

Obviously, the customer contact strategy uses more personal media channels including; face-to-face meetings, mail, telephone, email and social channels. And all the while, there is the 24/7 continual flow of marketing content on blogs, websites and social channels, as well as advertising.

People DON’T go on customer journeys…

The numbers that matter when budgeting…

There are a few key numbers to understand when budgeting your marketing activity:

  • Lifetime value – how much revenue you customer is worth over their lifetime of buying from you
  • Cost per lead – how much you can afford to spend to generate a qualified lead
  • Cost per sale – how much you can afford to spend to generate a sale
  • The advertising allowable – what you can afford to spend to generate a sale at either break-even or a pre-determined profit percentage

When you know how much a customer is worth, you can determine how much to spend to generate a qualified lead and therefore how much you can afford to spend to get a sale – based on conversion rates. This helps you determine the most appropriate media channels to use, as they are defined by your advertising allowable.

Remember:

Marketing creates the need, while sales fulfills the need…

Your marketing activity helps to create the need for your brand by building desire for it and reinforcing your decision after you’ve bought. Your sales people use selling techniques to fulfill the need and complete the sale.

Your direct marketing activity can both create and fulfill your prospect’s needs in a single execution. It also integrates your marketing and sales teams to ensure they both work together successfully.

So now you know, what you need to know, about you know, that thing that everyone thinks they know – marketing…even in a pandemic…

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How to get executives to dine at upmarket restaurants for lunch…

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Sales, social selling

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

B2B Marketing, branding, copywriting, database, direct mail, direct marketing, marketing, social selling

Today’s Throwback Thursday features two campaigns promoting fine dining restaurants in the Sydney CBD. These campaigns would still work today, 21+ years after they originally ran…

Fine dining restaurants located in 5 star hotels, are quite different to your everyday cafes and restaurants located on the high street or in food lanes. They have their own peculiarities, one of which is their location inside a hotel without street-front exposure.

They’re also expensive. Most are frequented for one of four reasons:

  • the chef’s (food/wine) reputation
  • celebrating a special occasion
  • the company/employer is picking up the tab
  • money is no object for the customer

Here are two case studies promoting fine dining restaurants to business executives:

  • The Astral Restaurant located at The Star Casino in Darling Harbour
  • The Galileo Restaurant located in the Observatory Hotel in Kent Street near The Rocks

The Astral Resturant was located in a separate top floor of the casino as part of The Endevour Room, the casino’s private gaming room. The casino is just too far to walk from the CBD for lunch – but it had free parking. The agency drew a map of streets west of George street down to Darling Harbour, with boundaries north and south in the CBD.

A list of senior executive contact details within the map boundaries was then rented and the names/job titles were qualified by phone. The mailpack is the size of a typical dinner plate and used the plate imagery within.

The mailpack had three incentives to visit and dine at The Astral:

  • $75 dining voucher for The Astral
  • $50 gaming voucher for The Endeavour Room
  • 1 month free membership to The Endeavour Room

So recipients could go for lunch or dinner, then get to gamble in the private VIP high roller room. Of course they probably weren’t aware that an entree cost about $75 and the minimum bet was $50, but the incentive worked its head off.

Front of mailpack

Rear of mailpack

Mailpack opened…

Letter

Letter, brochure, vouchers

Vouchers and membership card

The mailing generated a response of more than 25% and all respondents were put on a database for future mail/email communication. (email was just starting in the business world)

The Galileo Restaurant is also located on the fringe of the CBD. The agency hired people to walk ten minutes from the restaurant towards the city centre and create a map of the catchment area. Staff walked the floors of each building and built a list of senior executives for each company in the catchment area. A list of senior executives in North Sydney was also rented to so a split-run test could be conducted.

