Video Marketing David Ogilvy Style

Thank you to Efrain for finding this superb video by David Ogilvy. I love the straight up no fuss way Ogilvy says it. I would also have to agree that if you substituted the words words "Direct Marketing" for "Online Marketing" although I would leave the "Direct Response" words in there to call David our Ambassador of Online Marketing.

Give this video to your branding colleagues for a laugh at least.

Inspiration is the cure for Depression

Inspiration is the cure for Depression

Persistence at something is how you achieve it. But every now again you feel a bit down and just get confused as to why you are persisting at what you are doing. I have found that at these times it will take something quite revolutionary to change this. Something will just snap you out of that feeling of being stuck in mud. Some people call it depression, but you might feel that is a bit of a strong word to attach to your feelings, so lets just say you are feeling depressed, but not clinically depressed that you are taking negative actions on yourself.

Inspiration cures depression
Personally I go in swings and round abouts, my mood goes from "Allan Bond unscrewing the America's Cup to hoist it above his head!" to "I might just go back to sleep even though I have been sleeping for 14 hours. At least I can ignore the telephone that way." Usually when I find myself in the down patches I know and can eventually self assess that I am a little depressed. Usually I am self aware and start asking myself, "Why are you feeling down?" As a logicaly person I can figure that out can't I. Sometimes I can, by sometimes, unfortunately, I just can't seem to figure it out. The logical side of me becomes stumped and I fall back into a shallow pool of waiting and passing time by. I consider myself quite a motivated person and when I see myself like that I get confused.

What I have realised is that when I feel a bit depressed, the best thing to do is to inject yourself with a bit of external motivation. Normally people who have done something amazing call it their "inspiration". If you are feeling down, get your hands on some material with some super powerful motivation in it. The thing about online marketing is that it can get lonely, sitting by yourself for 8 months can take the wind from your sails every now and again. Things can get really tough when you lose focus of your vision. This is where you need to make a little reboot.

5 ways to inspire yourself out of depression

1. Watch an inspirational movie - "The Last lecture", Randy Pausch was dying of pancreatic cancer and gave this speech on "How to achieve your childhood dreams." The twist at the end will get you.



Other inspirational movies: The Aviator, A beautiful mind and Fightclub.
2. Read an inspirational book - These are the books that inspired me to create Freestyle Media. Richard Branson's autobiography, John Singleton's autobiography "Singo" and the book "How to win friends and influence people" helped me get there. I have heard that "Get the edge" by Tony Robbins is good too.
3. Hang out with your grandparents - For some reason they can give you truths that you can't see at present and it will help give you clarity about the future.
4. Meet someone inspirational and talk to them - Sometimes I have spoken with people who I thought were gods, and they caused me to go home and double my efforts. Some of these people included: Michael Kiely, Wayne Kingston, Peter Steele and Jessica Schebesta.
5. Go back over old photos and notes - Reminiscing helps you see where you have been and gives you a point of reference on where you want to go.

The button that left $10,000 on the table

There is one key thing all webpages need that will make you thousands of dollars every time. Its something so simple but can make or break your campaigns. Let me tell you a story before I let you in on the $10,000 secret.

Would HP leave money on the table?
I have been researching computers recently and noticed on our friendly SmartCompany site a banner ad for HP. See below:

Latest banner ad campaign with pocket hard disk offer got me excited

Essentially you can get a Free 160GB pocket media drive for any order of a specific notebook or desktop. I clicked through and looked at the landing page to see what types of models this would come with. The page loaded up and I could see the offer presented nicely.

The HP landing page for the user to get details and purchase

Landing page of HP special offer
To be honest I wasn’t ready to buy because I wanted to see how much it would cost to ship so I decided I would add it to my cart and checkout till it calculated my shipping price. Unfortunately, HP left me hanging and didn’t give me a button to add it to my cart.

The secret revealed
So there is one button that prevented HP from making their sales. Just like HP have left money on the table do you have a money button on all pages?

Money buttons
Money buttons mean different things to users, its important to connect the action you want them to take with the text on the button. This plays into what convention has taught people and increases your conversion rate.

• Buy now – And easy action to take which also includes some time pressure.


• Apply now – Not everyone can join this particular item and instead you are required to apply.


• Free Instant Download – Get this whitepaper for free, immediately and straight to your computer. No need to wait for the boys at the snail mail factory.


• Book Now – There are quite a few people and tend to be limited places so you will need to register your interest. Usually a confirmation will come back after this.


• Apply online – Complete a form but do it online, there is no offline method to get this benefit.
  
  

Ads that lie

There are some ads out there that are offending me:



1. Sensis - Yellow pages - You are lying, people don't look at the yellow pages anymore. Tricking people into doing things just because that is how they have always done them is offensive. Companies are not going to lose any business from not advertising in the yellow pages. Instead, they are going to save $10,000.

2. Mother - Coca Cola - You lied to us before because your product tasted like crap. Now you want us to believe that you have fixed it. Why should we believe you?

3. Which ads are giving you grief?

Too aggressive

I have a phrase that I use when I want to describe something as a little over the top and a little bit challenging to people. Generally if you are doing something and you are described as too aggressive its a good thing.

Examples:

• If you found a way to send out 1,000,000 emails for the same price as sending 100, thats too aggressive.
• Americans are too aggressive when they do sales pitches.
• Time Life daytime "old music" repackaged up and sold as classics is too aggressive with the words they use to describe the product.
  
• If someone cuts in the line at the bank when you wanted to bank a cheque just because they didn't consider you, that's too aggressive.
• For girls they would prefer to be described as being assertive as opposed to aggressive.
  
• If you go to someones house and do something a little offensive, like spill something on their couch that they just bought, that's too aggressive.
  

You get the idea.

Let me tell you now whats too aggressive in online marketing.

Spending more money on your PPC than on your SEO is too aggressive.

Investing in SEO is like putting money into a savings account. Sure the interest is small at first, but if you get enough cash in there, you can pull in some serious dollars.

Just investing in PPC is like spending all of your pay cheque and not saving a single cent. (too aggressive)

My advice, get the SEO book. Aaron Wall is a golden SEO'r who can actually write down the techniques. I knew SEO and I bought it because I wanted more traffic. I got it, read it and now dominate. Buy it, read it over time, implement the techniques and save $10,000 in SEO fees that some consultant will charge you.

It will help you generate new ideas for campaigns, build a robost SEO site, fix problems with your rankings to get more traffic and actually help you understand technical things that most of us don't get.

P.S. The ADMA Forum campaign at present is too aggressive. Sex sells, but I don't want to pick that thing up at work, what are my colleagues going to think? I reckon a simple up the centre, "ADMA Forum, Make your DM pull better, June 25 - 27th 2008, Sydney Convention Centre. Register Now" would work better. The die hards will already go, they just need to know when it is. Spare me your creative mumbo jumbo just give me a simple benefit with some golden copy for this one, the authority is al.

Rob Edwards, if your reading this, invite me to speak and I will help you get some more bums on seats.

Online Marketing Traffic Formula Fred Schebesta

This presentation will help you get new traffic to your website.

Its all aboutYou - Done well!

This Advertisement Just Rocks

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If Gen Y are all about me me me. Then this ad delivers it! Made me want to get out there and kick some ass!