Put on your thinking cap for just a moment. What do these have in common…

• A “perfect game” in baseball
• Doppelgangers
• Haley’s comet sighting
• Your “soul mate”
• The Hope Diamond

Even if you know nothing about the first four, hopefully that last one was a giveaway.

These are all rarities, right?

These are things which don’t come around very often.  They are unusual and, because of that characteristic, are considered quite valuable.

Everyone once in a while something comes along that is added to the list of  “rarities”.

The one I want to tell you about today happens, well, once every TEN YEARS.

It was ten years ago this month, August 2000, that Jimmy D. Brown started his first successful internet business which launched  his “career” as a full-time internet marketer.

Profits Vault became one of the most popular early IM membership sites and was an active part of his business until he closed it down last year.

Today he’s reopening it to celebrate his TEN YEAR anniversary!

He’s put together a package of products, reports, mini-courses, and articles that are mostly UNRELEASED content that he’s either personally written or co-written.  All of these come with full PLR (private label rights) licenses!

Get the details at http://directanddigitalmarketing.com/profitsvault.html

If anyone knows about private label rights content, it’s Jimmy. He didn’t create the autoresponder.  And he didn’t write the first salesletter.  And he didn’t create the first popup.  He didn’t do a lot of the things that have become common to internet marketers.

But he DID start the PLR (private label rights) market back in 2003 and he DID launch the first successful PLR membership site in that same year.

He knows about PLR content!

During the past seven years since he launched “Products In The Rough” which expanded into Nicheology, there has been a flood of “PLR” materials hitting the web on just  about every topic imaginable.

He classifies these materials into three categories…

1. Crummy.  (Bad, very bad)
2. Common.  (Ordinary, average)
3. Choice.  (Rarities!)

Truthfully — and you know this is true if you’ve bought any PLR content — the overwhelming majority of the materials  are worthy of a “crummy” rating.  Following not too far behind would be “common” PLR content.

And in a class by itself, there’s probably about 1% of the PLR content out there today that really is “choice”.

It’s rare.

Rarer still do you get the opportunity to grab up “Choice” PLR content that has NEVER-BEEN-RELEASED that was written by a recognized expert (not gonna use the word “guru”!) in the internet marketing arena.

Today is an exception.  It’s one of those rare days.  One of those 1% moments.  Once every ten years in this case as he celebrates his ten year anniversary.

There are so many things you can do with these materials -

• Create your own original articles.
• Build rebrandable reports.
• Edit them and sell them as your own.
• Convert them into audio products.
• Develop a coaching program around them.
• Stock a membership site with them.
• Extract parts for blog posts.

There’s only ONE catch…

This package will ONLY be available for the NEXT 10 DAYS.  On Friday, August 27 at 10PM CDT Profits Vault will once again be shut down and the package will no longer be available.

So, drop by today and see if this package is right for you.

UPDATE:  There is a “Fast Action” bonus for the next 100 people only who order … PLR license to a 70 page product of Jimmy’s!

All the details are at http://directanddigitalmarketing.com/profitsvault.html

Even if you don’t plan on using this content until down the road, you won’t find better quality content for the price.

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

What Is Direct Response Marketing?

Since even a mature business like advertising is not clearly understood by many of its practitioners you can hardly be surprised that few understand what direct marketing is.

Indeed, whilst preparing this article, I saw that, in a survey of 133 leading American direct marketers, no clear agreement on what the business is emerged.

When the phrase direct marketing comes up, most people, in my experience, immediately think of the medium of direct mail.

Others think of direct marketing as a method of selling, like off -the-page selling.

Others confuse it with a channel of distribution, like mail order.

Producing a definition as simple as ‘Salesmanship in print’ for advertising proved an insuperable task for the industry’s pundits. So much so that (in what I can only assume was a moment of despair) Direct Marketing magazine – then the industry’s leading American organ – summoned not one, but three experts to do so.

The result of their labours was placed at the beginning of every issue of the magazine.

It occupied two half pages, featuring one of those gloriously complicated flow charts which always throw me into a state of utter confusion.

You may consider the need for a simple definition unimportant; indeed, few people using direct marketing bother to speculate on what it really is.

But I consider it crucial.

Imagine spending millions of pounds without clearly understanding what you are spending them on.

Not an imaginary scenario, I assure you.

In fact, not long ago, I recall a debate taking place with a leading automobile company, which we shall call Ford for the sake of argument, covering many countries and multifarious marketing problems.

Was direct marketing an advertising activity?

In that case the people in charge of advertising should make the decision.

Was it ‘below the line’? In which case that company’s policy meant that a different department, usually concerned with purchasing everything down to stationery, would deal with it.

I will not go into detail, save to say that in the end different decisions were made in different countries for different reasons – most to do with these varying views of direct marketing.

This is obviously stupid.

And it is not likely to become any more intelligent if everybody involved has to understand and memorise a long, illustrated definition before they start work.

Moreover, the pool of understanding has been muddied further by the fact that many practitioners are not even agreed that direct marketing ought to be called direct marketing.

