How relevant is David Ogilvy today?

11 years ago

I've been through what you're going through now. I'm learning to charge more money and delegate(outsource.) Getting paid more is a great cure for distraction.

Many of Ogilvy's principles are still relevant --

"David Ogilvy's principles, in particular, that the function of advertising is to sell and that successful advertising for any product is based on information about its consumer."

Even with all of these "new fangled" ways to market, it takes a blend of the old(direct mail, print ads, etc) and new(PPC, websites, SEO, etc.) to have a successful marketing campaign.

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TeamBringIt

11 years ago

Originally Posted by mattpaul2000

How's it going Guys?

I have had a profanity of a week. My client's sales are static and I seem to be stuck in a world of web design and Social Media.

So, am I being distracted by "the shiny objects".

In a very thoughtful mood, how relevant do you think David Ogilvy is today?

I think, with online, giving you such a great outlet for Direct Marketing.

So, what do you think, I am getting distracted with everything or should I go back to basics with Ogilvy.

Best Regards

Matt

Let me put it to you this way, the stuff he wrote and caples and schwab , claude c hopkins, E. schwartz and many top copywriters and advertisers of yesterday....are as relevant today..as they were yesterday. These people wrote books on the material/stimulus, that make humans tick and take action. These books and materials have been around for over 100-200 years and they will not go away anytime soon.

As a direct marketer, you NEED to read such books and by doing this you gain the advantage over the competition. I have a library of probably 20-30 of these books (some out of print) and all of them, have tons of value in them!

Get the books and read em and use em, in your offline/direct mail campaigns.

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AndrewCavanagh

11 years ago

Originally Posted by mattpaul2000

So, am I being distracted by "the shiny objects".

In a very thoughtful mood, how relevant do you think David Ogilvy is today?

If you ask the question how relevant David Ogilvy is today
then you're definitely getting distracted by shiny objects.

Ogilvy taught direct response marketing (tracking results
from your advertising and marketing to make sure they
were making you a profit).

And he taught basics like getting to know your prospects,
good headlines, intriguing copy etc etc.

Those basics have been around since selling started
thousands of years ago (just in the spoken word instead
of the written word) and I expect they'll be around
100 years from now.

I always laugh when people ask the question "Is this
working today?" and think to myself "what are you
talking about?"

Marketing foundations don't change.

Strategies and techniques change...foundations don't.

If you're asking the question then you need to go
back and ground yourself in the foundations of
marketing.

They'll give you a framework to hang all your strategies
on and dramatically increase your chances of having some
kind of out of the box breakthrough because you'll know
what you're looking for in any different strategy and you'll
see things others are overlooking.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

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iAmNameLess

11 years ago

Originally Posted by mattpaul2000

In a very thoughtful mood, how relevant do you think David Ogilvy is today?

At the risk of sounding like a jackass.... who?

Originally Posted by TeamBringIt

Let me put it to you this way, the stuff he wrote and caples and schwab , claude c hopkins, E. schwartz and many top copywriters and advertisers of yesterday....are as relevant today..as they were yesterday.

Again... who? I think I heard Schwartz before, but could be something else.

To be honest, I never got into the whole whos who of marketing, marketing authors, etc. The best books that have prepared be for business, Art of War, The Prince, and I really enjoy Awaken the Giant Within, which I never even knew who tony robbins was until people were talking about him on this forum.

I'm a big fan of looking at the real world and seeing what works and what doesn't. I've read a few sales books here and there and I feel like it is just an officially published WSO on steroids... I never really got much from it. I love to read, but a lot of books like this just don't do much for me.

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xlfutur1

11 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

At the risk of sounding like a jackass.... who?

Again... who? I think I heard Schwartz before, but could be something else.

To be honest, I never got into the whole whos who of marketing, marketing authors, etc. The best books that have prepared be for business, Art of War, The Prince, and I really enjoy Awaken the Giant Within, which I never even knew who tony robbins was until people were talking about him on this forum.

I'm a big fan of looking at the real world and seeing what works and what doesn't. I've read a few sales books here and there and I feel like it is just an officially published WSO on steroids... I never really got much from it. I love to read, but a lot of books like this just don't do much for me.

Caples, Kennedy, Abraham, Schwab, Sugarman, Collier, etc....all of these guys were proven direct marketers and most made millions from their letters and ads.

While it is important to look at the "real world" and what works now, these guys proved certain principles that work based on human nature and how people think. The techniques they used will be valid for a long, long time.

Another recent guy to learn from is Robert B. Cialdini. His books are based on proven concepts and they can be used in all sorts of communications with prospects.

