Personally I am not sure I want too much interest in creativity from government, but still, it is nice to be recognised as actually existing.

Addressing delegates at the ISBA conference in London on 18 March the shadow culture minister Ed Vaizey has said the self regulatory system administered by the Advertising Standards Authority is working well and there is no need to change it.

The shadow minister also assured marketers that the Conservative response to the “emotive” issue of marketing to children would be considered.

This is utterly different from the speeches of David Cameron who has recently called on marketers and broadcasters to “think about the messages that you’re putting out to our children” and aggressively attacked what he called the “offensive marketing tactics” used by some companies. He has demanded new arrangements allowing parents to protest against adverts more easily.

Cameron’s view to me seems to be in line with the long term demonisation of people who write adverts – I get the feeling we are seen as some sort of horned beast skulking in the corner, saliva dripping from fangs, forcing unsuspecting ordinary folk to buy stuff.

Except if a creative person writes a party political ad.

And I am not myself being party political here. I’ve never seen a broad understanding of creative advertising within any party.

Which is probably why no one has ever asked me to contribute to a political campaign – but I have written a lot of other things. If you’d like me to review anything you are putting out, and have a jolly chat on the phone, give me a call. 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Ten things you must do to get good marketing results….

1. All marketing must be exciting and interesting to read. Look at anything, read the first line, and think, would I, as an outsider, bother to keep reading when I have another 100 emails in my inbox?

2. Always write about the reader and the benefits to him her, or about things that will interest the reader. Never about you.

3. Consider why a customer should buy this product from you, rather than someone else.

4. Consider why the customer needs this product and reflect that.

5. Write regularly – if your writing is really good people will want to read it. If it isn’t there is nowhere to hide. Nothing compensates for poor writing – people will delete within a second.

6. Use the best lists possible which go directly to the person you want to reach. If such a list is not available, research it – it will be worth its weight in gold.

7.. If emailing ensure that you have a facility for instant auto unsubscribe for readers. And then constantly improve the quality of the writing so they don’t unsubscribe.

8. Know what your competitors do, and make sure you are different.

9. Always ensure that you are applying the laws of the psychology of perception. If you have not heard of this start with http://www.theory.bz/factors.html – not every article is on this topic, but even those that are not are still interesting.

10. Measure the results. Measure the open rate, the click through rate and the purchase rate. Note the problem and improve that area. Then do it again and again.

A few months ago I published a novel about my favourite football team. It is set in 1910 – the year in which they went bust. (Fortunately they did recover, and came back to greater glories later).

Faced with the problem of getting publicity for the book, I set up a Google Alert so that every time someone mentions the name of that team in a blog etc, I get an email, and can go and look at the article.

Of course I get a load of false leads (people using the name but not talking about the club), but a lot of them come up good – and about two or three times a day I can get onto a site (be it a national newspaper or an individual writing his/her own blog) which talks about this football club in the past.

Since blogs generally include a comments section, I go in, and add some information that the writer of the original didn’t have, and then say, “there’s more about this in my book”. I then tell them the title and how to buy it.

So each day, my book gets another few mentions on the internet, and my website gets the same. As a result a few more people buy the book. But better, the web site address for the book gets established further and further – and since readers of each of these sites is there because of an interest in the club in the first place, the awareness grows.

The key point to remember here is that all this is cumulative. If four people get notes about my book today, then by the end of the week I might have 20 items up. Those items stay there and can be found by anyone next week and the week after. After a year there might be a couple of hundred extra mentions.

That will have the effect of improving the ranking of the web site on the internet, and some of those mentions will be seen by others who will pass them on to friends…

Now some people say that this is a ludicrous approach since it is so expensive. In fact, in terms of its effectiveness it has been proven to be about one tenth of the cost of Google Adwords.

If you would like to talk to me further about this sort of approach, give me a call on 01536 399 013 or alternatively email Tony@hamilton-house.com

a) Text
b) Pictures
c) Content

Indeed it all looks so simple put like that, but in fact these simple facts can and do trip people up very regularly.

Text represents not only the flow of the text, plus the exciting and stimulating use of the language, but also the avoidance of words and phrases that will send the email into filter systems or worse, reduce the chance of your next round of emails actually arriving.

Clearly the words that can’t be used vary from context to context. In its simplest form the word “Free” can cause difficulties, so can mentioning the name of the Schools Secretary (Ed Balls). Discussions on the anniversary of the abolition of slavery often came unstuck with any reference to selling children into “slavery and bondage”.

Moving into other areas we have the case of the dance club that changed its name from Ceroc Central to Ceroc Passion (they speak of themselves as being passionate about dance, just as Odeon cinemas are passionate about film) – which has led to a number of club members not receiving emails announcing dances and venue changes.

