Will I See You at Drayton Bird’s Last Hurrah?

“Drayton Bird knows more about Direct Marketing than anyone in the world … His talks are highly instructive and hilariously funny” – David Ogilvy

Drayton Bird is an original Mad Man.

In a career spanning nearly six decades, Drayton Bird has sold everything, from Airbus planes to Peppa Pig, for brands including American Express, Procter & Gamble, Deutsche Post (me too), IBM and Microsoft

His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, has been the UK’s best-selling book on direct response marketing since the early 80s.

He’s won countless awards and accolades from the best minds in direct response marketing, including Ogilvy, Schwartz and Bencivenga.

And this week it all comes to an end (speaking wise, anyway) because he is giving his last ever seminar aboard the S.S. Great Britain this Weds and Thurs.

I’ll be there in my best shirt, polished shoes and notebook ready. Will I see you there?

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Why I Don’t Charge Per Hour

If you’re charging per hour, you’re undercharging.

Why?

Because in this madcap world of freelancing there are all manner of tasks beyond sitting down and writing copy.

Try this for a week: Track everything you do on a spreadsheet. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just write down what you do in hourly segments.

I think you’ll be surprised to see how much time you spend answering emails, keeping track of receipts, dipping into Facebook groups, reading the news, staring out of windows etc.

You may find that only two thirds of your time is actually spent on client work. And with all the distractions, writing a press release or advertorial can take you half a day, rather than the two hours you billed the client for.

Do this instead: Charge project fees instead of hourly. Recognize that writing an advertorial or email sequence is actually a half or full day’s work. Then bill accordingly. Remember to include all the deliverables in your proposal so they appreciate all the stages that writing copy entails (more tips on writing proposals).

Most copywriters undercharge (and then grumble about it in social media). Don’t be one of them. Charge what you’re worth.

If you’re writing for a player, with, say, an email list of 100k or an ad budget of $5k per day, consider how what you’re writing is tied to revenue.

And if you believe you can do a better job than someone they could pick up from Upwork for a pittance, charge accordingly. You’re worth it.

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Schwarzenegger on Marketing

Schwarzenegger and ‘Jim’ Cameron will be teaming up on a new Terminator movie. At least we know the marketing will be great.

Recently I’ve been reading the autobiography of the prior Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And it truly is a rags to riches story. His work ethic, ambition and promotional nous led to him amassing millions before he was even a movie star. His appointment to Governor of California was no fluke (whatever your opinions on his performance in said role).

Anywho. Enough eulogizing.

I want to focus on one chapter in particular on turning around the fortunes of the movie Total Recall (as it relates to my recent post on dealing with failure).

At the time, Total Recall was the most expensive movie ever made. It was a bold attempt at bringing sci-fi to the masses, and a lot of careers were riding on its success.

But the pre-launch test scores were BAD.

Even after weeks of trailers and advertisements, its ‘awareness’ score was in the 40s, when it needed to be in the 90s. Unless they did something drastic, Total Recall was on track to be Turkey of the Year.

So what did Arnold do?

He switched the marketing team.

Out went the team who were clueless on how to market such a weird, over the top story (this typically comes down to a lack of research in our world), and in came a team that devised new hooks, big ideas and taglines.

The result?

Within two weeks, Total Recall’s awareness score rocketed to 92 percent. It went on to achieve the biggest opening weekend yet recorded, earned over $300 million worldwide and even picked up an Oscar.

All from switching up the marketing.

As Arnold writes:

The experience proves how important marketing is – how important it is to tell people what this is about; really blow up their skirt and make them say, “I have to go see this movie”

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What Separates Amateurs from the Pros

Research.

That’s what makes the grizzled veterans standout and is the key to higher conversions.

Within a few years (or months, in some cases) of hand copying sales letters and working from templates, you should be writing out decent sales letters that keep most clients happy.

But to reach the creme de la creme of clients (and fees), you need to be offering big ideas, hooks and triggers on an epic scale that few can match.