Case in point....I have a current client that now pays me thousands of dollars per year for a variety of services I provide for them. I acquired that client from one 3-page direct mail letter. Total investment was a first class stamp. I never would have written that letter without reading and studying books from the above authors. Do what works, but you can't discount the success of other great marketers from the past.

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ewenmack 11 years ago

Fundamental marketing principles
are totally applicable today.

What if you are in a very competitive market such as pure SEO?

Well you draw on what you learnt from Positioning,
Differentiate Or Die and Breakthrough Advertising.

The same would apply if you were in carpet cleaning.

You would take yourself out of the carpet cleaning market
and go into bug removal and healthy homes.

If you were selling cakes of soap and all manufacturers were advertising
how well it cleans, you move it over into the beauty market and tout it's
skin benefits.

Without that knowledge from just those 3 books
you'd be left slugging it out against bigger and badder opposition
with deeper pockets.

Not knowing what you don't know is what's expensive,
not the classic books on marketing.

Best,
Ewen
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AndrewCavanagh

11 years ago

Originally Posted by iAmNameLess

At the risk of sounding like a jackass.... who?

There's a very old saying "those who forget the past are condemned to
repeat it."

Probably even more important "those who never study the people who have
come before them are likely to make the same expensive bone headed
mistakes."

As you get a little older and look at things with the objectivity decades of
experience brings you see a pattern.

The guys who take that little extra time to really understand the foundations
of their industry...where it came from...how people have succeeded and
crashed and burnt in the past...

Those are the guys who have longevity in the industry.

I've seen so many marketers come and go because they got good at one
thing that they really should have known was never going to last.

Instead of making the most of it but planning for the business to change
they imploded when what they knew stopped working.

The guys who were expecting what they were doing now to become
obsolete and were grounding their actions in good marketing foundations
keep getting stronger and stronger.

The only enduring business is the business of change.

So understanding what people have done in the past gives you insights
as to why the hottest new thing is working and why it's likely to stop
working.

David Ogilvy was a fantastic direct marketer and copywriter.

He was probably most famous for writing the Rolls Royce ad
"‘At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce
comes from the electric clock."

You can almost certainly pick up some of his books in your
local library.

I don't know if you've heard of them but libraries
are filled with these special information transmitters made of
paper.

You run your eyes over a code in these information transmitters
and that code is transmitted instantly to your brain.

You can have information from some of the greatest marketers
in history transmitted straight to your brain!!

Better still libraries will let you take these information transmitters
home...completely FREE!

One of David Ogilvy's ads can teach you more about copy than many
copywriters know...
http://advertising8.com/h/how-to-cre...at-sells-w4203

Always be open to learning.

If you're not business will teach you lessons you really don't
want to take.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

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iAmNameLess

11 years ago

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

There's a very old saying "those who forget the past are condemned to
repeat it."

Probably even more important "those who never study the people who have
come before them are likely to make the same expensive bone headed
mistakes."

Always be open to learning.

If you're not business will teach you lessons you really don't
want to take.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
John F. Kennedy

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Thomas Jefferson

I'm definitely open to learning, but I always see people name off these famous marketers when it comes to this or that and I feel it is irrelevant. If you want to be the next Dan Kennedy, or the next whoever, good, good for you and I don't mind that but I'm me and that's exactly who I am and will be.

I love learning... I love reading, but rarely have I ever read a book that really spoke to me when it comes to marketing, sales or advertising. For business, some very classic books like the art of war, and the prince, have taught me more than I think I will ever learn from a marketing/sales/copy/advertising book.

I prefer to learn by testing real action. What works for you, or anyone else, doesn't make a difference to me if it isn't working for me.

I think people become polluted. Their minds are polluted with guides, steps, answers from big shots, and they think that's enough. It isn't.

I'm sure you guys can learn a lot from people mentioned in this thread, but it just never really makes sense to me. Understanding human emotion? I'd rather read books on psychology than marketing lol.

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TeamBringIt

11 years ago

Tons of famous/successful IMers were direct response marketers first and then dove into IM. Reading books from successful copywriters/advertisers/businessmen-women holds the same wisdom, today..as it did 50-200 years ago. Human emotions/psychology does not change.

Understanding human emotions, is what make one an... awesome salesperson/marketer. Get some, classic books on Direct mail/copywriting/advertising and you can take your business/profits to the next level...

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mattpaul2000

11 years ago

This is an awesome discussion Guy's.

Just finished reading it back.

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garyk1968

11 years ago

Its human psychology that remains unchanged and writing good headlines and copy is about attracting attention and the methods for doing that are the same now as they were when Robert Collier was writing in the 1930s.

Gary

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