Curiously the word “sex” doesn’t seem to set off too many alarms – even in schools – but a lot a pharmaceuticals (and even the word “pharmaceutical” itself) can cause problems. I have no idea if anyone does sell Viagra legitimately on the internet, but if they do, I can’t think how they get the advertising through.

Moving on, pictures are also a real problem. People stopped putting pictures into emails (known generally as embedding) when it became clear that interception software was stopping a lot of emails with pictures being delivered. There is also the problem of speed of transmission – a small picture (such as a logo) might increase the size of an email from 50kb to 1500kb – nothing to notice.

But that does mean you are using up 50 times the amount of space in sending the emails – and if you are sending out a lot that can well mean you will be running a lot more slowly – and will get a lot more rejections.

The alternative approach to pictures embedded in text is the approach which has the picture resident on a hard drive. The client needs to click on a bar to activate the picture.

The problem here is that (depending on the setting of the software) all the reader will see is a blank screen (possibly with a little red x in one corner). Not a very good way to start the advert, when the customer typically will only give on one second before deleting.

The simple answer is to avoid pictures, and instead put all your effort into writing brilliant text, which forces the reader to click on the link to the web page.

And that fact tells you why most firms go for pictures – they don’t have the skill to write exciting text.

Which brings me on to content.

How you write an email is as important as how you write direct mail. Sadly, many firms just sit down and write a sales piece without any proper thought. And so they get poor results.

Just read the first three lines of any email advert that arrives in your in box, and I suspect you will see exactly what I mean.

Some firms specialise in getting emails out to the recipient – and of course that is important. But it is equally important to ensure that the email is received, and read.

If you would like to talk more about sending out emails and getting sales from them, give me a call on 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

On the one had there is the exciting creative stuff (the clever turn of phrase, the twist that takes the reader to one place when he/she thought you were going somewhere else, and so on…)

On the other hand there is the technical stuff that relates to the way the system works and the way the psychology of perception means that our brains process the piece.

Let me take just one example of this latter point

When I write a sales letter I occasionally use bold to highlight the first few words of a paragraph – but I never use bold for individual words or phrases within a paragraph.

The reason why the bold words and phrases within a letter or email don’t work – and in fact are counter productive is complex but has to do with the way the brain skims through text looking from the left while subliminally taking in what is on the right. Putting bold in the middle of the text ruins this flow, and reduces readership.

These technical bits of information are boring and dull, but they make a huge difference, and I have found over the years that time and again really exciting sales pieces have been destroyed in this way.

Why the positioning of bold is so important is not intuitive – which is why so many people do get it wrong. Indeed I have some clients who take my copy and change it to incorporate bold within the text, even though I plead with them not to, on the basis that they have seen other firms do it so it must be right.

So, my gentle word of warning is:

a) If you want to make a sale you have to write stunning, exciting and exhilarating copy, which grabs the reader by the throat, and

b) You have to abide by the findings of studies in the psychology of perception.

If you would like me to look at any email or direct mail that you have sent out or are thinking of sending out, please do send it through to Tony@hamilton-house.com and I’ll give you a call back to tell you what I think. No obligation, no charge.

Tony Attwood
01536 399 000

This happens in two ways – which are themselves complex – which I suppose is one reason why the use of pictures in emails continues. Intuitively it seems a good idea, and the reasons why it is not are complicated.

We work on hundreds of email campaigns a month and I can say definitively that the response rate of each has nothing to do with the pictures or lack of them – except that as a generality emails with pictures tend to do worse.

Indeed pictures can in fact harm your response rates – for two reasons.

First, the way pictures are presented in emails causes problems. If you want a picture in an email you have two ways of putting it in. Either you can embed the picture or you can web link the picture.

Embedding the picture means you drop the image into the email, so it is permanently there. The problem with this is it will slow down the loading of the email, and some email systems will be set up to reject emails of above a certain size.

Web link pictures are not in the email at all – but are on a web site. The reader normally can’t see the pictures until he/she clicks on a button at the top of the email to reveal them. This also allows the sender to track an open rate.

The problem is that when the recipient first sees the email it can look blank – because the pics can’t be seen (apart sometimes from a little red x at the top of the box). This hardly encourages people to read on – given that they only look at each email for one second before deleting.

The second reason that pictures cause problems in emails is that pictures are “read” by the right hemisphere of the brain. Text is read by the left hemisphere. Although the brain is a fairly nifty bit of kit, the one thing it doesn’t like doing is switching from left to right hemispheres – this requires a lot of extra brain power being used. And the one thing people don’t hand out willingly is the use of their brain when they are trying to get rid of their emails at high speed.

