Things I will leave with relief when I die

Years ago an art director at O & M in Toronto, enraged beyond endurance by an asinine client who kept making pettifogging changes to his layout, asked coldly, "Where were you when I had the idea?"

In days of yore when Madmen roamed the earth, Marty Stein, my very New York Art Director at PKL, used to say dealing with such wretches was like being nibbled to death by ducks.

I fondly dreamt that when I attained a certain competence I would be respected sufficiently to be spared this sort of irritating nonsense. Fat chance.

A few months back I did an ad for a client who had been pissing away a ton on ads that got no response, so I banged one out that got scads of leads which didn't convert very well, I assume because his conversion material was shit.

Then he asked me to do another which is the best thing I've done in ages, mainly because my art director Chris Jones took my sketchy idea and made it work. The client loved this little masterpiece, which has been going through the torment of compliance ever since.

You would think he would behave himself - but no. Another job we have just finished had to be redone twice because the man kept changing the brief. In the end he told us exactly what he wanted, right down to the flotilla of logos at the bottom and we gave it to him. Never again.

Some people you just can't help, like the marketing director who fucked me around once, then came back on bended knees after she joined another firm. For her I wrote a mailing that pulled 78% response and more orders than they'd ever had. Did that stop her nasty habits and general folly? No chance.

She got me involved in a "rebranding" - useless jargon which meant bringing in her pet designer, whom she paid to make her perfectly adequate, quite elegant brochure uglier and less readable. In the process she conned me into writing an amazing amount of copy for far too little money. I take comfort in the thought that the industry she works in is sorely hit by the recession.

Another two creeps managed between them to dishearten one of the most able and by far the most hard-working person I have ever worked with so much she quit - to get another job paying twice as much.

Recently I asked how she was getting on. "It's great" she said. "I get twice as much done because I don't have to spend half my time on the phone with idiots."

These know-nothing loafers spring up like toadstools. Why do I always mistake them for mushrooms? Hardly any have even bothered to study the bare basics of advertising or marketing.

David Ogilvy used to have a note pinned up on his wall: "Please God, send us smart clients." They are the ones that make it worthwhile, but I wish a few of the others would curl up and die. Before me, please.

Best,

Drayton

www.eadim.com

www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com

Here's a splendid marketing lesson - especially for anyone young who wants a job

Joel Helfer is one of many people I correspond with, and he sent me a story that's a pretty good marketing lesson for anyone selling anything.

Joel's eldest son Zach is a graduate Architecture Student at the University of Illinois.

He's diligent (Joel says, being totally unbiased) in the top ten percent of his class, and had two summer jobs as an undergrad.

At the beginning of 2010, the construction job market in the Chicago Metro area was horrible. No jobs.

Zach was terribly frustrated, wondering if he'd chosen the right field.

Joel reassured him - after being been a glass and glazing contractor for over 35 years he was used to the ups and downs of the construction business (If you want to know what's happening to the economy, ignore the politicians who are mostly professional liars. Ask builders, cab drivers, restaurateurs and printers).

Timing is everything, and Joel had sold his business right before the crash.

Casting round for something to do he took some courses with Jeff Walker and Brendon Burchard, did some product launches and made out O.K.

But he hardly realised how this would help Zach - after a fair amount of trial and error

Here's what he and Zach did.

They bought the URL "www.hirezachhelfer.com" from Godaddy - the entire message in the URL.

They then sent up a simple wordpress blog - he bought three simple themes for under $100.

Zach set up a simple header with his picture and his contact information.

There were more pages for his resume and portfolio, giving all the information any firm hiring architects could want.

As David Ogilvy said, you can't save souls in an empty church. Who should they promote the website to?

So Joel went to the AIA website, and compiled a list of 400 architects around Chicago.

Now they had a list, what to send?

Joel decided to send an email article on the top ten things an architect should know, with links in the article back to the website.

The website also contained an interesting story about Zach, with a headline to catch their eye.

They put up a screen capture on the site to introduce him and sent out an email in early 2010 that got about a 60% open rate, which is pretty good.

They got 17 comments, 16 favourable, one not.

Zach got 3 interviews, one asking him to do marketing for an architecture firm, but got no summer jobs.

They didn't give up. Two more emails went out that spring and summer to remind firms who Zach was and what he wanted:.a job.

In winter of 2011, they revised the video, making it real, not just a screen capture.They shot it in their living room using a tripod and a Canon camera with a video option. (You don't need fancy equipment to make videos. I use a cheap Kodak). You can see what they created on the site.