The mailing is an A3 piece of parchment card stock, folded into thirds and sealed with a black tape. It unfolds into a food art poster. There is an invitation with an excellent incentive:

  • Free lunch for two people – three courses plus coffee
  • The recipient can bring a guest along and enjoy lunch together

There is a reservation card to hand in when the respondent arrives at the restaurant. It captures the recipient’s name and their guest’s details. This doubled the size of the database and gave the restaurant a reference point for a ofllow-up mailing. This also generated more than 24% response rate. Local executives responded more than North Sydney executives, which was expected.

Front of envelope

Rear of envelope

Envelope folds open into an A3 poster

Reservation form, letter and menu

More importantly the staff offered the lunch guests a backroom tour of the hotel. While showing the guests around the inner sanctum, the hotel staff asked for the contact details of the person who books accommodation and events at the guest’s company. So the hotel built three databases – restaurant, accommodation and events.

Both these mailings would work today – the only difference is the reply device would most likely be a personalised landing page (PURL) supported by a confirmation email and/or SMS.

All this talk of fine dining is making me hungry. Where are last night’s leftovers?

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The definitive reason why definitive guides aren’t really definitive…

15 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by Malcolm Auld in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, social selling, Thought Leadership

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

B2B Marketing, content marketing, copywriting, definitive guides, digital marketing, direct marketing, social selling, Thought Leadership

Let me share a personal secret with you dear reader. I’ll whisper it to you:

“I collect definitive guides”

It’s true. I download each one that arrives in my inbox and save them into a folder. And that’s where they stay, because I rarely read them. They’re usually so subjective and full of fluff, it takes too long to find any worthwhile stuff.

I use a false name and an email address I reserve just for subscriptions. It helps to redirect the inevitable automated follow-up by a computer, and in very few cases, by a human.

Nobody ever calls though. Last year, after using the “Premium” LinkedIn service without getting any benefit, I didn’t renew my subscription. Nobody called to ask why, or to re-sell it to me. Seems LinkedIn believes people don’t need to deal with people in B2B marketing.

Strangely, while I had the subscription, each time I opened my account, I was made an offer to subscribe to the Premium service to which I was already subscribed. One has to question LinkedIn’s marketing automation.

But back to definitive guides.

The following is typical of the opening paragraphs in many of these guides.

“With new marketing channels and technologies popping up every day, marketers must adapt and evolve their analytics strategies, skills, and solutions to survive. As big data becomes increasingly critical for informed decision-making, marketers and their organizations will find themselves along a spectrum of analytical maturity.”

That’s a concern. Nobody I know wants to find themselves on a spectrum of analytical maturity. Most, like me, have no idea what it even means.

But, given that everyone in the industry agrees we live in constantly changing times, with new marketing channels and technologies popping up every day, how can any guide be definitive? By definition, it’s out of date the day it’s published.

If you claim the reason for publishing a definitive guide is constant change, then the guide is only as current as the most recent change? By the publisher’s own reasoning, the guide cannot be definitive, except at a very small moment in time, or to justify the publisher’s self-serving purpose.

Maybe the name of these guides should be changed to reflect the truth? Here’s a suggestion:

Title: An Indefinitive Guide To <insert marketing topic>

Subhead: A self-serving opinion about <insert marketing topic> designed to convince you to buy our marketing stuff. Best before <insert date>

This is an honest description and puts a timeframe to indicate the guide’s currency, given it will be out of date pretty quickly and by definition, no longer definitive.

Hmmm. There could be an opportunity here. Maybe I could publish the definitive guide to publishing indefinitive guides?

Where’s my definitive guide on how to write…

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The simple reason digital marketing fails so badly – it’s not what you think…

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, BIG DATA, Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Thought Leadership

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

advertising, branding, digital marketing, direct marketing, marketing, media, media buying

Who’d call themselves a digital marketer these days? As the evidence continues to grow about the lies, deceit, appalling ROI, as well as agency bias towards digital at the expense of better performing channels, it’s become embarrassing to claim you only have digital marketing skills.

But we shouldn’t be surprised. Lone voices in the wilderness have been warning for more than a decade that the digital chooks would come home to roost. Though their voices have largely been ignored.