If you buy a magazine that you are committed to reading you will of course put a lot of brain power into reading the magazine – and the pictures will enliven the text. But this is not the case with an email you send out.

So that’s the problem: people don’t “read” emails in a way that makes pictures plus text work readily together, and when you do put pictures into emails they can cause problems themselves – either by being rejected straight off or because they give white space until the reader clicks.

Why then do people really continue to use pictures?

There is a belief that pictures work, just because people believe pictures work. But also, the fact is pictures are an easy way out – because it is easier to plonk in a picture rather than find a good piece of text which excites the reader.

Pictures can be of use, of course, but they should be put on the landing page of the web site. This overcomes all the problems – a person who clicks through is by then willing to give more brain power to the issue (they have CHOSEN to look at the web site) and there should be no loading problems – no blank areas etc.

If you would like to talk about this, please do give me a call on 01536 399 013, or email me at Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

This was shown in a Southwest Airlines case when a celeb was asked to leave a flight because of his size. Each side told their tale on Twitter.

But then they moved on to blogs, where much more of the story could be told.

Yet despite the obvious advantage of unlimited space that blogs give, most commentators agree that blogs are underused, or wrongly used.

Blogging about your products and services is one of the most powerful marketing tools that is utterly under your control, and which can reach a huge audience. (As you may have heard me tell before, the blog I set up 2 years ago to find out how to do it, now has an audience of 170,000 readers a month.)

What’s more if you build the blog around targeted keyword phrases, that page becomes an authoritative page in Google that can very easily be found in the top search results by those searching.

Of course not just any content will do. Something quirky and slightly amusing, and above all interesting and easy to read works best.

If you would like to see some samples, drop me a line or give me a call

Tony Attwood, 01536 399 013

2. Write well. Not everyone can write in a way that engages readers. Just doing it yourself if you are not a professional writer with a clear style, doesn’t help, because people will read a bit and then leave. The material you put up has to be to the point and well written. Don’t assume that people will read all your material – they will treat it like anything else. If it is not clear, lucid and to the point they go.

3. Don’t just copy all the latest internet ideas. Some audiences go for snappy headlines, click throughs, and pictures, but others want clear information. Decide if you are writing to a reader of the Sun or a reader of the Guardian.

4. Give the reader the chance to find you on every page by having your email, phone, fax and postal address everywhere.

5. Create more and more articles which include the words that people are likely to search for, and then give them the answers in a meaningful way.

If you want that summarised into one simple concept: write a lot about everything you sell in an informative and open way. That way people will find you with searches and you will go up the rankings.

If you would like to talk about this do give me a call on 01536 399 013 or email Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

For me, the worst type of sales pitch is the one that begins

“XYZ Ltd supplies….”

Or, “XYZ has been in the business of supplying the computer industry for 25 years…”

My reaction to such letters is “so what?”

Sales letters, emails and the rest should always begin with an issue that is of major concern to the reader, not something that boasts about how good you are.

One great start is, “One of the biggest problems facing our industry today appears to be xxxx. Many solutions have been put forward, but I particularly like the approach that…”

That’s hardly a perfect sales letter, but it gives the idea, I think.

If you would like me to have a look at anything you have written, or if you would like to discuss the writing of sales letters, emails or blogs for your company please do get in touch.

Tony Attwood Tony@hamilton-house.com
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd Phone 01536 399 000.

Indeed, so underused is this email list that it is often ignored completely.

The list I have in mind consists of three groups of people:

1. The people who have bought from you in the past year or two

2. The people who have enquired of you, even though they have not bought. (These might be people who have asked for a quote or have simply emailed in to ask about a product).

3. The people who have clicked through from an email onto your website.

If you can put a list of these people together, and add to the list regularly, then you have in place the most responsive list imaginable.

Of course, certain safeguards have to be built in. If you are using email you need to ensure that there is an automatic opt-out process that works, and that the same address doesn’t appear twice on the list.

But with these built in you can set up your list of existing enquirers, and then keep adding to it. Occasionally you can do an advert to a cold list, and pick up all the people who clicked through from your advert to your website.

The only other issue is, what do you say to them? The best answer is to try and find a topic that not only advertises your services but is also interesting to read. Something of benefit to the client in fact.

If you would like an example or two, give me a call and I will talk through with you what could be done and send you an example of how I have written such pieces in the past. Although I would stress, the service can operate without my input as a writer.

The prices when using this approach via email are very modest, and the response rates can be very good indeed. I’m not putting the prices in here because there are all sorts of variations in this type of work, so we tend to quote each one individually, but I can promise that you will be reaching potential customers for under 1p each, including all the above services, and sending the emails out.

If you are interested please call me or one of my colleagues on 01536 399 000, or email me details of your requirements and I will give you a quote.

Tony@hamilton-house.com