Michelle Dewberry has left Amstrad to start her own consultancy...

Good luck to her.

Her public name is going to get her into companies that a small one man consultancy would normally be unable to penetrate.

Why?

Because of human curiosity. Managers and directors in small, medium and large firms are curious just like anyone.

They're going to want to say to their partner after a hard day at the office, "I talked to Michelle Dewberry/Ruth Badger/"Any other Apprentice celeb" today and you know what? I think they're..."

So good luck Michelle, I hope you're as successful as Ruth Badger who is now reputedly a millionaire.

I'll be watching this coming season's Apprentice because I think more and more people are doing reality TV to get noticed and not necessarily to pick up the prize offered to the finalist.

I've set-up a little recommendation site within Amazon to show you some of the books that I heartily recommend.

From time to time I'll change the list and you'll get to see other books that shaped my marketing and business growth brain.

So I don't have to keep hand-coding the books on the sidebar I've put one close to each post title.

Just so it's close to hand. The button looks exactly like this:

 In addition if there's sufficient feedback I'll create another set of books that my merry band of loyal subscribers recommend.

Try the button and check out the books -- reading them was certainly my time well spent.

Corporate blogging, company blogging, commercial blogging or whatever else you want to call it. It's getting up a head of steam now. 

Fortune 500 companies in the USA are using it because it gives them a unique face amongst all the "me too"'s out there.

Where The USA is the rest of the world follows. Sometimes 10 years later it has to be said. Although given the speed of the Internet that time span is highly unlikely.

So how should a company blog? What about a blogging charter?

Hmm...

Here's my starter list, see what you think.

1. Have a Blogging policy
2. Post regularly - and no that doesn't mean 2-3 times per day.
3. Post a consistent message 
4. Respond to reader feedback quickly
5. Allow blog conversations to develop
6. Realise criticism will be made of the company and don't over react to it
7. Only allow blogs by people who can commit to regular postings with good content
8. Don't allow the CEO to blog - this is being discussed elsewhere at the moment
9. If exposure worries you don't blog
10. Don't pay other bloggers to post puff pieces about you
11. Understand that the blog becomes the informal voice of your company
12. Take blogging as seriously as you take advertising
13. Don't meddle with the bloggers words, otherwise they become "company-speak"  and your message wont be believed
14. Ignore those who tell you that you shouldn't make money with a blog. That's like saying that because browsers are allowed in a bookshop you shouldn't sell books there
15. Before making predictions, forecasts,snide comments or insider jokes remember that above every other marketing communication tool the Internet and blog content remain available for years

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So trumpeted an article about one of Manchester's PR firms yesterday.

Excuse me?

I couldn't believe that a PR firm is only realising now that the web makes PR and other marketing so much more available to everyone.

Journalists can now go to sites and search for releases relevant to their current stories. They almost don't need to look at releases coming into their offices "normally".

In the article they christened their products "e-PR"...

Hmm. I thought we'd got rid of the "e-" bit. After all as I keep saying the Internet is another communication channel. Clients should expect that you'll use it. Without having to label it specially.

Just as we don't call releases sent by broadcast fax "fax-PR!"

Savvy marketers know about blogs, podcasts, video blogs, pay per click campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO). So for a PR firm to say that they've only now recruited someone to specialise in it makes you wonder.

By now selected online marketing and pr tactics must be integrated with offline tactics under an overall marketing strategy.

Otherwise the client is in severe danger of not getting access to the whole of their market.

The article talks excitedly about blogs, podcasts and many other Internet goodies. And rightly so...

Only if you're jumping on a bandwagon it's always wise to make sure you've leaping on at the same time as everyone else.

Does your marketing firm choose ALL the tactical marketing and PR elements you need to implement your chosen marketing strategy?

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I know some of my posts have been lengthy so I'm thinking of adding a summary. Let me know if that helps you...

Summary

This post looks at one of today's direct mail pieces received in the post. It reviews it and suggests ways it could be improved.

Direct Mail Mistakes

I received a lovely well-designed letter and glossy folded postcard from a printer through the post this morning.

It used a nice font for the company name, the name (Juicy Print) was very visible in red and it had a nice little graphic of a box with a tagline of  "Not your average box of printing."

Unfortunately the copy didn't do the design any justice at all. In fact I was moved to email the company to suggest that I could rewrite the letter and double their response.

They'd been clever enough to use blue coloured "hand written" signature and personal address to me. That looked good.