The real reason so much digital marketing fails is simple – the people working in it don’t have the right marketing skills.

The evidence is plain to see in the online advertising space. Most online ads are brand ads not direct response ads, yet the internet is a pure direct response channel.

Fact – the internet is primarily a direct response channel. Online marketing is just direct marketing, albeit at a much faster pace than analogue channels.

You wouldn’t run a brand ad in a newspaper or on TV, then measure its success using direct marketing metrics. So why run brand ads online and expect direct responses? But this is exactly what the brand marketers do every day.

FYI direct marketers are making money online – have been since day one. But they are not running brand advertising to do so. They have tested the different emerging channels and ads. They avoid those channels that don’t work. In most cases these are the social channels.

They rarely use programmatic buying. They deal direct with the publishers. This is how they’ve always worked with analogue channels, so they already have the expertise to succeed in online channels – evolution, not revolution.

But the marketers who dominate online advertising are mostly brand marketers and that digital peculiarity, the fake marketer. They were lured by the magic of its measurability.

The magic of measurability

Unlike direct marketers, they had no prior experience of direct response measurement. The “response drug” in the form of open-rates, click-through rates, time on page, downloads and (occasionally) sales, hooked them like teenagers having their first drink. This measurability stuff was the secret marketing hooch they craved.

And just because measurability was new to them, they assumed it was new to the world.

So they rushed headlong into the online advertising world completely ill-equipped for success. To cover up this lack of expertise, they created new buzzwords to describe alleged new marketing tactics – despite these tactics being centuries-old.

To help position themselves, they used virtue signals, to manufacture FOMO. Direct marketing was called old-fashioned, implying it was irrelevant. Some even made the stupid claim that DM no longer exists (really, some fools stated such crap). All it did was reflect their lack of marketing expertise.

For those who might be confused, direct marketing (or direct response advertising) is any marketing activity whereby you communicate directly to individual customers and prospects, or they respond directly to you, in any media channel. The outcome of the communication is that there is always a measured exchange, of either dollars or data, or both.

For example, the customer provides their credit card and in return they get a case of wine, or they provide their contact details, in exchange for an email newsletter.

Branding for branding’s sake, is a secondary priority with a direct response message.

But here’s the rub with direct marketing…

You are trying to get prospects who may or may not know your brand, to do what you want them to do, when you want them to do it – take immediate action and respond.

That’s hard shit and requires some specialist skills, the least of which is the ability to write persuasively.

Yet the majority of people working in digital marketing have no direct marketing expertise. If they did, they wouldn’t have invented fake vanity metrics such as likes, and shares, to justify their credibility.

The brand and fake marketers have misunderstood the digital channels

Direct response is definitely not the way to sell fast moving consumer goods, in single unit sales. Why it took P&G until last year, at a cost of $Billions, to realise this fact, is a mystery.

The only reason to use direct response for packaged goods, is to sell a continuity programme or subscription. For example, that digital darling, the Dollar Shaver Club is a direct marketer and uses direct response advertising to sell subscriptions. Both analogue and digital wine clubs also sell wine by subscription.

The process is known as “negative-option” and I’ve written about it before. The marketer delivers products on a regular basis, say monthly, until the customer says “stop”. This is a way of marketing that is more than 100 years old and goes back to the days of mail-order. It’s not new just because we have an internet.

The more they failed the more they created spreadsheets of bullshit

These “digital marketers” tried to justify the poor branding results with vanity metrics. They even created jargon such as “customer engagement” to make the metrics appear genuine. When the vanity metrics failed, they just increased their tracking to create even more spreadsheets of bullshit. They attempted to confuse the world with useless data to convince us they were legitimate.

Sorry folks, but data without dollars is just doo-doo.

Steaming pile of data doo-doo

The tracking eventually became stalking as they desperately tried to get sales, from ads that didn’t sell, to people who didn’t want to buy. Have you ever seen a grocer chase a customer out the door shouting offers at them, just because the customer picked up a lemon then put it back without buying? Welcome to the world of remarketing – placing cigarette burns on your customers long after they’ve left you.

