Do your prospects and customers find your messages hard to take in? It sounds crazy – but it happens most of the time.

Have you ever asked yourself why you communicate? Let’s face it: unless, like a politician, you suffer from a constant need to bore other people, you must have a purpose.

Maybe it’s to sell something: your product or service, or firm. Perhaps it’s to make something happen, or prevent it happening. Possibly it’s to clarify a misunderstanding or put over your point of view.

You may have many objectives. But whatever your purpose, I imagine you would agree it is, above all, essential that your audience understands what you are saying – quickly, easily and correctly. Otherwise, how are you to achieve your purpose?

Yet you may be surprised to know that many, perhaps most, printed commercial messages are ill understood by readers. The chief reason is that those who prepare them – writers and designers – know astoundingly little about what makes things easy to read.

For the most part, they rely on their own taste and judgement, or what is fashionable in “creative” circles. I put quotes round the word creative because, although the word implies originality, most slavishly follow whatever the current fad may be.

Slavish followers of fashion

Thus, if the fashion is for sans-serif type, or emphasising words regardless of their importance, or using certain words or phrases – like “strategic” or “key issues”, you will find many writers and art directors use them regardless of their suitability or how well they get your message across.

We can all have opinions about what we like, or what we think is tasteful, clever or well-arranged or visually exciting, but what really matters is, how well is your message conveyed? And oddly enough, a simple look at any daily paper reveals most of the principles.

The fundamental thing to recognise about words, type and layout is simple. They are tools to convey your message as clearly and quickly as possible. As the great typographical authority, Stanley Morison, noted: “Any disposition of type which, whatever the intention, comes between the reader and the meaning, is wrong”.

As you will see shortly, if you rely on taste, opinion or fashion the result is often disastrous; but happily, two men devoted many years to discovering how better use of language, type and layout makes for better communication.

Decades of research

One was Rudolph Flesch, an American, who studied what kinds and arrangements of words, sentences and paragraphs are most easily read. The other, an academic at the University of New South Wales called Colin Wheildon, conceived the idea of learning not whether people liked or disliked certain layouts or type styles, but how well they communicated.

He did this by taking some 200 Australian consumers, getting them to read certain passages laid-out in various ways, then asking them to describe what they had just read. He also asked them how easy they had found a particular piece to read. In other words he wanted to know how well different layout styles and typographic styles worked from a practical, not an aesthetic point of view.

The original research took over two years. As far as I know it is the most extensive and thorough of its kind. It has been extended and repeated over the 20-odd years since, and came out three years ago in a full-length book with the title ‘Type and Layout’*. I recommend it if you want to make sure that whatever your message is, it gets through as well as possible.

In addition, since all messages aim to elicit a response – either, “yes, I understand” or “yes, I will do what you ask,” a lot of the results of direct response advertising can teach us lessons about what works and what doesn’t.

This piece distils some of the main things that have been learned from these three sources but the principal lesson is clear: people’s eyes and brains are lazy. If the eye has to adjust or make an effort, it will avoid doing so if possible. The same applies to the brain.

This should not surprise you: after all, how many business ideas – fast food, for example – succeed simply because people are lazy? First, let’s look at what has been learned about layout and typography.

A page of copy in serif type was comprehended well by 67% of readers. When the same copy was reset in sans serif, the figures nose-dived to 12%.

Why? Because the little “feet” on a line of serif type help keep people’s eyes on that line. So if you use sans serif type, make sure there’s plenty of leading – space – between the lines.

Perceived legibility of a series of headlines went down by over 20% when the setting was changed from capitals and lower case to capitals only. Imagine what happens to comprehension when someone sets a whole page in “caps” – which is quite the rage at the moment.

The eye recognises shapes, not individual letters, and a word set in caps has no shape, whereas the descenders and ascenders in caps and lower case give a word shape. What are descenders and ascenders? Well, in the word “shape”, h is an ascender and p is a descender.

Good comprehension slumped when type was set with ragged right setting (typically down from 67% to 38%) or, even more so with ragged left setting (67 down to 10 percent).

That’s because the eye has to adjust constantly. Often people set long passages “centred” – ragged on both sides. What do you suppose that does to comprehension?

For the same reason constant changes in typeface are not only ugly but confusing. This also applies to the needless changes in type size so fashionable amongst advertising agency art directors.