They were missing the following:

• A headline
• An offer
• The WIFM angle
• PS

What About A Headline?

Without a headline the only reason I read it was to see whether I could learn anything from them.

Research shows that the headline is read first.

The company logo shouts out what the company does so people are likely to think, "another printing company, bin, next!"

Without a headline there is nothing that immediately attracts the eye.

Make Me An Offer

They do appear to serve a large number of clients. Although the way the copy was worded it sounds  like a franchise company.

They noted that they were "over £567 cheaper than some high street printers." For the promo card they'd used as an insert.

That's not really an offer if I'm not looking for promo cards but want a brochure or sales letter is it?

What's more the phrase they used whilst technically correct sounds as though it's trying to pull the wool over their prospects eyes.

Why?

Because I suspect they're talking about the small printing franchises like KallQuik and Prontoprint. Rather than comparing themselves to Printing.com who are heavily in the commercial sector.

What's In It For Me?

It's not clear how they're different to the commodity print companies. Perhaps they are...

I just can't tell from the letter.

As a consequence why would I even consider jumping from the printer I know? After all at best they're an unknown quantity and at worst could be an expensive disaster.

By The Way The PS

Research shows that a PS is read after the headline and before the prospect begins to read.

No PS and you lose a chunk of people who can't be bothered to read further.

What To Do?

I wrote them  a quick email suggesting that I could double their response rate. Mainly because I think that the letter has no oomph and will generate only a few responses.

They've just replied asking me to elaborate, which I've done. Now let's see whether they want to improve their letters pulling power!

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I looked out of our kitchen window onto the razed earth of our back garden and thought this is a good metaphor for businesses that use marketing.

Why? I hear you shout as if in unison...

I'm glad you asked me.

Our back garden is vast and shaded by Blackley forest to our left and our neighbours to the right.

Plus United Utilities (our mains water company) were kind enough to flood the whole thing last March to a depth of about 2 feet. And although they replaced the turf it still hasn't returned to its strident overall greenness.

The result is a patchwork of lovely green grass and accusing brown patches that stubbornly refuse to go away.

Now, if I was a company that simply "did marketing" I would spread more grass seed and expect things to improve. Rather like companies pay for more adverts, more pay per click campaigns or more email or direct mail campaigns.

That is assumptive thinking: no sales lets do more of what we've done before, or what other people do.

In the case of my lawn I've investigated the reason and I know that the bare patches correspond to pathway that United Utilities didn't take up when they re-laid the lawn. So in this case the answer is to remove the paving slabs, re-turf the bare patches so all is sorted.

That is research-based thinking: lets find out the root cause and address it. In the marketing arena it means finding out why a target market isn't buying it. And do you know sometimes it's because they don't actually want it?

If you were a marketing company which would you do?

I'm a fervent subscriber and fan of Gary Bencivenga.

Why?

If you're a copywriter or business owner who has any interest in learning more about how to write good copy you must subscribe to a few, yes just a few copywriters ezines. Gary's Bencivenga Bullets ezine is one of them.

I'll come to the others I love after I explain about Gary's Bullet-ridden body.

Of course Gary Bencivenga's not really bullet-ridden it's just that he got a lot of flak over his July 2006 ezine posting which said,

"A gifted product is mightier than a gifted pen."

People emailed to point out that the prospect should be at the core of copy.

Gary used his September 2006 post to explain exactly how a great copywriter looks to find a product's unique strength first.

Once the unique strength is found the copywriter uses a variety of copy tactics to deliver that message to the prospect. And the prospect is then at the core of the copy.

Nice one Gary!

I promised to let you know some other copywriter ezines that I love. If you have any desire to write your own copy study of these people is going to help you write better. So here they are, in no particular order...

• The Gary Halbert Letter
• Bencivenga Bullets
• Craig Garber

Of course there are other great copywriters out there including Peter Stone, Michel Fortin, Bob Bly, Clayton Makepeace...

... the list just goes on and on.

My point?

If you're a business owner you need to get great copy for your web site, your brochure, your sales letter and your adverts. That means learning from the greats.

Have I learnt better writing from them? You bet!

Did it take long? You'd better believe it!

Could you do the same? Very probably.

But do you have the time?

If you're on a tight budget you need to quickly learn how to copywrite. Sign up for my FREE Business Growth Course to get on the fast track.