Read Bob Hoffman’s brilliant Badmen for the appalling truth of the tracking, stalking and the fake world of online metrics.

Playing in the fringes

Any direct marketer will tell you, when you are marketing to a mass audience and chasing a response, you are always playing in the fringes. You don’t know when people are going to buy. That’s why you need to give them as much information as possible, plus some incentive, to help them make a decision in your favour.

Here’s an example. If a product is only bought once-a-year, then on average, in any single week, only 2% of the annual market is buying – 50 weeks PA x 2% = 100%.

This means if you deliver say, a direct response insurance ad to 100 people (and you don’t know their renewal date) then on a good day, you could expect at best maybe 2 people to buy – assuming you capture 100% of the 2% of people in the market that week. You’ll be partying like its 1999 just because you made two sales. It’s pretty obvious to see why trying to sell single bottles of shampoo via digital channels won’t be profitable.

Given this market reality and the complete lack of involvement in online ads by website visitors, marketers should not be surprised that online ads rarely get one tenth of sweet FA worth of clicks. Any direct marketer worth their salt could have told them these ads wouldn’t pay off.

If you’re a mass marketer, in most situations, you’re generally better off not running ads online.

 

If you really want to do brand advertising, change the way you buy media and dominate web pages for long periods to create awareness. Do not simply run an online brand ad and measure it by impressions or click-through rates. Measure it as you would the ads in other channels. And never rate vanity metrics such as likes or shares or customer engagement. You’ll just waste your money.

Once you build your database you can then encourage your customers and prospects to download your app. Then you can gradually reduce how much you spend with online advertising, as more of your audience migrates to your app. You’ll still need to advertise though – read Byron Sharp’s “How Brands Grow” to learn why.

To get your customers and prospects to switch to your app, you’ll obviously need an incentive.

Where are those steak knives?

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One of the world’s most successful B2B campaigns – but would it work today?

26 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in B2B Marketing, Direct Marketing, Thought Leadership

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

B2B Marketing, direct mail, direct marketing, Thought Leadership

Today on Throwback Thursday, I thought I’d share one of the world’s most successful B2B direct mail campaigns from 21 years ago – and see if it would still stand the test of time.

It was created for The Observatory Hotel in Sydney, to promote the hotel’s conference facilities. It generated close to 85% response rate and 15 unsolicited letters of congratulations from executives who received the mailing. Wouldn’t you like your prospects to thank you for advertising to them?

The campaign paid for itself with qualified leads within four hours of being delivered. It also won marketing awards around the world.

Here are some of the elements:

The mailing was almost the size of a shirt box.

The perfect conference is just a coffee break away…

Inside the mailing there was a coffee plunger, fresh ground Italian coffee, a gold-leaf bone-china coffee mug, the world’s first ever virtual tour of a hotel – stored on a floppy disk. (ask you parents if you’re not familiar with a floppy disk).

Involvement devices…

There was also a letter and brochure with a very powerful offer – FREE lunch at the hotel. Never underestimate the power of a FREE lunch or drink to motivate response.

Here’s the floppy disk:

World’s first virtual tour of a hotel…

I suspect that if you ran it again today, you would get a very similar response. Certainly it would do way better than an email or online advertising campaign. And you wouldn’t need any social selling or alleged thought leadership to support it.

There are a number of reasons for its stunning success:

  • You cannot avoid the mailing, it’s the size of a shirt box
  • It has lots of involvement devices to grab the recipient’s attention
  • A world first – the first ever virtual tour of a hotel, delivered on a floppy disk
  • A strong and appealing offer – free lunch at the hotel
  • The message content respected the reader

Those who didn’t respond immediately, were followed-up by telephone and this added to the overall result. The mailing is fun because of the way it involves the recipient. Usually the recipient’s gatekeeper will participate when it is opened, so there is discussion around the mailing.