At least one person in ten has imperfect eyesight. So copy in very small type is usually unwise. And type set over tints or textures or colours so that it does not stand out clearly is fatal.

• Type set in narrow columns is easy to read – the eye doesn’t have to travel so far. Around 50 characters per line is about as long as it should go.

• Readers found headlines

laid out in a series

of “decks” or layers

like this were hard

to comprehend.

56% said they found headlines of more than four decks difficult.

Visual elements that point out of the layout – like people’s feet, or their sight lines – lead the readers out of the advertisement.

Illustrations that block off a column halfway down the page discourage the reader from travelling further.

Headlines marooned in the middle of the copy destroy the flow of that copy and halve good comprehension. So do headlines placed under the copy. The reader can’t be bothered to look up to the start of the copy.

Long, unbroken blocks of type are daunting. They should be broken up by crossheads, indents, and changes in type. Giving ‘shape’ to long letters also encourages readership.

• Huge headings take up expensive space you have paid for and only work if you have readers with arms 8 feet long.

When a lot of type is reversed out white on black, it kills response. In the case of one full-page magazine advertisement, response doubled when white on black was replaced with the normal black on white.

Captions are heavily read. If you run a picture without a caption, you lose the chance to communicate.

• Pictures of people’s faces gain enormous attention. Use them wherever you can.

Techniques that make for easier reading

If you buy The Wall Street Journal you will see how surprisingly easy the front page is to read. That is because it follows the rules laid down by Rudolph Flesch.

Best sellers and tabloid newspapers adhere to these techniques, as do direct response copywriters. They all have to make reading easy. Otherwise they go broke.

Sentences should be short. An average 16 words per sentence is ideal. The easiest sentence to read contains eight words. The average reader finds anything longer than 32 words hard to take in.

Paragraphs should be short, containing just one thought in each particularly the first paragraph.

• However, vary sentence and paragraph lengths to avoid dullness.

Words should be short and lively, not long and dull: eg, buy, not purchase; free. Not complimentary.

• Never use unnecessary words: eg, “for free” should be “free”; “miss out on” should be “miss”; “male personnel” should be “men”.

“You”, “yours” and “your” should appear 2-3 times more than “I”, “we”, “our”, “us” and “ours”. That’s because readers are interested in themselves – just as you are.

Use words and phrases at paragraph beginnings that encourage continued reading – like “And”, “Moreover”, “That is why” and “What’s more”. If you put questions at paragraph ends, this helps too. Why?

Because reader wants to know the answer – which is why you just read this sentence.

If you break sentences at the ends of pages and columns, this also encourages continued reading. Put ‘Please turn over’ or the like at the end of a letter page.

There are other points well worth knowing, but that’s all I have room for here. Thanks for reading through to the end; I hope you found it easy – and clear.

Best,
Drayton
www.directmarketingcourse.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

A couple of days ago I sat through a course on writing by Drayton Bird, along with 40 or so other people.

The good thing was, although it was a live seminar, I didn’t have to leave the comfort of my home: It was a webinar.

This was one of three webinars Drayton is holding on learning how to write to persuade.

And one thing he emphasized, along with many others, is the importance of reading. Not reading books on writing, or marketing, or any type of business book.

The books he told us to read are novels. And not just any novels, but novels written by people who know, or knew (some may or may not be alive now), how to write.

You see, these people write in such a way that you can’t resist reading on. Their style of writing compels you to read from beginning to end.

One author I find unable to put down is Agatha Christie. I never used to read her books until Matt Furey recommended them in one of his emails.

Now I’m hooked.

The thing with Agatha Christie, and the ones on Drayton’s list,  is that if you read them you can see why they’re so good.

And, if you follow the way they write, it can only make your own writing much better.

And that includes copywriting.

If you want to know more about the writing course, go here http://www.draytonbird.com/proper. That’s not an affiliate link.

Meanwhile, it just so happens I found a very interesting piece on the importance of reading. It was written almost a hundred years ago by one of the founders of the BBD&O advertising agency, Bruce Barton.

It’s a short but compelling piece. I enjoyed reading it. I think you will, too.

Take it away, Bruce.

