Drayton Bird's Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing needs no introduction to marketers and direct marketers. It is not only seen as the authority on direct marketing execution, but is also widely appreciated for its engaging, non-nonsense style. The latest edition takes the book into new territory -- the field of digital marketing. It gives the marketer the tools, techniques and structures needed to produce effective and profitable marketing across the direct marketing spectrum, from simple letter to focused web-based campaigns. For anyone involved in direct marketing, this book provides not just the structure for success but also an energizing insight into the techniques behind some of the world's most successful direct marketing campaigns.
The authority on direct marketing execution and widely appreciated for its no-nonsense style, this latest edition includes the field of digital marketing. Just as important, it provides not only the structure for success but also an insight into the techniques behind successful direct marketing campaigns.
Drayton Bird has over 45 years of experience at Ogilvy and Mather Direct, the world's largest direct-marketing network. Today he is Chairman of The Drayton Bird Partnership, which handles direct marketing and other marketing activities for clients both large and small. He is also the author of How to Write Sales Letters that Sell.
CHAPTER 1 Beginnings
The amateur approach
The difficult approach
Some valuable discoveries
The mysterious rise of direct marketing
A paradox
Your timing is good
To make learning easier
CHAPTER 2 The Three Graces of Direct Marketing
Short-term thinking
To make and keep a customer
What is direct marketing?
The Three Graces of direct marketing
How your customer is changing
Controllability: an important benefit
Giving your customer a better service
The spiral of prosperity
CHAPTER 3 Direct Marketing Can Do More Than You Think
What can you sell?
The role of direct marketing
Five major objectives of direct marketers ...
... And four ways to achieve them
Which names are best?
CHAPTER 4 How to Get Started
Does your business have a continuing relationship built in?
Sales-force help
Some pertinent questions
Use your names
Retail problems
The key to profit
Employers and shareholders
Who complains?
What mail order teaches
Three major errors
What should you sell?
Can you offer a good deal?
Ask your customers
How does it compare?
Pay the right price
Dont over order
Where to look
CHAPTER 5 Positioning and Other Mysteries Explained
Sound advice on boasting
Would a salesperson do this?
Added value
Unique selling proposition
Positioning: todays theory
Changing the rules
General advertising and positioning
CHAPTER 6 How to Plan Well
Eleven steps to success
Five questions you must answer
Keep in touch
How to understand your customers better
Who knows where or when?
Where your money will do most good
CHAPTER 7 Media: A Different, More Flexible Approach
What is your purpose?
Five major differences
The media recipe
Timing critical
The eight traditional media at your disposal
Other media
Interactive, personalised media
Successful media selection
Proven principles of negotiation
Ten good deals
CHAPTER 8 Digital Marketing: The Internet and E-mail
Getting it right from the start seven things you must ask yourself about
your site
AZ of building and managing a website
You have a fantastic site what next?
Dont be bamboozled: commonsense online techniques
How your traffic helps improve your aim
Just a reminder: its accelerated direct marketing
Whose website is it anyway?
Whats making money and why
An extraordinary, rare opportunity
CHAPTER 9 Your Greatest Asset
The value of a name
The relative importance of the list
Twelve criteria for evaluating lists
Your database and how to build it
Where to find the best new customers
Lifestyle databases
Compiled lists
Jon Epsteins Il desiderata
CHAPTER 10 Where Ideas Come From and How to Express Them Persuasively
The birth of an idea
Getting organised
Context is everything
Nationalities and social groups
Media vary; principles dont
How to build conviction
The nuts and bolts of good creative copy
Creativity in action
Two secret ingredients
CHAPTER 11 How to Make Your Creative Work Virtually Foolproof
Twenty-five pointers before you write a word or sketch a layout
Planning your creative treatment
Eleven uncreative (but tested) ways to make your layout work harder
Thirteen attention-grabbers
Tricks and techniques that keep people reading
Charity advertising: a special case
What to watch for in broadcast
Now that you think its perfect have you forgotten anything?
CHAPTER 12 How to Test and Evaluate Your Results
Testing: the first duty
Thirteen ways you can learn by testing
A fair test?
A true and proper record
What testing achieved for me
CHAPTER 13 Testing Versus Research and Other Matters
Tests that gained an account
Two laws of testing
Startling results
Nine testing opportunities
How much should you test? And when?
A famous case-history
CHAPTER 14 How to Choose Your Agency and When to Do Without One
Agency or not?
Speculative presentations
Organisation and procedure
Playing the field
How much you should pay
Money and talent
Try to understand the process
CHAPTER 15 Client and Agency: the Unequal Partnership
The impossible dream
Joy ride?
Two types of relationship
Where things go wrong and how to get them right
Other trouble spots
CHAPTER 16 The Future of Marketing: Ten Predictions and a Health Warning
Little more competence
Honesty
Full circle