People like to receive 3D mailings, as there is implied value in them. Even more they like to receive them when they offer worthwhile incentives and involvement devices.

In today’s digital jargon, this is known as engaging with your customers.

The only change you would make to the mailing if you sent it today, would be to put the virtual tour on a customised website – using a PURL – so you could track the response by individual. The site could include video testimonials from happy clients. And it could demonstrate the conference facilities or destination in use – different themes, size of events and more.

So if you work in B2B, don’t ignore the most powerful channel for generating responses – direct mail. Who knows, like The Observatory Hotel, your prospects may even thank you for it?

Connect to me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

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You don’t become a brain surgeon by hanging around the casualty ward…

24 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, B2B Marketing, Branding, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, Social Media, Thought Leadership

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

branding, digital marketing, direct marketing, Drayton Bird, email marketing, marketing

And you don’t become a CMO by hanging around the marketing department either. It’s like those people who claim to be copywriters just because they can use a keyboard.

To really stand out from the crowd and get ahead of your marketing peers, you need to invest in yourself.

Furnish your brain with knowledge from those who’ve already succeeded (and failed occasionally). Tap into the expertise of those who’ve tasted blood. Learn from the experts.

High achievers don’t use hope as a strategy when it comes to their success. And they don’t fall for the fake thought leadership and definitive guides published by marketing wannabes and cyber-hustlers.

Which brings me to this unique opportunity in Australia. International legend of marketing, Drayton Bird, is doing his final ever events in Sydney and Melbourne.

Every marketer on the planet would kill to achieve a fraction of Drayton’s success**. And it will be a long time before any other marketer comes close to earning the same genuine industry respect. If he was any younger he’d be called a unicorn!

So if you want better results from your marketing, or to improve your career, I suggest you take the opportunity to spend 3 hours at Drayton’s final gig-  Cocktails with Drayton.

You won’t get another chance to meet, chat and listen to Drayton in Australia ever again. In his 90 minute presentation he’ll share his best tips, ideas and marketing secrets, compiled during a career spanning four decades, including 20 years of online marketing.

He’s also giving away 3 of his books FREE, including the 338-page international best-seller “How to write sales letters and emails that sell“.

So to quote a well known Aussie “Do yourself a favour” and book your tickets today. They are only $125, or if you book 5 or more people, they’re just $100 each.

That’s a damn cheap investment to get priceless information to boost your career and your marketing results.

Book Melbourne here: 15th November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges Melbourne

Book Sydney here: 21st November (5.30 – 8.30pm) Rydges North Sydney

More information at www.draytonslasthurrah.com

See you there…

**P.S. Here’s just a snippet of Drayton’s resume:

  • The Chartered Institute of Marketing named him one of 50 individuals who shaped today’s marketing.
  • Lifetime Achievement Awards by the Caples Organisation in New York and Early To Rise in Florida
  • Founding member of Superbrands
  • One of the first eight Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing
  • One of the first three people in the Direct Marketing Association of India’s Hall of Fame
  • UK magazine ‘Campaign’ called him ‘the only universally acknowledged point of creativity in the direct marketing world‘
  • His book “Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing” has been a global best-seller on the subject every year since 1982. It’s published in 17 languages and sold around the world.
  • Advertising legend David Ogilvy said “he knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world”

How’s yours compare?

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Get Drayton Bird’s books FREE at his Last Hurrah in Australia…

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

digital marketing, direct marketing, Drayton Bird, email marketing, marketing

A COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR AUSTRALIAN MARKETERS

Drayton Bird

For those who don’t know, Drayton Bird was named one of the 50 most influential marketers in the world, long before the term “influencer” lost all credibility thanks to the cyber-hustlers. His marketing books have been best sellers in 17 languages for more than 35 years.

David Ogilvy stated:
“Drayton knows more about direct marketing than anyone else“.