As a result, combined with the desire to give brand names to particular companies’ approaches to the business, all sorts of names have cropped up: terms such as ‘curriculum marketing’, ‘dialogue marketing’, ‘personal marketing’, ‘database marketing’ and – currently the most fashionable one – ‘customer relationship marketing’.

But the most common term remains direct marketing.

It is certainly the one I propose to stick to.

Nevertheless, these terms do reveal important facts about the nature of the business.

Certainly direct marketing revolves around the building and exploitation of a database – though there is more to it than that.

Equally, building a relationship is one of our objectives – but only one.

The approach is personal; and in the process of building  a relationship, you can guide your prospect through a curriculum whereby you learn more about them and they learn more about you.

But my simple definition of direct marketing is: ‘any advertising activity which creates and exploits a direct relationship between you and your prospect or customer as an individual’.

If you and I can agree that we ought to call direct marketing ‘direct marketing’, and you accept my simple definition, then you will immediately appreciate that a wide range of activities is encompassed.

I am sure you have been stopped by people standing on street corners with questionnaires bearing such inane queries as: ‘Are you able to save as much money as you’d like?’ If you are not careful, these will lead to a visit from an insurance salesman.

Clearly these people are engaged in direct marketing: they are making a direct contact and trying to initiate a relationship with you as an individual.

In the same way, somebody who offers you a leaflet inviting you to go into your local hamburger joint and win a prize; or the ad for the introduction agency offering love everlasting; the note in the shop window selling a used ghetto blaster; the ad suggesting you apply for shares in British Telecom; the leaflet coming through your door in praise of your local Conservative Party candidate – they’re all direct marketing.

In fact the most popular section in many papers – the classified section – is nothing but direct marketing.

And almost everything that happens on the internet involves direct marketing.

Perhaps it is worth stating here what I believe to be the differences between direct marketing and some of the other communications tools. (This is not made any easier by the fact that in the case of sales promotion, people are no more agreed about what they do than are direct marketers.)

How Does Direct Marketing Differ From Other Disciplines Like Advertising?

• Advertising usually speaks to people en masse, not as individuals. Although today the vast majority of ads do allow people to respond, especially by going to a website, advertising does not usually aim above all for an immediate response. It seeks  to influence customers so that they choose your brand when they reach the point of decision – the shop, for instance.
• Sales promotion is normally designed to get action at the point of sale. Often it uses the same methods as direct marketing. It can also generate lists. But rarely is there a continuing effort to build a lasting relationship with  respondents by exploiting the full possibilities of a database.
• Public relations employs media controlled by others to create a favourable climate of opinion. It too can create a database, for instance of replies to editorials, which are usually of very good quality.
• Packaging protects and draws attention to the product. It can also strengthen people’s belief in your product, reassure them, make offers, and collect names cheaply for the database.
• Experiential marketing, a fashionable new name for what used to be called events, certainly creates opportunities for building relationships, although few are doing this with it. Certainly practitioners in all disciplines are  increasingly aware of the potential of the direct relationship, but very few appreciate its full possibilities.

The above is an excerpt taken from Drayton Bird’s book, ‘Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing’.

To discover how direct and digital marketing can — and most probably will — make a difference to your business, click here.

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

P.S. I just found a great article by Seth Godin where he also talks about the difference between direct marketing vs. mass market thinking. You can read that article here.

Would you buy this?




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

Do you feel successful? I don’t.

Yes, I have moments of euphoria, usually after I’ve written something pretty good – but it’s not long before I decide I’m useless.

So I read about a seminar in “power talking” and “communication skills” with great interest – especially when it said that 80% of people fail at work because they don’t “relate well” to other people …“a clear case of failed communication”.
.
Well, the seminar was cheap, the course leader is practically a genius – “multi skilled as an Occupational Psychologist, Executive Mentor, Presenter and Counsellor” – and the subject is highly relevant.

But the copy put me off. As far as I or anyone else who cares for the English language might be concerned it was indeed a case of failed communication. It had more clichés and jargon in it than a politician’s speech.

I was promised “user-friendly, high-level skills” and “solution-focused communication techniques”. There was obsessive use of expressions based on the word “impact” – “impacts on”, “impactful”, “high-impact” and “positive impact”. And naturally that shop-soiled word “engage” popped up (why not “intrigue” or “interest”?)

If that’s how people who teach communication write, it explains a lot of the mindless tripe we all have to plough though – in documents, on the internet, in meetings: everywhere.

Every day you are trying to get colleagues, bosses, customers – maybe family – to do what you want. Whether you like it or not, life is one long sales pitch – and most of that selling is done in writing.

So how do you avoid boring the hell out of people? How do you write well? It really matters, as two old colleagues, Ken Roman and Joel Raphaelson, revealed in their splendid book “Writing that Works”.

It seems that when the Chief Executives of top U.S. firms were asked what they would most like to change in business, the majority pleaded: “Can someone please teach people to write better?”

Now if you’re wondering where all this has been leading, let me ask you a question.

Would you or your colleagues be interested in three short webinars on how to write better? I have been teaching this for nearly 30 years, and my normal rate is £5,000 per day. But if enough of you are interested I will do them for £39 each.

