More from the land of Oz

I sent out an email last week to about 9,000 people to find out whether they had any interest at all in my ramblings or just signed up in a drunken moment.

The message was not my best, and I am pleased to say that (for once) this wasn't my fault. It was my partner Al's, but since he's younger, bigger and stronger than me I can't beat him up.

Anyhow ... I got lots of nice and quite a few funny messages, including one from Harry Brelsford in Queensland, who started with a comment only meaningful to those who follow a certain sport which very occasionally we beat them at.

"From over here in Australia it looks like we may need some guidance on how to play the game of Cricket."

Harry is a printer - a hell of a tricky business - and he made me smile several times:

"I have not read all of your ideas but have them in chronological order and will print and bind them when finished. I run a small printing business on the Gold Coast and still like to read from paper.

I hoped this whole Internet thing would go away and still start ranting when I see an email signature that suggests we should consider the environment before printing that miserable little email. The same person probably bins a whole newspaper every day.

We have persevered and our little business (run by my daughter and her not always too bright dad) is holding its own. The one thing we do is send a direct mail letter to our customers every month. This is a single page A4 on our letterhead. We also distribute postcards every month to our catchment area telling prospects we do good stuff that can help them.

We also push that we can help them get a better return on their marketing material because we have been doing our own marketing in the local area for many years. We claim their printing costs the same whether it has an effective or ineffective message.

Our own measure is if we distribute our postcards every month sales go up, stop the campaign and sales go down. Scientific enough for me to keep doing it."

That made me laugh. God knows how many allegedly smart people still don't even measure what happens as a result of their marketing. You'd think a recession might teach them, but no; not a chance.

Harry made me laugh again when he said he likes my helpful ideas and "I no doubt use some of the inspiration down the track and by then probably think the idea is my own."

Hey, Harry, they certainly aren't original, believe me.

Why didn't you get rich quick - or even slow? Uncle Dray's Agony column

Over the weekend Daniel Eigenmann of Perth, Western Australia sent me a couple of questions - and some of you might be interested in my answers.

He asked my views on websites designed like long sales letters (without any navigation options). They seem to be adopting all the characteristics (and proven principles) of traditional (read snail-mail) direct (response) marketing.

Does the traditional sales letter format translate to the Internet and what do you make of these sales letters promising ‘untold riches overnight without doing anything’?

I have never forgotten that McGraw-Hill research years ago found that in business magazines ads over 1,000 words long had an average of 25% higher readership; and Gallup found that the most successful ads repeat the proposition three times.

I replied to Dan as follows - and the first point is by far the most important:

1. The principles of persuasion do not change with the media.

2. As a rule good long copy will always beat good short copy – because it:

a. Gives more reasons to act

b. Overcomes more objections

c. Repeats the proposition

The only case where this principle does not apply is when you are trying a different proposition, format or incentive.

I suspect the reference to long websites without navigation options is actually referring to landing pages.

The school of opinion on this seems to be, don’t send people off that page – you will lose them.

I talked to two of my partners about this. They disagreed with each other. So I arrived as usual at the golden rule: test and see.

I would test opportunities to navigate, but only to pages that asked for the order.

When it comes to those countless people who promise get rich quick in 20 minutes – it’s easier than falling off a log… if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

On the other hand:

1. The techniques these people use are well worth learning from.

2. If you do everything they say, you will undoubtedly do better.

3. But they over-promise – because it works.

Why is this? Because human beings believe what they want to believe.

Why do most people not succeed in getting rich that easily?

Chiefly because the over-promises make them think it’s easier than it is, so they don’t put in the effort.

Over the years, being as lazy as the next man, I have tried every conceivable way of making money without working. Never succeeded.

Drayton

Vulgar commerce - or, oh, what a deal!

You will have noticed - because like all my readers you are exceptionally observant - that greed for gold rarely, if ever, soils these pages.

On the other hand, you may be disturbed by my lack of business sense. Am I totally out of touch? Marooned in the 20th century?

"Where's your social network marketing?" I sense you asking - appalled at my poor commercial intelligence. "You're losing the plot, you fool. Are you a secret acolyte of El Gordo Ludicroso?"

Oh, alright then. I give in.

Here is a commercial break. I have something really worthwhile for you, so please pay attention.

But I must warn you. You should only read on if you or someone you know would:

a) Like to pick up pretty much everything you really need to know about direct/online marketing in just one week.

b) Straight from the horses' mouths - from some of world’s leading practitioners. Not theorists: people who have done it - I’m one, chosen chiefly for my mistakes.

c) Do so at an absurdly low cost. As low as half price. Half price? Yes. I'll explain in a moment.