They sent out the video again with new emails, and got a smaller response, but it was just before a career fair at the U of I which was attended by over 20 architecture firms.

To Zach's surprise, most of the firm reps knew him, and even called him by name, He had his resumes to pass out, but two firms said that wasn't necessary.

They already had them - downloaded from his website.

As Joel said, "Wow. It really worked."

As a result of that career fair after a marketing campaign lasting over a year Zach got two interviews, which led to a full time decently paid summer job, 20 minutes from home.

Zach came up with a pretty neat line. "I am not looking for a summer job. I consider this a 3 month interview for a full time job!" That line worked wonders and impressed many prospective employers.

What can you learn from this?

They used the latest internet marketing ideas - which are nothing new, really.

Zach was the lead, with the normal resume in the background

People buy from people - and in this case a person is what they were buying. I have been telling people for decades: your resume is far less important than your letter, just as the letter in a direct mail pack is far more critical than the brochure.

They did not give up. It took time; it was a campaign, not just the one shot most people take when sending out a resume, with no follow- up. I was irresistibly reminded of all the idiot clients who've said to me "we tried direct mail. It didn't work." Would you just "try" medicine?

They continually tweaked and improved. They measured the results - which again, a lot of marketers still don't do properly. Incredible stupidity!

They sent out 1600 emails over 14 months with an average CTR of over 40%.

They got over 30 replies, 29 favorable with 5 interviews - and the one thing they wanted: a summer job

And Zach is now one of the best known Architecture students around Chicago - which is famed for its architecture - and has made lots of valuable connections that will help him in his career.

Joel says that Zach thought he was crazy through most of this. Father knows best - well, sometimes!

This story reminded me of an interview I filmed with Rory Sutherland for my branding seminar in which we discussed the utter amateurishness of most marketers. The overwhelming majority don't go about things as intelligently as Joel did.

I might add that no matter what business you think you're in, the business you are in whether you like it or not is marketing.

By the way, Zach could hardly offer people much of a special discount, but I shall start offering some discounts in the next 12 hours..

If you come to any of my forthcoming seminars you will get a discount off my www.EADIM.com event in October, which is about nothing but marketing.

If you come to EADIM you will get a discount off the branding event I will run either immediately before or after that. And if you don't understand branding, you don't know enough about marketing

Why so generous with the discounts? Well, as they say in Italy, "One hand washes the other".

And the sooner I get EADIM filled up, the more I can concentrate on perfecting it - and the less on promoting it.

Best,

Drayton

www.eadim.com

www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com

Weddings, funerals, coronations - my late father's caustic views. Plus a question for you

Well, here comes another royal wedding, with the usual cartloads of nauseating pap from the arse end of the media.

As usual, Murdoch's people are doing their best to burrow as far as possible into the slime. Yesterday's headline in The Sun, which never shines, revealed - shock, horror! - that King Norodom of Cambodia (whom none of their "readers" has ever heard of) is not coming. Good man: why should he squander his poor country's wealth on a jolly to London?*

I'm sure this awful tripe embarrasses the happy couple more than anyone else, but I see that Kate alone is reckoned to be worth more in added national income than the Olympics (which I fear may take years to pay for - Greece is still in debt).

All the fuss reminds me of my father's views on such occasions.

George Bird was very funny, with political views about 200 yards to the right of Attila the Hun. People came from far and wide to hear him shoot his mouth off - and in quite a few cases, male and female to gaze, panting, at my mother, who was very beautiful.

He once told me "I prefer funerals to weddings. At weddings people get drunk and start fights, and anyhow most marriages end up in tears one way or another. At a funeral if the corpse had a few quid, at least one person and maybe more is bound to end up better off."

The first time I ever saw TV, by the way, was for the Coronation of the present Queen. I cried -which I do at the drop of a hat - and I am a committed royalist.

Imagine a mafia-backed lecher like Blair's friend Berlusconi running things indefinitely. Or a man like Bush who starts disastrous wars for oil money? Or a racist dwarf like Sarkozy, who's going to prosecute people who fly over his holiday villa.

Incidentally, this made me cry in 1953. It still does. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkWtA4-34VE

* By the way, I once wrote a speech for King Norodom's cousin as a result of a seminar I did in Bangkok - but that's a story for another day.