In my time I’ve written books, scripts, articles, ads, brochures, presentations, speeches, emails, editorials – you name it – and got paid for them all. I’ll tell you what I’ve learned.

The last time I did a seminar on this subject it was for the world’s largest conference organisers. People said the were “inspired”. I can’t guarantee such giddy heights of joy, but I think you’ll find it worth it.

Can you take a second to email me and say if this interests you? Just write saying yes or no to Drayton@draytonbird.com.

And, just so I know where you’re coming from, do me a favour and type in ‘marketing sleuth’ anywhere in the email.

Thanks!

Best,
Drayton

—————————————–

Website: www.commonsensedirectmarketing.com / www.eadim.com

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Best,
Rezbi

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Do you think the British are morphing in some weird way?

We were always known as a pretty dull, phlegmatic bunch, compared to the excitable French, the fiery Spanish and the sexy Italians.

Well, something strange seems to be happening in business.

Across the road from our offices a building firm says it’s passionate about whatever it does. Pret-a-Manger is passionate about food. The North East is full of passionate people – and passionate country, too, so their posters claim. And Churchill are passionate about insurance.

Do these people have no sex lives, I sometimes wonder. (Though it certainly proves that many agencies are pretty passionate about copying each other.)

More to the point, all this passion reminds me of a big mistake many who sell to businesses make. That is to assume that business decisions are made on rational grounds and emotion doesn’t come into it.

This is nonsense – and to prove it I often ask audiences whether they can think of anyone they work with that they hate. It never fails to raise a laugh of recognition.

Only human – with feelings

Don’t you agree that the way we love to label things often does more to confuse than help?

We talk of above the line and below, of b2c and b2b. “Consumers” and “Business people”. Is that how our customers see themselves? Do they have lines running through their brains?

They are all human beings. And we know perfectly well what things motivate people when we sell make-up, a car or even a hair-remover. People want to be looked at, admired – and definitely not shunned.

In business they want what? To be looked up to, admired – and definitely not shunned. To be successful, quoted as examples for other people to emulate – not seen as losers – in life or business.

Pretty similar, right?

So we repeatedly find when selling to business that if something isn’t doing well, a dash of passion makes all the difference.

• For an express delivery firm we suggested delivery managers could go from zero – never noticed till something went wrong – to hero by relying on them.
• For a credit collection firm we focused on the stress credit managers experience when trying to reconcile the conflicting demands of the finance and sales directors.
• For a telephony service we wrote about the rage touch-tone services inspire in most people and contrasted it with their solution.

The truth is that you don’t grow a second head on your way to the office; and you may spend more waking hours there than anywhere else. It’s not necessarily less interesting or emotional a life than the one you spend at home. It is often more so.

People lie, cheat and finagle their way to whatever business goal they may have. And they kill for money – which is what most business revolves around.

Man is not a rational animal at work any more than anywhere else. He (or she) makes decisions on emotional grounds then tries to find logical arguments to explain them away.

So, if you want better results when selling to business, look in your heart – then use your head to find a way of explaining why the emotional argument makes sense.

A few people have asked for comments on various things. Thanks. Keep ‘em coming.

Best,
Drayton

P.S.  This is number 9 of Drayton Bird’s 101 free helpful marketing ideas.  You can sign up on the link below for the rest.

—————————————–

Website: www.draytonbirdcommonsense.com / www.eadim.com

Click here to get 101 free helpful marketing ideas. Marketers from all over the world think they’re a pot of gold.

Profit from Facebook!High-Impact, Low-Cost Social Marketing That Works! With more than 80,000,000 affluent, savvy members, Facebook is today’s fastest-growing marketing opportunity! But traditional marketing methods won’t work here. In Facebook Marketing, best-selling author Steven Holzner reveals new social marketing techniques that do work, and shows you exactly how to make the most of them. Using true case studies, Holzner introduces powerful new techniques from today’s s (more…)

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“…an invaluable, practical guide to marketing for those new to the subject…” (Marketer, September 2006) “…useful, practical and, above all, reader–friendly…this book certainly takes me to a new level…I heartily recommend it”. (Oldham Evening Chronicle, March 2007)  

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The American edition of Marketing Management is the world’s leading marketing text because its content and organization consistently reflect changes in marketing theory and practice . This new European Edition of Marketing Management has been inspired by the American edition and explores the challenges facing European marketing practitioners, with all the case studies and exercises newly re-written for European students. 

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“…a good roundup of important marketing theory with some great case studies….” (Brand Strategy, April 2006) “…truly inspiring book…” (Brand Strategy, June 2006) “…exceptional writer…”  (bubblewrap, June 2006) “…fascinating read…” (Irish Enterpreneur, June 2006) “…spot on…”  (Simon Wakeman Journal, June 2006)  ”…a good roundup of important marketing theory with some great case studies….” (Brand Strategy, April 2006) “…t (more…)

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If you had to chose one person who more than any other has contributed to the literature on marketing, it would have to be Philip Kotler. This is the 15th book in a glittering academic and writing career that started in the early sixties and includes Marketing Management, voted by the Financial Times as one of the 50 best business books ever. More than any other individual, Kotler is responsible for making the “marketing paradigm” (the idea that you prospe (more…)