In the course you'll see a number of proven tactics to improve response to anything you write.

And now, to quote Craig Garber, "Now go sell something".

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I've been creating and delivering presentations for more years than I care to remember. And in all that time you just know I've either made the gaff or seen someone else slip on the banana skin of live presentation.

We've all seen the top 10 of what to put into slides, and just as important what to leave out. So I'm not going to plough those deep furrows today!

Instead I'd like to tell you a little story that hopefully illustrates some avoidable mistakes.

My story concerns a visit I made to a high-priced 3 day seminar in London. Funnily enough Duncan Ballantyne and Simon Woodruffe (prior to their Dragon's Den fame) were presenters there too.

This was day two of our seminar and we'd all settled in to hear the next speaker tell us how our minds can sabotage what we do and how we can overcome negativity.

I wont give her name to save her embarrassment but she started her presentation and was obviously reading from her notes. The audience worry factor increased -- did she really know her stuff?

For me the worry factor was compounded because I was sat next a Master NLPer who was confirming my own thoughts that she was trying to actually programme us to fail!

As she shuffled her pages of notes she seemed to be desperately trying to find something. Unhappily she just gave up and couldn't continue.

The points?

• She just was not prepared for her presentation and may even have thought she could "wing it"
• Her hesitancy and dependence on notes showed us that she didn't know what she was talking about
• The structure of her talk didn't build up from a beginning, there was no middle and she didn't make a specific point
• She made incorrect statements which may have been simply mistakes but lost her credibility in the eyes of people with a little knowledge of NLP
• She'd not prepared a fall-back position so that she could cut short the presentation if something went wrong

Now contrast this to the next speaker who gauged the audiences mood after this huge embarrassment and started quietly.

He went on to build up his talk with effective use of Powerpoint showing a few highly relevant clips of famous films

And yes I know everyone believes Powerpoint is the work of the devil. Personally I think that when used as a tool and not a prop it works well.

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In August 2006 in their annual employment survey  the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development  reported that 82% of companies surveyed had difficulties in general recruiting. And noted "a lack of necessary specialist skills are cited as the key reason for recruitment difficulties (68%)".

This also applies to sales positions and as turnover in sales staff is higher than non-sales people it dramatically increases recruitment costs.

In sales they're simply hiring the wrong people...

The two key character attributes of empathy and ego for a sales superstar are also present but not balancing one another in sales sheep and sales wolves. The problem then becomes, how do you know which is which?

Companies waste their sales opportunities by using salespeople that have one, or more, of these traits:

* Poor closers
* Too aggressive
* Passive order takers
* Fear of phoning
* Can’t write to persuade
* Can’t present without being boring
* Unable to build value in the service or product
* Has poor follow-up skills
* Can’t get to top decision makers
* Finds rejection difficult to handle
* Poor time manager
* Doesn’t think strategically
* Not self-disciplined
* Doesn’t try to get market knowledge

Recruiting the right salesman can take the company to the next level.

Broadly you can break salesmen into sales sheep, sales wolves and sales super stars. Let me explain what that means to you as the business owner.

Identifying Sales Sheep

• Wait for customer to come to them
• Often think the customer is always right
• Willing to lose money on an issue that the customer created themselves
• They’ll give away stock they had "lying around"
• Drop by to entertain and “touch base”
• “Nearly gets a sale but doesn’t quite?”
• Their sales closing ratio is lower than other staff
• Entertain people at the clients who are not remotely connected to the sale process
• Don’t follow-up and lose sales to competitors who do

Identifying Sales Wolves

• They can’t wait to close a sale, regardless
• Can make people buy your products and services even though they may be wrong for those customers
• Bulldoze anything in-house that affects their sale
• No regard to other sales staff resource needs
• They sell lots but you get a higher returns rate
• You get more external complaints
• Increased internal complaints and morale drops
• Sales lost by tying up staff other sales people need
• Unconcerned by customer issues after a sale

Identifying Sales Superstars

These are the steps to follow when recruiting a sales superstar.

1. Advertising

Make sure your advert addresses the interest of the sales superstar - who may not even be aware that they are a superstar.

It must scare off the wolves and sheep. Although be aware the sort of advert that attracts the superstar can also attract the weird too.

2. Conduct Fast Phone Interviews

Use the interview to test the sales persons ability to respond to pressure.

The best results come from putting yourself in a disgruntled client or prospects shoes when talking to them.