I first met Drayton on a conference harbour cruise in Sydney in 1984, when he spoke at his first Australian marketing industry function. Most of the delegates jumped onto the early party boat, not realising there were two vessels. So the handful of us who remained, including Drayton and his then wife Ce Ce, boarded the second boat. We ate kilos of prawns and oysters, while drinking heartily for our respective countries, well into the wee hours.

Little did I know it would start a regular pass-time whenever we got together.

We eventually ended up at Ogilvy & Mather Direct with the same boss – David Ogilvy. We then both left Ogilvy at a similar time and have delivered marketing seminars together ever since – in the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and NZ.

So it is with a slightly sad heart I announce Drayton is about to conduct his final two Australian seminars ever. One in Melbourne (15/11/17) and one in Sydney (21/11/17).

It’s his Last Hurrah – and we’re calling it “Cocktails with Drayton”

But it’s not the usual one-day affair. Instead, over cocktails and canapes, Drayton is going to share his infinite wisdom, gained through hard work and toil, during a career spanning some 50+ years in the marketing and advertising industries.

If you think we live in the age of disruption now, think again. You haven’t known disruption like Drayton has known it. He remembers when marketing moved from no computers to a big mainframe computer. To quote a famous Aussie actor “that’s not disruption…this is disruption!”

I suggest you’ll likely learn more about marketing at Cocktails with Drayton than many do in their entire career.

It could save you years of learning on the job, as well as make you lots of money.

Here’s what you’ll get at Cocktails with Drayton:

  • The big three marketing questions – (most businesses ignore them)
  • Millions down the drain – because of “upside down marketing”
  • The Creative Magic Bullet
  • Video reveals what Ogilvy REALLY thought about Drayton
  • Do people have any idea what the hell you sell?
  • What would your boss love you to do? Confucius tells you
  • THIS gives the best ROI. Yet it probably doesn’t for you – here’s why
  • The irresistible rise of bullshit – a warning!
  • The man who dared to tell the truth
  • Are you coddling your people enough?
  • The second wisest man Drayton ever worked with
  • What IS the golden rule?
  • The timeless realities of marketing so often ignored
  • A Guided Tour of Marketing Lunacy
  • Why does your agency talk such utter **it?
  • Does that slogan sell for you?
  • Why do the best people quit? An Ogilvy story explains.

PLUS three FREE digital books:

  • “How to Write Sales Letters (And Emails) That Sell”
  • “How to Get a Better Job”
  • “How even a Business Idiot like me made a million or two”

The session will be full of examples and anecdotes, as well as plenty of humour.

During his career, Drayton has inspired loads of successful executives:

“Your books are among my most valued possessions, and easily among the greatest ever written on advertising, right up there with those by Caples, Ogilvy, Schwab, Reeves and Hopkins.”
– Gary Bencivenga, widely regarded before retirement as the world’s best direct marketing copywriter

“What a kick that was! I feel like I’ve just spent an hour with the Pope … you triggered so many great ideas and confirmed so many closely held beliefs of mine, well, believe it or not, words fail …”
– Clayton Makepeace, the world’s highest paid copywriter

“Drayton Bird is a wise and wily direct marketer. People all over the world have been lucky enough to learn from him.”
– Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of WPP

“Witty and practical, but never boring. A great book to read and re-read and one that I wish I had read earlier in my career.”
– Joe Sugarman. Copywriter, author, multi-millionaire pioneer of infomercials – at one time America’s largest single seller of electronic products

Curiously, even though I’ve heard more of Drayton’s presentations than anyone else on the planet, I always learn something useful from them. And you will too.

So if you want to meet one of the world’s leading marketing legends, before he retires from international speaking, you’d better book your ticket today.

If you have a young team of digital marketers, they’ll gain enormously from Drayton’s wisdom and so will your bottom line. And there will never be another chance to do so.

If you’re heard Drayton speak before, you’ll know his sessions are always both educational and entertaining. So why not treat yourself and your team to this rare opportunity?