Your Body May Live In The Cellar; But It’s Your Own Fault If Your Mind Lives There

THE other night my friend Ferrero and I spent a few years with Julius Caesar in ancient Rome.

We went with him on his campaigns in Gaul. Those were wonderful battles — wonderful fighters.

From a hill-top we could watch the whole battle — thousands of men driving at each other with their swords, hurling their javelins at short range. No smoke, no trenches; just primitive, hand-to-hand conflict.

We came back to Rome. The city was in a turmoil. Our great chariots thundered through the streets in triumph; our captives, our spoils, our banners made a magnificent procession. The crowds cheered wildly.

Another evening my friend Green and I had a great time together in ancient
Britain.

We went down to Runnymede with a group of English nobles. They were powerful men, each a petty king in his own section; but every one of them took his life in his hand on that expedition.

And there we gathered around King John, and forced him, against his will, to put his name to the Magna Carta, the Great Charter which is the foundation of
English liberties — and our own.

I had a fine time with Napoleon a few nights before.

I met him when he landed in France, after the escape from Elba.

Up through the southern provinces he came, gathering a few troops there, winning over by the force of his eloquence the regiments sent to capture him.

We arrived in Paris. Hurriedly, but with supreme confidence that the Little
Corporal could never fail; we got together a makeshift army and set out to strike the winning blow at Waterloo.

That battle — I shall never forget it.

Another day I went over to old Concord, and spent the whole afternoon with Emerson.

We talked about Representative Men. Well, well, you say, what foolishness is this? What do you mean by saying you lived with Caesar and Napoleon and Emerson — all centuries apart, all long since dead?

If you do not know what I mean, then I pity you.

Have you never come home tired from your office, and with a book transported your foolish little mind clear out of the present day?

Have you never learned the joy of surrendering yourself to the companionship of the great men of the past?

Have you never sat in the little London Club and heard Sam Johnson thunder his philosophy of life?

Have you never sailed up and down the American coast with Captain John Smith, dodging the Indians and opening up a new continent?

Are you one of the wretched, poverty stricken souls who have never learned to escape from yourself through the blessed magic of good books?

Have you contented yourself all your life with the companionship of good pinochle-players, when you might have been a familiar friend of Socrates and
Milton and Napoleon and Cromwell and Washington and Columbus and Shakespeare and Lincoln and Rousseau?

If so, cut out this paragraph from a great man and paste it in your hat:

I would rather be a  beggary and dwell in a garret, than a king who did not love books.

There are some marvellous experiences coming to you.

You can in the evenings to come jar yourself out of the petty rut where circumstance has placed you, and become a familiar of the immortals.

You may learn to face the world with a new confidence, a new poise, a new self respect, because you have made yourself a citizen of the ages.

Do some real reading.

Do it for the joy it will give you: Do it for the good it will do you.

“Show me a family of readers,” said Napoleon, “and I will show you the people who rule the world.”

Best,
Rezbi
www.directmarketingcourse.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

I’m a lazy sod given half a chance, so I thought I’d let an old friend do a bit of work.

Christian Digby-Firth was one of my creative directors years ago at O & M and has a very neat turn of phrase.

Good writing is always a good thing to note if you want good people, since as Dr. Johnson observed, “Language is the dress of thought.”

Here’s something Christian sent me just now.

“What is it about airport ads? They’re breeding grounds for some of the most fatuous copy lines in the biz. “We know what it takes to be a Tiger”, “In business people are good together”, “Hello”, etc. etc and all the others too crushingly dull to recall. Which is of course your point.

International committee work, I suppose.

“Make the most of now” is Vodafone’s anxious strategic imperative writ large: i.e. “Please use your mobile phone to do all sorts of things that are pointless to you but profitable to us, and do them now because we don’t make anything on your boring old voice calls”.

Now, I have to confess that though I agree with almost everything in that hilarious little note, I don’t agree with that.

I think the Tiger campaign is very cleverly aimed at executives with very small p**cks and even smaller minds who want to feel like they’re big bold business marauders – and who are gullible enough to believe Accenture will help them do it without having to think, in exchange for absurdly large sums of money.

But there is an important point I want to make (besides one I made in an earlier piece, which is that emotion beats logic, even in business).

It’s: Playing on people’s inadequacies is a very smart thing to do.