Finally, you should end up with very few interview candidates.

3. The Interview

This is in 3 parts...

Part 1: Look at their childhood and explore their achievements and use the psychological profile to review who they are now.

Part 2: Check their skills by asking them to fill in a 17 point skill assessment form. Then discuss the results.

Part 3: Ignore conventional wisdom and look at CVs last.

Finally, offer superstars a job quickly otherwise someone else will snap them up. (After taking up references of course).

To help business sort the sheep and wolves from the superstars Acorn Service is providing a 17 Point Super Star Skills Assessment form to anyone who emails super at acornservice.com with superstars in the subject line.

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I've just been submitting an article to a few article directories. And as I do from time to time I started to read one of the articles.

It had very obviously been written by one of these article generators. And it really wound me up.

For two reasons...

1) That the author would try and get away with massaging a previous article in such a poor way

2) They're think it doesn't matter what they say because all they're after are links to their web site(s)

Apart from putting me off it's quite likely to alienate their potential market. After all who wants to check out a web site that just doesn't read right?

In a recent post Seth notes that Ford has only themselves to blame for their current situation.

And he makes the following vital point:

A couple of decades ago, Ford had everything. Cash, brand, distribution, political influence, a trained workforce...

Now look what Seth included in there -- "BRAND".

Yes...

 Ford has one of the most recognised brands in the world.

And yet that hasn't stopped them from losing market share that is leading them to cut 44,000 jobs according to Nick Buckley in an article for the New York Times.

This is their third attempt to turn round their fortunes.

Branding does not solve marketing problems.

After all you can't make your customers buy from you no matter how well known your brand.

See my previous post on branding for my view on the emphasis there is on branding currently.

Ford are losing market share and in fact Toyota are now forecast to be the second biggest seller in the USA after General Motors.

Remember Peter Drucker said, "Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation".

Ford must look carefully, and quickly, at what they're doing. Then don't conduct any branding exercises. Find out what their customers want, innovate from what they have and sell those customers exactly what they asked for.

Simple, eh?

Obviously it's not that simple otherwise they'd be doing it now.

 The main problem that Ford faces is the huge amount of inertia built up. Inertia means changing to a lean mean marketing and innovation machine involves lot of hard work, time and money.

Good luck Ford, I still have a soft spot for you ... although I don't buy Ford anymore!

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This article is posted here so that Simply Networkers can read it rather than having to find it in Business Connections or search the Internet for it.

It's also posted here as a kind of milestone present as this is officially my 300th blog post birthday!

Let's get right to it and at the end I'll give you a link to other articles I've had printed.

So Do Your Adverts Really Work...

Philadelphia retailer and US Postmaster General, John Wanamaker, once said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

If you’re spending £10,000 a month on advertising £5,000 is going straight down the tubes. That wastes £60,000 of your hard earned cash every year. Money you could spend on better, more focused marketing.

Work Out Whether Advertising Works

Imagine if you could work out which half works and spend only on that half. The good news is you can. All will become clear in a little while.

In the meantime let me explain how advertising works.

Broadly there are two types of advertising. One is Branding and Positioning (BAP) and the other is Direct Response (DR) advertising.

Is Branding and Positioning
Important For You?

Branding and Positioning concentrates on getting the company’s name, or service or product continually at the forefront of its customer’s minds. As you can imagine this needs continual advertising activity and can cost megabucks. Companies doing this type of advertising include Coca-Cola, British Airways, Nike and MacDonald’s.

These are all major companies and everyone already knows their name and what they stand for.

Why do they do it?

The simple answer is that they’re in a highly competitive market.

They want to retain their large market share by ensuring that the most recent ad a prospect remembers is for their service or product.

Marketing-speak calls it “Top Of Mind Awareness” or TOMA.

So when they’re thirsty it’s a Coke. If they’re hungry it’s a Big Mac if they want to fly they choose the World’s favourite airline. Because they're at the top of their mind from constant advertising.

Picture the mountains of money that go towards that aim. But picture too the accountants horror they don’t know which campaign makes a profit.

How Can You Tell A Campaign Works?

Profit is the one thing that tells you if your campaign is working. If you know your ad makes more revenue than it costs to create, run and service you’d keep running it wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately Branding and Positioning (BAP) advertising can’t be evaluated. You just don’t know whether it’s worth doing or not.

How do you know which advert finally persuaded your prospect to do business with you?