The only way to uncover these ideas is through deep, unrelenting and obsessive research. The top copy dogs typically spend 1-2 weeks (or even a month) on research before they even write the headline.

So what are they doing during this time?

Here’s my 12 step checklist for completing the research stage:

1. Send the client a questionnaire
2. Send their email list a ‘Deep Dive Survey’
3. Review the results with the client (optional)
4. Review all of the client’s current marketing and best-performing pages and emails
5. Research competitor websites and sales pages to identify their key hooks and benefits
6. Research the market for challenges, problems and language (Amazon reviews can be a goldmine)
7. List all of the problems the product solves and how it does it
8. Research the market again to assess how aware they are of the solution to their problem and my client’s product
9. Writing out pages of benefit bullets and headlines
10. Identify what ‘big idea’ will help the product stand out
11. Write down all the objections a customer would have before buying
12. Plot out the sales letter in Scrivener

Boom! Once you’ve done all that the writing part is easy.

As you can imagine, working through all these steps eats up a lot of time.

In fact, you should be spending two-thirds of your time on research and only a third on the actual writing.

Try working through all these steps on your next big project and let me know how it improves your conversion rate (and praise from the client).

 

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Dealing with Failure

Campaigns are a marathon. Not a sprint

We all have to face this at some point in our working lives.

We work our fingers to the bone to get a campaign launched, only to see it fizzle for a while before dying completely.

The clickthrough rate is abysmal. We barely get a 1% conversion rate on the sales page and we start questioning whether we’re cut out for this gig at all.

I’ll let you in on a secret: It happens to all of us. Even the grizzled veterans who’d assume haven’t had a campaign fail in decades.

But the reality is that failure comes with the territory.

You then have two options: Kill the campaign entirely and start from scratch or seeing if you can test your way into turning it around.

If a campaign has bombed it’s typically due to one of these reasons:

1. Not enough testing

The gurus may not tell you this, but few campaigns succeed straight out the gate.

You need to test them out to find out what’s working and what’s dragging your stats down. Test the big things first, like the headline, lead and bullets to see if that gives you a bump.

Then focus on tightening the fundamentals of your offer, the guarantee, the close and the PS. And don’t forget to test images with a caption too.

2. There isn’t a starving market

Too many times I’ve taken on projects where the client hadn’t tested the market to see if there was a demand for their product. It’s then up to me to, supposedly, wave my magic marketing wand to make people want something they don’t feel in their gut.

Its not gonna happen.

Not unless you start making outrageous claims that will only book you a visit from the FTC.

The first step in any product launch, is to check if there is demand, or a ‘starving crowd’ as Gary Halbert called it.

Thankfully, you no longer have to go door to door or walking around a store to interview customers to find out. You can simply write an advertorial about the challenge your product solves, have a signup form for people to register their interest in the solution and then spend some gold on ad traffic. Then see what the signups tell you.

A simpler option is to run a quiz, poll or survey to find out your market’s biggest challenges. This is also a great way of building a list of prospects to mail when you’re ready to roll.

3. Haven’t got to know the customer

Creating a buyer persona based on best guesses will only get you so far. You need to study the market and find out who your customers are if you are to be successful.

Spend 1-2 weeks lurking in your market’s Amazon reviews, forums, Facebook groups and YouTube channels to understand the language they use, who the villains in their market are and what they need help with.

Then when you sit down to write, you’ll have a clearer idea of who’s sat across from you that you need to convince to buy your new widget. Your copy will then naturally resonate more, be more conversational and higher conversions will follow.

Turning failure into success

Failure may come with the territory. But that doesn’t mean you have to accept it.

It’s always wise to set clients up with the right expectations before you launch (e.g. 1% of conversions on the front end, majority of profits from the back end).

But if they start freaking out because a campaign is failing, advise them to stay calm, to work through the three steps listed above and to treat it like a marathon, not a sprint.

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