Take a look at any successful self-help ad, and you’ll see what they do.

I mentioned Max Sackheim a week or so ago – the man who wrote “My First 50 years in Advertising”.

He wrote an ad entitled, “Do you make these mistakes in English?” aimed to sell English courses to immigrants who felt unsure about their English. It ran successfully for 40 years.

Here it is:

Lillian Eichler wrote an ad with the heading, “Again she orders – A Chicken Salad, Please.” – to sell a book of etiquette to people who felt socially inadequate.

It took three writers to produce an ad headed, “Here’s an extra $50, Grace – I’m making real money now” – aimed to sell correspondence courses. This is one of my favourite headlines ever..

Now, I hope you’re not going to give me that bleeding heart stuff about playing on people’s fears. If you do I will tell you one thing I know for sure, in fact I bet on it once..

Recently I was speaking at Manchester University, and the celebrity speaker was a famous chef. I was discussing what motivates successful people with a lady at my table..

I said, “It’s fear of failure – and I bet this man is no exception.”

The man’s speech began almost word for word with what I’d said. He revealed how he feared not living up to his father’s expectations..

People who achieve do so almost always because they fear to fail..

And people who fail usually do so because they’re cocksure -not worried about failing, and so don’t try hard enough.

Best,
Drayton
www.directmarketingcourse.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

It probably is, if I’m honest with myself. That is really how I feel.

Take a look at this testimonial I wrote after going through it last week. And, although I wish I didn’t feel like this, it’s all true.

It’s been a long time since I’ve actually WANTED to sit through an entire video series in one go…

… and then go back and go through it again.

I just can say enough about the value of these videos.

Really and truly, for the first time in ages, I actually feelselfish about a product. If I thought I was the only one promoting this, I wouldn’t do it.

I want to keep all this information to myself – Iknow I could make a ton of cash for both myself and my clientswith this information.

Every word of that is true.

Go and check out what I’m going on about here:
http://undergroundtrafficblueprints.directanddigitalmarketing.com/

Best,
Rezbi
www.directmarketingcourse.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

In the early 1900s, A. Joseph Newman, General Sales Manager, Bayuk Cigars, Inc., Philadelphia, had an original method of helping his company’s distributors.

Under a pen name, Frank Trufax (true facts) he wrote a series of letters to imaginary salesmen in which he discussed very real problems.

Here’s one example I managed to find…

To My Salesmen:

I was looking over the orders the other day and I saw one from a dealer whom we had not been selling for at least a year.

I am not going to tell you why he stopped buying but I am going to tell you that I was tickled pink to see him back on our books once again.

Our little selling-fool, Billy Keepatem, put it over—yes, he did. Hats off to Keepatem, boys!

“Well, Bill, how did you do it?” said I to Bill at first opportunity.

“Nothing wonderful about it, Mr. Trufax,” replied Bill. “That dealer sells a lot of stuff and I thought if he was worth going after, he was worth keeping after. I’ve been calling on him regularly once a week for nine months and – well, I landed him. That’s all there is to it.”

Did you get that one pithy phrase Bill pulled: “If he was worth going after, he was worth keeping after?”

Manoman, there’s the salient secret of selling success!

If a dealer is worth going after to sell, he is worth keeping after until he is sold.

Let’s all shoot that in our arms, boys, because that’s doggoned good dope.

And that brings up two interesting queries. Here they are:

1. How many calls do salesmen make before they quit calling?
2. How often does a salesman call before the dealer buys?

Now, get me right, boys. I didn’t personally conduct the investigation to get the answers to these two questions and I don’t want to be facetious when I say I didn’t get up the dictionary either; but there’s where I went to find out if I could get away with that “wicked” word “facetious.” It is just as important to know where to find knowledge as it is to have knowledge.

Well, anyway, the investigation was carefully made and here’s the findings:

Answering first question…

• 48.2 salesmen made 1 call and quit
• 24.4 salesmen made 2 calls and quit
• 14.7 salesmen made 3 calls and quit
• 12.7 salesmen made 4 or more calls,

Go over those figures once again, boys, they’re intensely interesting.

Then clear your mind to get full shock of this body-blow of an answer to the second question:

Sixty per cent of the sales made were on or after the fifth call!