Interestingly Bill Bernbach one of the founders of modern advertising said that, Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."

Why Bother With BAP?

So why bother doing BAP advertising?

Probably because advertising agencies are happy to use BAP advertising for almost any company. Any slowdown in sales can’t be attributed to their adverts. Any increase is claimed to prove the advert is working.

In reality you don’t have a clue.

Advertising Is Salesmanship In Print

Former Canadian policeman turned fabulously paid copywriter John E. Kennedy coined the phrase, “advertising is salesmanship in print.”

Would you tell a salesman to go see a prospect and to strip customer oriented benefits from their presentation? Also would you tell them not to ask for the order? You’d be laughed at and if you insisted you’d probably go out of business and certainly lose your salesmen.

BAP advertising does exactly that to your customer.

Is Direct Response Advertising Any Better?

In contrast Direct Response (DR) advertising is able to directly relate a specific advert to an increase in sales. Or alternatively highlight a problem ad that needs fixing.

This type of advertising seeks to inform the prospect how your product or service improves their life, rights a wrong or smoothes a problem. Additionally, DR advertising almost always asks for a response. Either to call in to buy immediately (unusual), to get a free sample, free report, free voucher, free experience or other intermediary step before buying the target product.

Imagine the calls, letters and emails you can get from advertising that encourage your prospects to take action to contact your company immediately. You get to see whether the campaign is working.

Testing To See What Works

That means you can step in and tweak it if it’s not.

But it also allows you to test different aspects of your advert to try and increase response further. So for instance you could run two adverts with the headline changed on one, or a different offer on one or a free-phone number against a geographic number.

You can see how every single word and picture in your advert performs. Doesn’t that just feel better? You’ve control over your spend and the customers who are bought for your advertising pound.

Egos Drive Advertising Spend

There are many people who would agree that DR advertising is the right way to advertise. But they still don’t do it.

Why?

Usually the reason is simply one of ego. Direct Response adverts only get sales they aren’t very pretty and don’t usually win the Cannes Advertising Lions awards.

If you’re the head of the company or you’re the director of sales imagine how tempting it is top run ads that might win awards.

You already have sales coming in. Running a BAP advert will still get sales coming in. And you might win that Lion at the Cannes awards for best advertising.

You’re fooling yourself if you think it’s for any other reason.

Almost without exception Direct Response adverts will pull more sales than BAP adverts.

Yet many advertisers don’t realise it. They’re convinced that an advert has to look "professional" to sell. WRONG!

Do You Want More Sales?

If you do, and I’m sure you do use the following steps:

Step 1: Learn how your products relate to your users. Which emotions, feelings and beliefs does it generate or speak to?

Step 2: Assess the best way to convey that to your ultimate user.

Step 3: Do the newspapers/magazines/radio/tv channels/web sites you’ve chosen to advertise in get read by your preferred prospects?

Step 4: Check and test each ad with a single entry in your chosen media. (Do not run ad series until you’ve tested the pulling power)

Step 5: Buy the smallest display ad possible. Then each time it makes money buy the next size up until it starts to lose money. Then go back to the last one that made money - the optimum size.

Step 6: Continually run split tests to find the best pulling direct response for your product

Step 7: Use some of your advertising saved to buy other means of marketing.

And as promised...

A link to other marketing and business growth articles

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We're now on the last two predictions in David Ogilvy's fascinating book "Ogilvy on Advertising".

You can see my take on his other predictions here:

• Ogilvy's Predicted Advertising Changes
• Ogilvy's Advertising Crystal Ball Part II
• Ogilvy's Advertising Crystal Ball Part III

Now let's look at those last two predictions...

Direct Response Advertising No
Longer A Separate Speciality

 Ogilvy was convinced that the agencies would see the benefits of direct response advertising and sweep up all the specialist agencies into the generalist agencies.

Just looking at the adverts generated by most agencies shows exactly how far this has happened...

Not much!

Direct response is still not really used by the big agencies. After all it's probably not as pretty as the glossy ads they want to produce to show off to their mates in the industry.

TV Commercials To Be Produced
At A More Sensible Cost

Some TV adverts do have reasonable costs. However, shooting adverts in exotic locations where products and services don't warrant them still happens.

It's not just the cost that's the issue it's are they cost effective. That is do the adverts make more money than the cost?

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If you enjoyed "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" or The Millionaire Maker you should check out Felix Dennis's "How To Get Rich".

