Goldmine Marketing

Tag: Dan Kennedy

  • Watered Down Whiskey

    2:32pm
    Saint Paul

    “Speaking of watered-down advertising, which is one of my phobias, I am reminded of the words of a wise old Scott: ‘If it were the proper thing to water whiskey, they’d have done it that way at the distillery.’”
    ——Communications of an Advertising Man, by Leo Burnett

    Ads that don’t stand out don’t get attention.

    And an ad that doesn’t get attention doesn’t sell.

    And an ad that doesn’t sell?

    What’s the point?

    We’re surrounded by noise. The world gets noisier by the minute. Which means your ads have to stand out if you want them to be effective.

    Yesterday I ran two ads that went to a partner’s landing page.

    One was a typical ad. It has human faces (always a draw) and a bright orangish color. And it pulled roughly 0.23%.

    The second?

    (more…)

  • Upstream Marketing Knowledge On The Cheap

    2:13pm
    Saint Paul

    Hot deal alert!

    …Once from the stage, I asked an audience of marketers who knew Dan Kennedy’s name.

    Not a single hand went up.

    Fact is, almost every marketer around today has been influenced by Kennedy’s work –– and many don’t even know it.

    It’s hard to get more “upstream” than Dan Kennedy, with the breadth and depth of knowledge he offers.

    I signed up for Kennedy’s No B.S. Newsletter a few years ago, which is marketing gold for $97 per month.

    And it came with a huge box of bonus material –– too much to reasonably go through.

    (If you’re on Dan Kennedy’s email list, you’ll see the same thing:

    So many bonuses that it’s almost a turn-off from making a purchase. Because if you need all that to implement… who has time?)

    Luckily, Dan’s printed newsletter stands on its own.

    So do his books, which I highly recommend. (Find my summary of The Ultimate Sales Letter here.)

    And his recorded seminars, like Personality in Copy that I recently discussed with Lawrence Bernstein, are also worth listening to multiple times. That one ran something like a grand to get a hold of… on sale.

    Which makes this Big Deal of the Day a really BIG deal indeed:

    (more…)

  • Restaurant Marketing 101… in Action!

    2:24pm
    Saint Paul

    When a new restaurant opens, marketing genius Dan Kennedy suggests parking cars in the lot to make the restaurant appear busy.

    (And move the cars around, too, or it gets obvious.)

    Because when we’re not sure what to do, we tend to follow the example of others.

    If others are visiting a restaurant, we might go in. Or remember it for later.

    But if no one is there? Why chance it?

    Maybe you’ve heard this story:

    (more…)

  • Doberman Dan: Win the Long Game (Persuasion Play Podcast #015)

    10:05am
    Saint Paul

    Serious students of direct response copywriting know the name Doberman Dan.

    Dan started selling bodybuilding guides and supplements in the 1990s as a way to find freedom from his J-O-B as a police officer.

    That financial freedom didn’t come quickly, though.

    It took Dan some 9 failed businesses before he asked himself,

    “Why did I buy THAT thang?”

    …and then used the answer to build his own successful business.

    Doberman Dan was gracious enough to sit with me and share his story—and a few secrets—for this episode of the Persuasion Play Podcast.

    (more…)

  • Brand-Ego lessons from the White House

    11:48am Saturday
    Saint Paul, Minn

    Recently there have been memes* floating around the web of Vice President J.D. Vance’s face superimposed on all kinds of popular images.

    (*when I used “meme” as a Scrabble word some 15 years ago, having read it in Howard Bloom’s The Lucifer Principle, other players were unfamiliar with the concept of self-spreading ideas. They disqualified the word, and ended my turn. Anyways…)

    Maybe you’ve seen these Vance memes. Vance as George Washington. Vance as a character from Game of Thrones. And more.

    Both his supporters and detractors have been posting the images.

    J.D. Vance himself says the memes don’t bother him, and I read somewhere that because he was once a Marine, he can take some good-natured ribbing.

    This is great anti-branding and has a valuable lesson for direct response marketing, if you ask me.

    Let me explain.

    (more…)

  • Unwelcome Guest

    7:40am
    Saint Paul

    Bang bang bang!

    Bark bark bark!

    “What kind of dog is that?” the rooftop solar salesman asked through the door.

    Bark bark bark!

    Sigh.

    “Hi, good evening,” I said. “We’ve discussed solar panels. We’re not interested.” (Bark bark bark!) “Can’t talk, I’m in the middle of my kids’ bedtime…”

    Bark bark bark!

    “What kind of dog is that?”

    Bark bark bark!

    Sigh…

    Dan Kennedy–marketer extraordinaire–has this story of him working, head down, getting things done…

    When there’s a loud banging on his door that just won’t quit.

    (more…)

  • The Best Direct Response Ideas… for Just 10 Bucks!

    3:02pm
    Saint Paul

    When I spoke at a marketing conference last year, I asked if people were familiar with Dan Kennedy.

    Not a single person in my audience raised their hand.

    Which only sorta surprised me.

    Kennedy is a direct response marketer, through and through. He’s got a ton of business ideas, too–many of which go against the grain of modern business and marketing.

    That’s attractive to me.

    (more…)

  • 7 things you’ll learn in Dan Kennedy’s “The Ultimate Sales Letter”

    10:20pm

    Saint Paul

    I was browsing my bookshelf the other night, looking for something to start.

    (I have more unfinished books than I have fully-read books. Not every book is worth finishing, I’ve learned… though many I plan to return to… I think…)

    Now, I noticed my slightly neglected Dan Kennedy section. Dan is a prolific and accomplished copywriter and businessman who has recently fallen ill.

    I pulled down my worn copy of The Ultimate Sales Letter and (more…)

  • Operating at the Next Level

    No B.S. — this guy has been huge.

    6:14am
    Saint Paul

    I broke a rule and read some email this morning.

    (usually I try to skip the email, otherwise I get pulled into a rabbit hole)

    I immediately opened a letter from PRL Podcast guest Matt Rizvi.

    And what I read… was some sad news. (more…)