This investigation, of course, proves very little conclusively but it does emphasize this one thing:

Eighty-eight per cent of the salesmen “automatically eliminated themselves from consideration of sixty per cent of the business because they quit before the dealer had been brought up to the buying point.”

Boys, I don’t want you to waste time watering dead plants but I do want you to keep digging around the live ones.

You can never tell when the “No, not today” will change into “Yes, send ‘em along.”

It may be on the fifth call; it may be on the fiftieth call; but as Billy Keepatem says:

“If a dealer is worth going after, he’s worth keeping after.”

Yours, tilhesezyes,
Frank Trufax.

These figures just go to show they knew these things in the early 1900s, and maybe even earlier.

Think about how that knowledge can help when you’re emailing your list… or snail mailing a direct mail list you thought was dead.

Best,
Rezbi
www.directmarketingcourse.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

This is Steve Harrison…

“The greatest DM creative of this generation.”

A bold claim, you might say, but that’s not me saying it. It was a claim made by the UK’s leading advertising journal, Campaign magazine.

Steve was one of the presenters at the direct marketing course ran by Drayton Bird’s European Academy of Direct and Interactive Marketing, or EADIM for short.

Let me tell you, Steve alone was worth the fee for the course.

And that’s saying something when you consider some of the industry’s biggest hitters were also there presenting.

It’s happening again starting this October. I’ll give you more details soon.

Best,
Rezbi
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

According to Andrew Woodward, senior vice president for merchant solutions for MasterCard Advisors, AMS “will be a key component of MasterCard’s strategy as we look to grow, diversify and build our business with retailers in the UK”.

Best,
Rezbi
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

This video may sound a bit like it was recorded in a municipal swimming baths (actually it was my partner Al’S quaint West Country residence) but once you’ve got over that, you may find it useful.

That’s because it deals with something I must have been asked a thousand times: how often should I mail/email my clients?

This reminds me of another hoary old favourite: how long should the copy be?

And both remind me of the philosopher Bertrand Russell’s remark that “What men seek is not knowledge, but certainty.”

Some people think they should be talking more often, lest their customers think they are being ignored; others think they should talk less for fear of boring them.

The truth is, as so often, that it depends on a myriad things. In this 2 minute 6 second clip I get pretty excited about the subject – but don’t let that put you off.

By the way, I have just finished putting together the examples for the first How to Write Proper webinar.

Best,
Drayton
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

If you read these serpentine ramblings you know I greatly admire the Venerable Denny Hatch.

Denny, with almost demented dedication, has over the last 26 years created the world’s largest organised direct mail library – over 200,000 samples.

But what is more important, he knows what worked – and what didn’t, and can tell you why, because he knows more than anyone about the subject.

18 years ago I rang his wife, Peggy (who is as able as he is!) to ask how many mailings he read a month.

“Between one and two thousand,” she replied. “Mind you, he doesn’t read all of them all through.”

“I should bloody well hope not,” I thought. “The poor man would end up in a loony bin if he did.”

Anyhow, since that time, Denny’s mammoth compendium of the best mailings ever - Million $$$ Mailings, created with Axel Andersson - has been my secret weapon.

I use it to cheat.

I thumb through it for inspiration – and for ideas to steal, adapt and use in seminars. It contains 71 of the most successful mailings ever written. Only last month I wrote something that pulled like an express train based on one line I spotted and “improved”.

I refer to it more than Caples, more than Hopkins, more than Ogilvy.

The only problem is, it is a WHACKING GREAT TOME, 477 pages long – I yearn to beat up recalcitrant clients with it. I can’t find the ideas I want quickly. And it is 18 years old, so some important new stuff is not in it.

Now, praise the Lord, Denny has come up with something that’s bang up-to-date, and a lot shorter. So I can find tested ideas to steal in minutes.

It’s a report called The Secrets of Emotional Hot-ButtonCopywriting. You can get it at http://tinyurl.com/29a5mv5.

But to call it a report does it too little justice. It is atreasure trove. I flipped it open just now and immediately saw an extraordinary opening line “I’m sitting in my wheelchair today, mad as hell” … imagine what that could do for your e-mail opening rates!

(Do not think for a second that what applies in direct mail does not apply online. It is pretty much all relevant – and the examples you see are from the best of the best in a business that has been around for centuries, not decades).

