[Ian Gourlay]

Helpful Idea 1
Communicate more than your competitors and you’ll outdo them. Keep talking to your prospects until it doesn’t work

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) letter 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.

­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.

Not my idea  Drayton Birds  leading direct marketing consultant

Not sure if anyone is interested but found this at www.draytonbird.com  I am not on commission  just bought one of his classic  marketing  books on ebay for £2.71 including pp

[Matt Seymour]

Send out the same sales letter to the same potential customers every week?

I'm not so sure about that to be honest.

I've always believed in a sales letter followed up by a personal visit or telephone call a week or so later.

[garry22]

Drayton Bird is a genius (British too). I've got two of his books. Really entertaining guy to listen to.

Ian, have you read the bit yet about him selling the hairpieces? Priceless.

Garry

[james roffey]

I already get irritated by junk male from people i dont know, if i started getting it from a  carpet cleaner i used i would be on the phone to them quick, not to book them but to tell them to stop pestering me

[Ian Gourlay]

My  pint was regular contact

Could be  a month or two months.

Leaflet, Letter

I changed it slightly as his client sent out emails every week.

I have not read everything yet. I remember reading a book from the Library about 15 years ago by him/ For some reason his books are not in Bookshops  and i forgot all about him until I was reading another book a few weeks back .

I think Drayton Bird is where a lot of the Gurus get their ideas from

I Now all I need is the C charisma  and a White Suit. 

[wynne jones]

They all get there stuff out of history, human nature never changes, just look at economies.

This guy has and impressive client list although I reckon it all about putting it into action and improving rather than flitting from one idea to the next half arsed.

[Ian Gourlay]

I put the post up as many people are new to marketing  and this helps to give ideas and starting points

Not trying to teach grannies to suck eggs etc

But the big idea is do something

[wynne jones]

Yeah good thread Ian.

[clinton]

sounds good

[garry22]

I think Drayton Bird is where a lot of the Gurus get their ideas from

He worked alongside one of my all time marketing heroes, David Ogilvy who founded Ogily and Mather. They worked closely with Gallop (the polling people) who were instrumental in providing large scale ad testing techniques.

These people are well worth studying.

[Mike Halliday]

Wynne has hit the nail on the head, all concepts of marketing have been around for centuries, I bet 300yrs ago in ye olde marketplace you could buy 3 chicken for the price of 2 or if you bought an oxen you'd get a goat thrown in for free ( but only while stocks last)

blacksmiths put their mark on  all the armour they built so any one admiring it or wanting a suit of armour would know who made it 

all the marketing gurus are doing is taking these ancient concepts and giving them a modern twist.

[Ian Gourlay]

Drayton ran a test on copy

Which one produced the most value in sales.

1064 words

1999 words

2763 words


Answer 2763 words and increase in value of 43.2% over the 1064 words coppy

Many will disagree

But the theory is the more you tell the more you sell

[garry22]

Ian,

I'm with you on this.

The reason I take so much notice of people like him is that they are passing on first hand knowledge.

Here's another, this time from David Ogilvy, that really pes off Web Designers.

In all tests, white text on a black background HALVED readership. Basically, if you want to lose half your potential customers at a stroke, get a black website with white text.

The two exceptions were overhead projector presentations and theatre programmes (both read in low light).

I just love talking to "proper" web designers about this.

Garry

[wynne jones]

Surely they can be forgiven as they are 'web designers' not marketing experts.

You will also find there are 'exceptions', this is found by split testing rather than relying on what should work. This is MY real life field experience.

[Ian Gourlay]

That is what Drayton preaches to a certain extent

But this man has in a way invented the wheel, so might as well study his ideas and make money.

Think I have some offending materials on my Web Site

Thats the problem when you rely on others for this technical stuff you can not change it easily