The author certainly knows what he's talking about. Read the almost universal 5 star reviews on Amazon and check out an extract The Times serialised with the provocative title "If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened".

There are no end of books on "how to become a millionaire" but if you look at Felix Dennis's definition of The Wealthy you can see that few can actually talk from experience:

This list shows the total assets for each category of person:

• The comfortable poor - £1m-£2m
• The comfortably off - £2m-£5m
• The comfortably wealthy  -£5m-£15m
• The lesser rich - £15m-£40m
• The comfortably rich - £40m-£75m 
• The rich - £75m-£100m
• The seriously rich - £100m-£200m
• The truly rich  - £200m-£400m
• The filthy rich - £400m-£999m
• The super rich - More than £999m

From the list it's clear that the only people who should write "how to" books on becoming millionaires are the "truly rich" because, of course they're truly rich.

PS Yesterday I posted about Chris Cardell's Webinar and said that he'd made an apology.

What he also did was say that when he re-does the webinar he's providing a Freephone number for us all.

Hurrah!

I'd signed up to listen to Chris Cardell's view on the "Seven Essential Strategies for Stunning Business Success" today.

You may ask, "why if I'm such a marketing and copywriting expert would I do that?"

Good question...

Gary Halbert was asked why he was attending a very basic marketing seminar. His answer?

He said he didn't know everything and to learn just one thing could be a benefit to him.

So I too always hope to learn at least one new thing I can implement or use for myself and my clients.

So I got a reminder email from Chris Cardell telling me to phone in early so we could start on time.

Good marketing so far...

So naturally I phone in 7 or 8 minutes early.

Then I wait....

And wait ...

During the call at intervals I hear scrabbling of paper, breathing and then someone saying something like "this is too late" and ringing off.

I'm sure you get the picture.

Anyway, so I start doing other stuff and eventually (after about 25-30 minutes) an operator comes on the phone to say the call has been canceled due to technical problems.

Oh dear. 

Canceling a call is not a major issue. After all this is technical stuff.

However, the way it was canceled should have been handled better , for example:

1. Email everyone on the call to say it had been canceled, explain the reason, apologise and offer something for free 
2. Tell the operator exactly what to say to the people still hanging on like grim death. This should also be along the lines of an apology, explanation and a freebie.
3. Then follow-up again with an emailed apology
4. Finally re-introduce the webinar at a different date

Having said all with my process improvement hat on I would make some changes to the webinar procedure Chris is using. Changes that would benefit him and his listeners.

There are other things Chris could have done. What do you think would have worked best?

When you've had a think I'll let you know what Chris himself did.

I've had yet another discussion about sales and marketing, or is it marketing and sales?

It's just semantics.

Or is it?

The two go together but often marketing is relegated to a series individual tactics that each salesman tries until they get a set they're comfortable with. So for example:

1. One could be happy cold calling
2. Another writing copy, either for letters or their own version of the company brochure
3. Still another could use email marketing or fax marketing
4.  And maybe one gets sales solely with referral business.

All these different tactics may be converting into sales for your sales people.

What if the different marketing tactics have different sales conversion rates though?

Different Marketing Tactics,
Different Conversion Rates

For the sake of argument and using the 4 sales people examples above lets list made-up conversion rates for this hypothetical market:

1. Cold calling - 5%
2. Writing copy - 5%
3. email/fax marketing - 10%
4. referrals - 10%

So if each salesperson was equally able to close sales the cold caller and copywriting sales staff are converting 50% less than their colleagues.

As we know sales people use a lot of different tactics and seldom concentrate on just one.

This example shows the result of not having a marketing strategy where you decide the strategic goals you want to achieve. Then work out the marketing tactics to achieve it.

Part of that strategy should include the measurement of the different tactics and testing different sales and marketing tactics.

No Marketing Strategy?

Looking at this example you could be losing 50% of sales and therefore losing your sales peoples productivity.

In addition the cold caller and copywriter sales people in the example are going to lose their morale as they measure themselves against the other successful sales staff.

Think about it...

Why let sales staff lose sales when they can use a different marketing tactic? 

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Right, if you're wondering why part II of Ogilvy's Crystal Ball is after part III let me explain...

Well you live and learn.

I wanted to use the tags from post II of Ogilvy's Crystal Ball so I opened that post (already live) in my desktop client (currently Microsoft's Live Writer) . I deleted everything except the tags.