As the title says, the report is based on the turbulent, gnawing human emotions – the hot buttons – that make your customers buy. And it features the best mailings of the last 20 years. Only Denny could have put it together, because only Denny has this astonishing archive of material.

And Denny does something so many fail to do: he tells you WHY things work. You will never get this from some of the hyped-up piffle that sails into your inbox every day.

A friend just forwarded me (as a joke) one of those emails that say “all you need is this set of DVDs and booklets and your copy will “write itself” automatically.

What drivel!

Here, for $89, you can get what you really need – theCopy Thieves’ Almanac. I may use one of the mailings in a speech I make in a week’s time. I will certainly adapt another for some work I have to do for an investment client.

Here again is where to order: http://tinyurl.com/29a5mv5.

Why not make it the next thing you do? Just one idea could double the response from your next effort. I have seen it happen. I know.

Best,
Drayton
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

When I last ran a one day seminar in London, I used a simple weapon to get attendees. It was not direct mail. Not advertising. Not PR. Not a clever promotion.

It was an e-mailed survey, it got 16% response, and I made a few thousand quid.

That was partly because of the list and partly because of the person who signed it (not me). So this video is all about why surveys are such a deceptively powerful weapon. See what you think.

Would you like an example of how I use surveys?

I have a client who is setting up a business overseas. I suggested his launch could be based on a survey. So now he is writing some copy which I will edit/revise/trample all over.

We will get the survey results published in a newspaper (they’re always gagging for stuff to run). That will establish his name and give him credibility among his prospects. And that will lead to a series of other things I won’t bore you with.

The best survey format is anonymous, so people are happier to respond. I hope that is true of you, because I have stuck a survey in here – and I’d really appreciate your reply.

Two weeks ago so many of you said you’d like a writing webinar that I wondered what else would interest you.

So in the survey I’ve listed some – but not all – the topics I have bored the opants off people about in sundry places from Dubai to Sydney. Let me know which interest you and I will try to set something up. It takes no time at all to complete.

Oh, and I’ve also asked about something entirely different that I am running. It has limited numbers, so I want to know what the likely take up is.

I will tell you what results the survey comes up with, so you will know what interests other people

Best,
Drayton
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com

P. S. The writing webinars will will start in about a week. The delay is because we have spent a ludicrous amount of time looking at the various options. None is perfect, but I think we have arrived at the best.

Also how we take your money is a pain to arrange. Don’t worry. I have a deal for you!

Actually I have two deals for you – but that’s for another day.

He who knows how to manage the media often wins the game. The BP crisis is on everyone’s mind. And before that, Toyota got into a mess. What should you know about public relations?

When clients come to me I often suggest that good PR may be even more important than anything I can do. And I strongly believe that relying on one marketing weapon alone is very short sighted.

Modern public relations – PR – began about a hundred years ago with the world’s richest man, John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller had a problem.

He had built up Standard Oil very ruthlessly, treating his workers appallingly – though probably no worse than most businessmen at the time. He was so hideously unpopular he could barely go outside without embarrassment. He asked a newsman called Ivy Lee for advice.

I do not know what Lee charged Mr. Rockefeller, but his solution brilliantly demonstrated how to create and manage news. He told Rockefeller to stop hiding away, go out regularly, and always carry with him a supply of 5 cent coins to give to small children.

Lee, no doubt, ensured these generous acts were reported. In no time the ogre Rockefeller was replaced in the public’s mind by the kindly old fellow who loved children.

Was this clever idea an influence for good or bad? It has certainly been much copied. All politicians know it’s a good idea to be photographed with babies, but among the century’s leading experts have been Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Mao Tse Tung.

Advice from a top expert

When young, I worked in public relations for long enough to know I am no good at it. However a friend, Quentin Bell, was long one of Britain’s leading PR men. He gave me a list of points for good PR, which I have put at the end.

The difference between advertising and public relations is that you pay for advertising space or time; in public relations you only pay for the advice you get. The media print or broadcast what they want about you.

Advertising was once called “the truth well told”. The same applies to good PR. The trouble is, as we all know, the truth can be seen in many ways. If your version of the truth prevails, it is a powerful ally; if not, it can be a disaster. Which it is depends on you.