Best,

Drayton

www.eadim.com

www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com

P.S. My writing seminar in Bristol has sold 24 seats out of 40 in five working days, so here's a question, if you're interested.

Where do you live? I will do more seminars but I need to know where is best. Just send me your address if you're interested. I'll fly anywhere for fun and money :-)

Oh dear. Rumblings in the internet jungle. The cash-flood is drying up - and here's why

Before the first great British share crash - the South Sea Bubble in 1720 - investors were falling for the most outrageous scams. The best known, perhaps, was "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is."

This reminds me irresistibly of what has been happening on the internet - which I fear will end in tears before bedtime for a few people

All of a sudden those geniuses whose miracle money-making formulae have been producing torrents of cash for the last years are worried. The cash geyser seems to be slowing to a trickle

Why? Why are these messages not working quite so well? You know - those that start "My good friend Bill Hogwash has this secret method that spews cash into your bank account even if you can't read and write, and it's yours for FREEE."

Why do more and more people yawn and mutter "Not again" when invited to that free webinar featuring the unshaven oaf with a pot-belly in the T-shirt who was broke three months ago but now spends his entire time lolling on golden sands and working 23 minutes a week?

Of course these scamps (why are so many in Texas, by the way?) are still doing some business - there is still one mug born every second - but not like they did.

It's not as though people realise that the boys all get together and cook up the next rip-off. But things are going to get worse (or rather better) and let me tell you why. First of all, there aren't so many people coming into the market now. Second, people get jaded if subjected to too much of anything.

But besides that there are three stages in all markets.

When you're the first to come up with an idea you just have to make promises, really. No matter how ludicrous, as long as the promises are big enough and the story enticing enough, you'll do well.

Then comes the second stage. Competitors emerge: you have to be a bit smarter. Don't just tell people they'll get rich, say it's $242,862 in 24 hours, show the cash coming in, stick in a few testimonials.

Then there's the third stage. Everybody's got into the act. The punters are getting wise. You had better, too. You have to explain a bit more. You have to recall David Ogilvy's great line: "The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife."

Don't get me wrong. Many of the ideas being proposed are absolutely valid.

The product launch formula is just an internet version of what Hollywood has done for decades, and P. T. Barnum did long before. It IS true that if you dream of something in detail it is more likely (but not certain) to come true. It is true that with advice from somebody good, you'll do better. But you don't have to pay $10,000 and join some magic circle of acolytes to do so. Just read the stuff and act.

The thing is, when you're the first to stumble on an idea, your copy can stink and you'll do OK. But a lot of these scamsters' copy is not all that good - you know, stuff beginning with "I gotta tell ya". A lot of it breaks the first rule - don't talk about yourself, talk about your customer.

One of my heroes is the late Charley Brower, who ran B.B.D&0. "Honesty is not only the best policy. It is rare enough nowadays to make you pleasantly conspicuous."

Anyhow, having got that off my chest, if it makes sense why don't you go to draytonbird.net/copywritingseminar.

I announced this on Sunday evening. There are only 24 seats left.

Best,

Drayton

www.eadim.com

www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com

Enter the dragon who escaped - with a bit of fun for you,

Do you watch Dragon's Den? Here's a reminder.

I do occasionally, but am not that keen. It's not as absurd as "Lord" Sugar's proving ground for illiterates - which I always see as a humiliating demonstration of the failure of British education - but I've never really taken to it.

Maybe it's the man who looks like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings. Maybe it's the loony values people ascribe to their loopy ideas. Or maybe it's just the sheer nastiness of that women with a face like a boot.

I don't know, but anyhow I had lunch today with Doug Richard who used to be on it, so before we met I looked him up on the internet. He is "economically conservative and socially liberal". I like that.

But I also found something that summed up the complete uselessness and waste perpetrated by governments when they try to help business.

In a report he worked on for the Tories he found the Labour Government had spent £12bn on support schemes for business,with absolutely zero evidence of any results; in fact he unearthed 3,000 schemes run by 2,000 public bodies.

His report was, of course, just a stratagem for the Tories to attack the then government Now that they're in they're pissing away money faster than even the great Bloated McToad did.

No worries, though. At least we have a Minister for Cycling. I wonder, does he cycle to work every day? Does he have staff? If so, why? What the hell do they do all day? Watch porn?

I hope to be doing something with Doug to help small businesses, unless one lunch put him off for life. It has been known to happen.

Best,

Drayton

www.eadim.com

www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com