I created a new headline and new text.

Then I posted it...

Oh dear, Even though I'd used a different heading, on a different day the post had overwritten the original part II on the Internet and now even shows Part III as being posted on Friday.

So I searched for the original part II post in Google Cache copied it and it's back - but now at a later date!

Let's get right to it and look at David's next few predictions.

The Clutter Of Commercials
Will Be Brought Under Control

I'm afraid not.

Advertising has increased substantially over the years since these predictions. And the Internet simply lowered the bar to allow micro businesses to advertise their wares easily.

The Internet allows almost anyone to use simple web site ads, Adsense ads, emails and full blown e-commerce sites.

I've already posted about the enormous increase in email and spam.

Vast Increase In Advertising
By Government

Ogilvy thought the increase would be particularly in Health Education.

I think there's no doubt that there has been a massive increase in advertising by the government.

PQ Media released a report that showed Political Spending on Advertising and Marketing Communications Doubles in 2004.

PQ Media note, "The largest gains in share from 2000 to 2004 have come from cable television, direct mail and the Internet, all of which still only hold single-digit shares of total political spending."

Although this report is based on a comparison between 2000 and 2004 presidential elections a similar expanded use of marketing has occurred at government level too.

From my jaundiced eye it seems to be mainly to do with political correctness and with making sure populations are fed the "right" view of how governments perform.

Some people have labeled this "spin".

Advertising To Play a
Part In Population Control

There's little doubt that advertising has been used in an attempt to control population.

Singapore and India have certainly tried it. Whether it worked as hoped I can't say.

Similarly China's "One Child" rule is known by the whole population. Again whether that works and maintains the gender balance is another question entirely.

Candidates For political Office Will
Stop Using Dishonest Advertising

Yes, and pigs might fly.

Look at the words that come from the mouths of politicians.

Some of them have the cheek to lie bare-faced.

They even go on radio, or TV and claim to be innocent of sleaze, wrong-doing, machinations or other skullduggery.

Face it...

Dishonest advertising by politicians will never stop.

Look Out For The Next Power Posting...

Next time I'll look at the global predictions Ogilvy made , until then "happy advertising".

PS Look at Ogilvy's Advertising Crystal Ball - Part I for comment on the first few predictions

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We've done the first two parts of David Ogilvy's predications. Let's look at some more.

Quality & Efficiency Of Overseas Advertising Will Improve

This is such a difficult and emotive question. Advertising is very culture-biased. So really the only measurement of improvement is from research with the people who live in each country.

Speaking from a UK point of view (because we're overseas from the USA) I believe our advertising has undergone the following changes:

• On TV and Radio it's faster
• In the press it's got glossier, look at the number of papers that use colour now
• The writing has improved and humour is used much more than it was
• Advertising doesn't take itself too seriously
• There's more location based adverts

That said I've lost count of the number of adverts where I think:

• "Great looking Ad - what are they selling"
• "I want one - but I can't see how to get one from the Ad"
• "I don't believe what I'm being told"

And of course our old friend the Internet has muddied the international advertising waters.

Why?

Because web sites and blogs are adverts themselves. Then those adverts have banner adverts on and clicking on those can lead to yet other adverts!

And all those Internet adverts are now global and can be seen by anyone with access to the Internet.

Foreign Agencies Will
Open and Prosper In The USA

Yes, globalisation of companies has led to large multi-national companies basing themselves wherever they can optimise their sales, minimise their costs and increase their profits.

Multi-Nationals Will
Market Brands World-wide

Absolutely, spot on.

Everyone knows MacDonalds, British Airways, Virgin, Quantas, Hertz, FedEx, Dominos, KFC.

He was right on the money with that prediction.

PS Look at Ogilvy's Advertising Crystal Ball - Part I for comment on the first few predictions

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As promised here are the URL's for the Sales Super Star article - I've now split the magazine article into two so it's easier on the eye reading on a PC screen (I hope!)

• How You Can Recruit Sales Super Stars Part-I Recognising Sales Sheep And Wolves
• How You Can Recruit Sales Super Stars Part-II How To Advertise and Interview sales Super Stars

Sometimes I update one of my articles. So if one of these disappears from the index don't worry.

It's gone back to be reviewed by a human being. Once reviewed the updated version is made available for your reading pleasure!

Sign-up for the Power Post email or RSS (to your top right) and you'll be one of the first to know when the article comes back online.

