Leo Burnett - Advertising Genius

A hearfelt speech during a company holiday by one of the true giants of advertising.

Best,
Rezbi

Can You Guess Why These Headlines Were So Successful?

I was going to go deeper into writing headlines today, but I thought I'd do a little something different first.

A big part of being a good copywriter lies in being able to figure out why some things work and some things don't.  By knowing that it's easier to reverse engineer good copy and use it to your advantage when writing your own copy, instead of just swiping all the time.

So, I'm going to list a few well-known headlines and see who can come up with the best explanation as to why it worked.

Some of these are very well known others maybe not so much.  However, what I will say is, they were all successful headlines and made a bundle of cash for the advertiser concerned.

Here they are:

1. A Little Mistake That Cost A Farmer $3,000 A Year


2. How to Win Friends and Influence People


3. Do You Make These Mistakes in English?


4. Why Some Foods 'Explode' in Your Stomach


5. Whose Fault When Children Disobey?

Why do YOU think they were successful?  What I can tell you is, in all cases the explanation is a real simple one.  Think about why the headline appeals to you.

Try as many as you can, but don't cheat by looking them up.  You can use this to test your own copywriting skills.

I'll give you my take on why I think they were hits next week.  I'll also be going into the anatomy of a headline, and it'll be quite in-depth.

I'm moving around a lot so I'll be posting about once a week, unless I can get around to writing more.

Best,
Rezbi

How Advertising Agencies Come Up With Award Winning Campaigns?

You couldn't make it up if it wasn't true, could you.

Regain The Lost Millions

This piece is about millions of pounds that are wasted every year - needlessly.

It all starts with that wonderful word "strategy". There's a lot of hot air about it in marketing.

The word comes from the Greek for general. What does it mean?

Using your forces to achieve an objective as effectively as possible:

In business, that means getting the maximum profit with the minimum necessary effort and cost.

Or in the words of former Coca Cola marketing boss, Sergio Zyman, "Selling more stuff more often to more people at higher prices"

Most marketers spend prodigious time and effort looking for business, whilst ignoring money that's just waiting to be picked up - money we already have within our grasp, but don't realise it, or forget it.

The prime example: enquiries you have received, but don't try to convert with enough determination, intelligence or vigour.

Let me explain - and see if you agree.

Sounds sensible - but is crazy

Compare two communications.

One is a mailing or e-mail to people a marketer thinks might be prospects. "Cold" prospects.

The marketer has put an immense amount of effort into it. It's got every trick in the book, because getting a response from someone you don't know is hard. Makes sense, right?

The other is a reply to someone who's enquired about something. A brochure or other material and a letter thanking the respondent for the enquiry and suggesting they read the brochure and order now.

If it's being done on-line it will be a simple thank you and a suggestion to visit the website

This is a much easier task, as the respondent has already expressed interest. So that makes sense, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong - a thousand times WRONG!

Because what seems to make sense is in fact senseless.

And that is where the vanishing millions are.

For though it is indeed true that selling cold is harder than selling to warm enquirers, it is even more true that the EASY money is amongst those warm enquiries.

So more effort, not less, should be applied to them. They really deserve every trick in the book. They have raised their hands and said, "I'm here! I'm interested! Come and get me!"

They are infinitely more likely to reply. Just consider: for one of our clients a cold mailing might get .1% response - and that would be a good result. If someone had enquired they might get five times that percentage

In fact I bet there is more money lying around waiting to be picked up because of this than anywhere else in your business. And not just because many take these enquiries for granted as "easy" sales and don't try hard enough.

But also because they don't follow them up enough - which you should do, as one of my favourite clients put it, "until they give in".

Because they will buy when they want to buy - not when it suits you.

To sum up:

If you want more than your fair share of the lost millions -

1. Put more effort into enquiry responses than into cold mailings


2. Follow up until it doesn't pay any more.

So there are two thoughts for you.

Best - and thanks to those who have sent kind messages.

Drayton

P.S.  This is the sixth of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

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Website: http://www.draytonbird.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

The Drayton Bird Blog – please do not visit if you are easily offended.

How to Ensure Your Sales Message Gets Read

No one reads your advert just for the sake of reading it.  If you want your reader to continue to read your advertising, give him a reason to do so.  Otherwise he will take one look and switch off.  You'd be surprised by the numbers of ads which actually do just that.

When you write a sales letter, don't make it so blatantly obvious you're selling something.  And certainly do NOT make it dull.

You cannot bore people into buying your product.  You can only interest them in buying it. David Ogilvy

What you want to ensure is to write your advert in such a way as to ensure your reader's attention is grabbed... and kept.  This is what increases the value of your advert: The fact that people actually remain interested in it from the headline to the subhead; from the subhead to the first paragraph; from the first paragraph to the next.  And so on.

