Drayton Bird - Direct Marketing Advice from the UK’s #1 Copywriter. The Online Marketing Show Episode 097

Drayton Bird has been named by the chartered institute of marketing as one of 50 living individuals who have shaped today’s marketing. Other names included Philip Kotler, Tom Peters and Theodore Levitt.

Drayton is best-known as a direct marketing expert but has also worked in Advertising, Public Relations, Research and Telemarketing, Franchising and Experiential Marketing.

Advertising legend David Ogilvy said he “knows more about direct marketing than anyone else in the world” and that his speeches are “both educational and hilariously funny.”

Since he entered advertising in 1958, Drayton Bird has worked in 51 countries with many great brands. These include American Express, for whom he created a special marketing course for senior executives, British Airways, Cisco, Deutsche Post, Ford, Hargreaves Lansdown, IBM, McKinsey, Microsoft, Nestle, The Prudential, Philips, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever, Virgin and Visa.

His book, Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing, out in 17 languages, has been the UK’s best seller on the subject every year since 1982. He has written 4 other marketing books, including How to write a sales letter that sells, now in its 3^rd edition, and well over 1,000 columns for publications around the world.

Drayton says a good copywriter has a license to print money, so in this interview I ask him for tips on how to write great copy & succeed in direct marketing. He reveals…

* How branding differs from direct marketing

* Why even smalls businesses should build a brand

* Where to find mailing lists to rent

* Why you must have your own database or go broke

* How often we should be communicating with our database

* How long your copy should be

* The key to getting people reading & responding to your offer

* Why writing adverts in an editorial style can increase sales by up to 125%

* The style of copy that works better than anything else

* The reason why most people fail at marketing

* Why you need to give people the time & money to get results