The Marketing “Secret” it Took Me Over a Decade to Fully Understand
Back when I was in college, I spent two summers (and two winters) working as an intern for MBNA America. MBNA was a massive credit card company – specializing in affinity cards – whose headquarters were located in Ogletown, Delaware in the early 1990s. At the time,the company was massive, and growing rapidly…and it would […]
The Simplest, Most Critical Test to Perform on All of Your Marketing Copy
My early days in the direct marketing industry provided an amazing education. In just a few months’ time in the “real world” I learned more than my four-year business degree could ever offer in terms of business success. Of course, it was a highly specialized education that I was getting – in the world of […]
Secrecy or Collaboration: Why Sharing Valuable Business Lessons Can Be So Important
In any business environment, there is a natural tendency to closely guard your most valuable revenue-generating secrets. But that isn’t always the best – or most productive – policy. That’s something I learned early on in my career in direct marketing. Like most who were new to the direct marketing industry, I was stunned when […]
Always Listen to the Market: Why It’s OK to Be Wrong…So Long As You Let the Market Have the Final Say
“It seems like a waste of time. No one is making any money selling information on the internet.” Those were the words of my boss – the owner of a Baltimore-based information publishing company and one of the smartest, most business-savvy people I’ve ever met – back in 1996 or 1997. He was absolutely convinced […]
3 Simple — Yet Powerful — Rules to Dramatically Increase Your Email Open Rates
Email marketers know this reality: Your open rates hold the key to success for any promotion. After all, if your prospects aren’t opening your message, then they aren’t clicking… And they certainly aren’t ordering. So what’s the simplest, most effective way to consistently generate great open rates? Write great subject lines. Here are three easy-to-follow rules for writing […]
There’s Nothing Like an Argument to Spark Great Marketing Ideas
No matter if you’re a marketing director, publisher, product developer or copywriter…one of the most important tasks you face every day is coming up with the next great idea. And there’s no shortage of advice out there on how to do this. There have been books written about it. Articles in trade publications. Blog post […]
The Power of Audacity in Marketing
Many years ago – way back in the mid-1990s, in fact – I found myself very much in the right place at the right time for learning valuable marketing lessons. I had just landed a job managing “ancillary sales” for Agora’s financial newsletter division. For the most part, this was to involve lining up advertisers […]
Blood in the Streets: How I Learned the Power of Fear-Based Promotions From Some of the Best in the Business
One of the first lessons I learned in the early days of my career is that direct marketing success is not all about greed. My instincts as a young marketer were to focus on the sales pitches that were greed-oriented. Huge claims…astounding profits…”think of the luxurious lifestyle you’ll live if you just buy this newsletter.” […]
Creating Irresistible Offer Copy to Dramatically Boost Response
So many of the up-and-coming copywriters I’ve worked with have admitted to me that one of the most critical components of any sales piece is almost an afterthought. In some cases, they hastily put it together after they’ve spent most of their time tinkering with the headline and lead… While in other cases they’re more […]
3 Things You Can Do — Today — to Help Your Marketing Campaigns Thrive Even in a Difficult Market
Since March of 2020, things have not been easy – or normal – in any way for marketers. Actually…things haven’t much been normal for anyone come to think of it. After dealing with a deadly global pandemic we’re now in the midst of a highly volatile market on the United States thanks in large part […]