Book your tickets here today:

Sydney Tickets

Melbourne Tickets

I make no apologies for this blatant plug, as I view it as a community service announcement for the Australian marketing industry.

Having attended so many events featuring alleged digital marketing experts, I know the enormous value of Drayton’s experience. And the marketing industry desperately needs to learn from a legitimate practitioner who knows what works, rather than from those who pretend to know, as they try to fake digital marketing authenticity.

Plus it’s a good excuse for a drink with a few colleagues.

See you there…

www.draytonslasthurrah.com

ACT NOW!!!

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Marketo demonstrates why marketing automation fails more often than not – twice in one week…

27 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

content marketing, digital marketing, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing automation, Marketo

You have to admire the marketing automation industry. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Twice recently, the good people at Marketo have demonstrated why most marketing automation fails – unless it has one essential element. And that element has no binary code or computer chips.

Can you guess what it is dear reader?

That’s right folks. The most powerful element ensuring the difference between success and failure in marketing automation, is “Homo Sapiens” – not a computer.

If you don’t have humans monitoring your computers, your automation will eventually fail. A layer of human intelligence is essential to monitor, analyse and act on what the computers are doing and revealing. Those microchips cannot do it on their own, despite the marketing automation sales spiel.

Here’s how Marketo demonstrated this recently.

If you’re a Marketo customer you’ll know the problem that occurred this week. In an amazing piece of irony, a Homo Sapiens at Marketo forgot to renew the Marketo domain. So Marketo’s customers couldn’t access the Marketo server to do what they pay Marketo to do – marketing automation.

Of course the industry has had a field day joking about it. Check out #marketofail.

But an even more powerful demonstration of how essential Homo Sapiens are to marketing automation, came with an email sent to me on the 19th July, from Bill Binch, the Managing Director of Marketo. It was a follow-up to an email sent a week earlier promoting a Marketo event.

Here’s the first email I received on the 13th July. I suspect your antenna is rattling too dear reader. When you read something like “STOP MARKETING. START ENGAGING.” you know you’re in for a self-serving sales pitch. After all, we’re in the marketing industry, not the marriage game. Leave that to The Bachelor reality TV series.

Ironically (again) the copy in the invitation says your customers “can smell insincerity kilometres away” and you certainly can with this invitation, it’s pungent.

I didn’t reply to this first invitation. It came from the latest name on the “From Line” – they keep changing. Probably a “customer engagement officer”.

On the 19th July, Bill sends me a personal message, though I do suspect he sent a few thousand of them. Here it is:

I’m not sure why he’s inviting me to the Melbourne event, given I live in Sydney? But I’m very keen to meet Bill. After all he sent me a personal message stating he’d love to meet me and that’s pretty powerful stuff for a business communication. So I replied personally to his email. Here’s my response:

Thanks Bill
I live in Sydney, so Melbourne is a bit difficult for brekkie, but could do the 1st if you’re in Sydney?

The problem of course folks, is that when you use marketing automation to fake sincerity, you can get caught out. The return email address for Bill’s message is not his personal email address.

It is an auto-reponder address: marketing_apac@marketo.com

I suspect there are no Homo Sapiens employed to monitor the auto-responder address, because Bill hasn’t replied to me. And given his enthusiasm for me to attend, I’d have thought this “marketing 101” function would be a sure thing at Marketo.

But then again, they seem to be more interested in getting engaged than marketing fundamentals.

I hope to get a reply, as I’ve decided I’d like to attend. And am keen to meet Bill, as I’m sure he’s a very capable MD. Better still, I’d love to work at Marketo, as I know I have something to offer. Even if it is just monitoring the automated marketing – because it seems that even when Marketo’s domain is working, the marketing automation is failing…

 

automatically connect to me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malcolmauld/

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Uber Eats and Airtasker run amazing suburban launches using…

23 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

branding, digital disruption, digital marketing, direct marketing, innovation, unaddressed mail

As you know dear reader I like to keep abreast of the latest digital disruptions and the amazing “new rules” of marketing they have introduced. How will the old rules survive?