As you can see from the paragraph, the sales message begins with the headline.  If your headline can grab your reader’s attention by the eyeballs, and keep hold of it, 80 to 90 percent of the job of the ad is accomplished.

... the headline is 50 to 75 percent of the advert. John Caples

David Ogilvy went even further. He said:

On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.  It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.

When you take into account the fact your headline is competing with other headlines, especially if your advert is in a print magazine or newspaper, you can see why it's even more important to get it right.

One way to ensure you have a successful headline is to ensure it contains some news element.  You could announce a new product; a new way of doing something which already exists or a new way of making use of it; a new way of saving money.   Or basically anything with news which pulls at the heartstrings of your reader: An emotional desire.

Whatever it is you say you need to make a big promise.  As far as your reader is concerned it has to be worth his while taking the time to stop everything else and reading your message.

Leave your comments and let me know what you think.

Best,
Rezbi

"When You're Up To Your Armpits In Alligators...

... it's hard to drain the swamp"

If you find what I'm about to suggest pathetically obvious, I'm sorry. Many of the things I'll put to you are.

And the reason is simple. Although we may know things, far too often we don't do them.

So here's something one of my clients does. They send out the same (not very brilliant) e-mail week after week after week.

Let me guess what you're thinking. Is it something like this?

Isn't that far too often? And anyhow, if they sent out a variety of imaginative ones they'd do better.

Well, they do it for two reasons.

1. Because it works. And it works because you never know when prospects will buy, so you have to keep plugging away.

2. Because it's better than nothing. And they're so busy fighting alligators that they'd probably send out nothing if they weren't careful

I constantly see clients who spend weeks, even months, squandering priceless days and weeks over small details that will make little or no difference - when they should just get on with it.

As the French writer Voltaire, put it over 250 years ago, The best is the enemy of the good.

Three years ago my partner and I went to see two firms in the same city on the same day. One spent six months having meetings about the copy we suggested - in fact I have no idea if it ever went out. The other got the mailing we proposed out within a week, and were our biggest client within three months. Today they are the leading firm in their field. This has little to do with us. But it has everything to do with two things. 1. They communicate more than their competitors. Once they have a prospect they keep everlastingly at that prospect. I once asked their marketing director how long they keep mailing and e-mailing people. "Until they give in," he replied. 2. They don't sit around wasting hot air on whether something will work or not. They get on with it.

The American expert Richard V. Benson said, "There are two answers to every problem. Answer #1: Test everything. Answer #2: Refer to answer #1."

People test to find out whether one message will work better than another. But there is another, even simpler reason. It is to eliminate useless discussion. Why waste time? Let the customers decide for you!

I'll wager that if you communicate more often than your competitors, you will outdo them. Keep at it till it doesn't pay ... then give it a rest and try again.

There is a direct relationship between profit and communication. The more you tell the more you sell.

If you spend 5 minutes a day thinking of reasons to talk to your prospects and customers - things that might benefit or interest them (not you) - you will find it the best ROI you ever had.

By the way, let me know if you have particular questions or problems. There's hardly any kind of business or marketing discipline we haven't had experience of.

Drayton

P.S.  This is the first of Drayton Bird's 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

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Website: http://www.draytonbird.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

The Drayton Bird Blog – please do not visit if you are easily offended.

His Wife Thinks He’s Nugging Futs

It’s nearly 4pm here in the North West of England… it’s been raining since late morning.

And I love it.

Over the past few days we’ve had blistering weather… at least upper 20 or lower 30 degrees centigrade.

I know, for most hot countries that’s pretty cool, but for us it’s HOT!

We had to keeps the fans on all night.

The rain is a welcome relief with all the windows open and the air feeling a lot fresher.

Beautiful.

Onto the headline.

That came from an email I received from Matt Furey a few days ago and I thought it’s just pure genius.

What makes it even better for me is that I think like this all the time — not swearing, but switching words round — but it never occured to me to use it in my writing.

That’s one of the reasons I like old Matty’s emails… they’re full of common sense nuggets.

Another thing I’ve learned from him is that you CAN take ideas from other sources and sell them.

It’s easy.

D’you know why it’s easy?

Because people buy them.

Remember, you may have seen something for donkey’s years and think nothing of it, but it’s most likely to be completely new to the majority of people.

Let’s face it, there’s a few billion people floating around and not all of them get to see everything you do.

Here’s an example, Matt sells a book and makes six figures a year from it.

The funny thing is, this book is available on the internet for nothing.

Look, I’m not disclosing this here to expose anyone, because the fact is Matt Furey isn’t the only guy who does this.

And people know it.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the people buying the book already know it’s freely available.

There’s two reasons why they still buy it, in my opinion.

1. They want a hard copy to keep on their shelves coz it looks good.
2. Have you seen Matt’s sales copy?

That’s right, if you have the right chops and can write persuasive copy, you can sell ice to eskimos… so I’ve heard.

And that’s all there is to it.

Rezbi

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