You can see what it’s all about at www.eadim.com.

It’s a fairly intimate affair – if you’ll excuse the expression: not a vast hall - a relatively small number of people.

And there's a very simple reason why you can take me to the cleaners in this obscene fashion.

Two organisations who promised to send a torrent of people between them have in the end come up with none.

Not their fault, really, but there it is.

So I have room for a few more people who could come for as little as half price.

Apart from the benefits you see at www.eadim.com this event last year got more testimonials than delegates.

So if you're interested or know anyone who might be, point them in my direction.

Last year one delegate (former marketing director of a national telecoms firm) said it was the most useful week since he learned to read and count. Several people started businesses or transformed their careers as a result.

The speakers are of a unique calibre.

And so are my jokes. But you knew that already.

Let me know if you're interested at drayton@draytonbird.com - and I'll tell you the deal.

Bad language

The picture is of my father, George, one of his sisters and a niece.

Handsome, isn't he?

He was also a man of the most sublime eccentricity, and I suspect I am getting more and more like him.

He was a publican and, as my mother informed me, a sinner when he got too close to one or two of the barmaids. As she put it, "George loved the ladies, and the ladies loved him." In fact I've long suspected that he and my younger brother - also called George - were both very friendly with the lovely Gertrude. And she was lovely, too.

Anyhow, being a bit of a booze-hound, the old man tended to be in a filthy mood in the mornings, which he dealt with very logically by making sure he had something to moan about. If he couldn't find anything obviously amiss in the kitchen or the bar, he would solve the problem by turning on the wireless (this was before the days when they called it the radio).

He knew he would always find some music he loathed on what was then called the Light Programme (there were only three BBC programmes in those days and this was the most frivolous).

As soon as he heard a singer he disliked (usually a woman) he would snap, "Yowling bitch!" and turn the machine off, satisfied that all was ill in the world and standards were on a gratifying decline.

In a similar way I delight in prowling through the reviews - paying especial attention to the ludicrous prices - of top restaurants, usually pausing to wonder why the former are so often illiterate and the latter so absurdly high, and occasionally muttering things like "pshaw" and "grasping bastards".

Nobody qualifies on both counts more than Gordon Ramsay, a man whose deployment of an extraordinarily limited number of words never fails to enthrall. Anyhow, I just read that one of his restaurants serves "traditional English Fayre".

Fayre? Fayre. Fuck me, Gordon, I'd find out who wrote that and give them a right kicking. Outside of third-rate cafes in resorts like Weston-super-Mare where do they use expressions like that?

This could kill your positioning. How can you possibly charge your sort of prices for "fayre". You'll have to bring them right down if you get too much of that sort of language used.

Jumpin' up ... with the police

Well, yesterday my beloved and I went for a wander round the Carnival, which Metro told her is the largest street festival in Europe.

It certainly seems to create the largest collection of empty bottles and assorted rubbish in this country outside the Houses of Parliament.

The first carnival I attended was in Trinidad in 1970. From what I can recall the floats were as good and the bands better than the one I saw yesterday.

But I never enjoyed it as much as I should have done. Overcome by a painful attack of English shyness I never joined in as much as I should have. I think I spoilt it for the girl I was with, the lovely Janina, toast of Gdynia.

I often wince to think what a sad, gauche, yet at the same time arrogant twit I was when younger. Come to think of it, I wince a fair bit nowadays, too.

Besides chicken with noodles and Thai chilli sauce for £2.50 (typically Caribbean) the most interesting thing to me yesterday was the police. It is damned hard to manage half a million people, many under the influence of one thing or another and maybe both in such a relatively small area over so many hours.

On the other hand, the only time I really saw them "in action" was quite frightening. Not because of what they did, but because of how they did it.

What they did was necessary. They were trying to sort out two streams of "traffic" which with the incredible crush was a good idea. But they did it in a very menacing way. It felt just like the "kettling" tactics they've been criticised for.

Suddenly this double row of police blocked off our progress. There was no reason given. Just a row of hard faces just an arm's length ahead. All they had to say was, "Sorry folks. Wait here for a couple of minutes." But not a word. Just those bad-tempered faces.

This was just lousy communication. Just a couple of words here and there missing. How hard would it be to tell them to say them? And easy for them to say, too.

The more I think, the more I believe that a couple of words here and there often makes all the difference. I would, wouldn't I? Scribbler's arrogance.