So I thought I’d share the most recent ads that launched Airtasker and Uber Eats in my suburb. Here’s an earlier post on similar disruption technology.

The brands are obviously on to something, as they used identically shaped die-cut cards. These disruptive cards included a discount to encourage people to trial the services. Such innovation.

The Uber Eats card was in my letterbox, along with at least a dozen non-disrupting brands. So now I can use my phone to order cooked food delivered to my home – unbelievable.

While the Airtasker card was shoved in my hand at the shops – I think I was on a customer journey at the time. Let me recall – I had my backpack, water bottle, GPS map, crampons (just in case any climbing was required – who knows where a customer journey will take you?) and my sunblock. Yes, I remember now. I was on a customer journey to buy some bread when a random stuck out their hand and gave me the card.

So there you have it folks – amazing insights into the new ways of marketing by the digital disrupters. Fascinating stuff indeed.

Have to go now. Am going on a customer journey to get some milk. Where are my hiking boots and personas?

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17th century practices drive dynamic digital disruption dollars…

15 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Digital, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

digital disruption, digital disruptors, digital marketing, direct marketing, dollar shaver club, negative option, subscription marketing

Once again this week, I saw another media article about the amazing digital disruptor, the Dollar Shaver Club. By all accounts it is a very successful company. And so it should be. It has taken a 17th century publishing model and used 21st century technology to digitally disrupt an industry. Amazing stuff.

After all, who would have thought people would order a product remotely, rather than walk into a store, and get the company to deliver the product to them by mail? This type of innovative thinking is digital dynamite.

To think that a company can completely disrupt human behaviour by applying one of the most continually successful analogue business models to a digitally-based business, well it’s just business gold.

Let’s analyse this shall we…

ANALYZE THIS, Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, 1999. © Warner Bros.

The business model is called the subscription model and it uses a negative option offer.

A negative option purchase is one whereby the customer agrees to have goods or services provided automatically, and the customer must either pay for the service or specifically decline it in advance of invoicing.

And this may come as a surprise to some of you dear readers, but Dollar Shaver Club was not the first to offer a negative option. Strange but true.

Columbia-House-Ad1-e1451096912812

Research indicates the subscription model first started in the publishing industry in the 17th century in the UK. Over time it expanded to the US in the 19th century when chapbooks (cheaply printed paper covered books) were sold door-to-door.

Regular readers will know that door-to-door selling is now one of the primary channels for digital distruptors like Uber, Hello Fresh, et al.

door to door

As markets grew and new technology disrupted society – automobiles, telephone, courier services, faster postal services – the subscription industry boomed. By the mid 20th century you could order books, magazines, vinyl records, plates, stamps, collectibles, vitamins, cosmetics and food – all delivered to your home, using a negative option payment method.

By the end of the 20th century in addition to the items above, I’d worked with clients selling wine, nappies, car washes, food, CDs, DVDs, education, tools, newsletters, coffee and more on a negative option subscription model.

In fact, any regularly consumed item is perfect for a subscription model – as long as the cost of delivery is not prohibitive. Many business software programmes are now sold on a subscription service – including this blog platform for example.

So let’s quickly look at Dollar Shaver Club.

shaving

In Australia they provide razors for either $4, $7 or $10 per month. They mainly promote their business using the digital medium of television. You select the offer you want from the website and then keep an eye on your letterbox. Your razors arrive by post and that’s one less item you need to worry about when you go shopping. Marvelous stuff.

These digital disruptors are bloody geniuses. Who’d have thought hey?

But congratulations to the lads who built the business. They understand that technology changes – human nature doesn’t. Humans all love a bargain and as the laziest species on the planet, we love things made easier for us. Tap into those two emotional triggers and you can make money.

Seems the adage is becoming standard practice – the more things change, the more they stay the same…

So in summary, here’s the lesson: if you want to go forward in digital disruption, just look backwards…

I’m off to a meeting, better have a shower – where’s my razor?

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