One further point to bear in mind is the need to manage a superstar properly. And I don't mean with kid gloves...

And yes, I'm writing another article on it.

If you're interested in other articles I've written check out my Business Growth And Marketing Articles.

Having read David Ogilvy's book "Ogilvy on Advertising" again I thought it would be useful to review his predictions on the future of advertising.

As he says "I've never been a futurist" and his publisher insisted that he have a go at predicting change. I've used his original bullet points (shortened) as the headings.

As he had a number of points to make I'll split this over 3 or 4 posts so that neither of us gets fed up.

So here we go...

Quality of Research Will Improve

I think that there is no doubt that with the Internet the amount of research that can be done has increased exponentially. That means that data can be cross-checked which in itself improves data quality.

I've posted before on focus groups and my opinion is that they don't really help with discovering whether your market is buying what you sell.

So that quality (i.e. reliability of the data) is suspect.

There Will Be A Renaissance in Print Advertising

The Internet has encouraged people to advertise more online. In fact print, TV and radio adverts have been diverted onto the Internet.

With good reason...

The Internet now allows us to do micro advertising where we can target very, very small sub-markets of a major market, such as insurance buyers.

That means the cost of advertising to sales drops significantly.

Advertising Will Contain More
Information And Less Hot Air

I'd like to believe that is the case but if you look at advertising today there is a lot of "brand awareness" hot air that doesn't sell products.

Ogilvy himself said, ""Research has demonstrated that a shocking percentage of viewers remember your commercial, but forget the name of your product".

And worse than than that he says, "All too often they attribute
your commercial to a competing brand."

Human nature doesn't change so what's the chance of that view changing now?

Zero to nil I suspect.

So much for advertising for branding purposes!

Billboards Will Be Abolished

No, and thrice times no!

In fact billboards have become ever more inventive. Now you find several different variants, including:

• Ones that rotate through a series of adverts
• Ones that use LCD screens as part of the billboard
• Ones that temporarily cover complete sides of buildings

Sport stadium billboards are big business, particularly with a country's most popular sport. In the UK that's football, rugby and cricket.

And given the vast number of anglers I wouldn't be surprised to see hoardings along famous fishing rivers.

In the next post I'll talk about TV, Radio and government advertising.

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... cannot help you to avoid bankruptcy if you leave it until you're almost ready to call in the receiver.

I've lost count of the number of companies I've been approached by who want to "do some marketing because their sales have dried up", or their "leads aren't converting" or they're "getting too many returns."

The reasons that these companies are suffering breaks down into one of several problem areas:

Sales Drying Up

1. No investment in marketing means that previous customers are approached in a haphazard way with little likelihood of further sales.
2. Little or no marketing means that prospects aren't aware of you so you're always starting cold.
3. Not getting feedback to improve your pr0duct and service - after all if it's truly pathetic you wont get repeat sales, referrals or new sales

Leads Aren't Converting

1. If you don't have a high quality product or service you can't expect people to buy it
2. Using the same sales pitch without testing variations puts you in danger of not finding the best way to sell
3. Market gossip has put people off. Gossip includes you're going to shut-down, you're not viable and your product is flaky.
4. Staying with a poor salesperson simply because you don't want to invest in a superstar salesman (checkout

Getting Too Many Returns

1. A poor service, or inferior product, will always have high returns
2. Expectations vastly exceeded reality
3. Selling to the wrong people

In all these cases you may be able to write copy and create marketing that resolves some of the issues. But if your product or service stinks you're destined to go down the tubes.

Thinking you can avoid bankruptcy by bringing in clever marketing wont work unless you prove you've put effort into making your product the best there is.

I'm a great copywriter but even I can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear so unless you've a great product or service don't try and market yourself out of the giant pit of  "No Sales Hell."

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Just thought I'd give you a quick heads-up I've had two articles published in the printed business magazine "Business Connections" for the Northwest of the UK.

The first article is "Does Your Brochure Get You More Sales" and is available on the web.

The second article "How To Recruit A Sales Super Star" and concerns the recognition and recruitment of sales super stars.

The article is not on the web yet because I'm splitting it into two:

Part I: Recognising Sales Sheep, Sales Wolves and Sales Super Stars

Part II: How To Advertise, Interview and Manage Sales Super Stars

The point in these two articles is that sales super stars are made, but they're made very early on in life. Sales training or better sales management training won't make a sales super star out of a dud.

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