Public relations are vital when there are problems. The launch of the Toyota Lexus in America was nearly a disaster, because thousands of the first cars delivered had faults. A few years later the Mercedes A-Class was reported to be unreliable on sharp corners. On another occasion a madman poisoned some of the packs of the leading US analgesic, Tylenol.

All three firms acted promptly and managed the news. Toyota recalled every car they had sold and gave owners free replacements while the problem was fixed. Mercedes immediately installed in their A class the same braking system fitted in their most expensive cars and wrote to all prospective and existing buyers explaining the facts. Tylenol replaced every bottle of Tylenol in every store in America.

So none of these firms denied the problem: they admitted there was one and solved it. They told the truth. Moral: don’t lie, don’t hide. Act and be open. I do not think that Toyota and BP, more recently, have managed their PR very well. So what should you do?

Start by asking questions

Good PR – like all good marketing – starts with the truth. First, ask three questions. Who are we? Where are we? Where do we want be or go? If you haven’t asked them, you now know your first – maybe your most important – task.

You must know what you are – not what you hope you are. This calls for research, both inside and outside your organisation. Only then you can work to become what you want to be.

Unlike advertising, PR doesn’t directly promote a product, service or brand. It deals with issues raised by, and surrounding them. They benefit indirectly.

PR is about “our way of doing things” – corporate culture. It takes your special (though not necessarily unique) attitudes and viewpoints and turns them to commercial advantage.

Internal PR comes before external PR. It conveys these messages so well that everyone you work with understands and eventually “owns” them. They become company ambassadors. You know you’ve succeeded when they talk of colleagues as “we” instead of “them”.

Your message must embrace all those groups your success depends on. Not just your people, but suppliers and distributors, communities, investors, regulators, and the media.

One of my partners once told me the best advice his father ever gave him. It was, “If you’re talking, you can’t be listening. And if you’re not listening, you can’t be learning”. PR only succeeds if it is a dialogue – not a one way “top down” monologue. Listening is vital if you wish to respond.

PR is not about slogans and slick phrases. It’s about style plus substance: 90% is about improving the reality, only 10% about promoting it. Image and reality must match. You cannot pretend to be what you’re not – for long.

Don’t rely entirely on the PR agency or marketing department. Your message must course through the veins of the company – inspired by those at the top. Your top PR person is the CEO – the public ambassador. PR should be an important part of his or her job.

Good PR is consistent and continual: inspiration, consistency and dogged determination differentiate the winners from the losers.

Top ten tips for dealing with the media

What if you have to face the media? It can be frightening – unless you’re prepared. Here is Quentin’s advice:

• Know your message: identify your three key points; stick to them; don’t be afraid of repeating them; don’t get sidetracked.

• Be the victor not the victim. You know more about your subject than they do; an interview is an opportunity, not a threat; you can turn their negative into your positive, or at least paint a balanced picture; be businesslike – it’s better to be respected than liked.

• Prepare and rehearse: think of all likely difficult questions for a requested interview – and know your answers.

• Send out all your bad news at once, not bit by bit. Release it with bigger news of the day as a smokescreen. If it’s good news, check the next day’s media agenda for a slow news day.

• Know what the media want: ask them for their angle – they’ll willingly tell you; don’t “answer” but “respond”; use the question as a chance to say what you want to say.

• Admit your mistakes: others will forgive you. Don’t cover up; but always “regret” rather than being “sorry” – that implies guilt. Never speak “off the record”. Assume all you say will be broadcast or published.

• Be humble: be confident but not arrogant; stay calm and “smile” (if only inwardly, because it shows on TV). Remember, an aggressive interviewer gains you public sympathy; don’t lie (you’ll be found out and make matters worse). If you don’t know the answer, say so.

• Speak in headlines: talk about benefits, not features. Think in pictures, not words; keep it simple; listen to questions carefully; don’t fill silences – it puts the onus upon the interviewer.

• Don’t refuse to take difficult phone calls. But give yourself thinking time (“I’ll phone you back in ten minutes”); never say “no comment” – it implies guilt; it provides a vacuum to allow the media to invent their own “truth”.

• Never pretend to be what you’re not, personally or corporately. If the public perception is false, make the truth clear; get the endorsement of your top PR person – the CEO.

Best,
Drayton
www.eadim.com
www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com