“If I want you to build me a house, the best way to make you do so is simply to prove it’ll be worth your time.” How can I convince my JVs to add bonuses to their mailings? Well, there’s quite a few ways. But the most obvious and, as it happens, most effective, is to give them a good reason to do so. Isn’t the reason obvious? They add a bonus, they’re making a better offer, so they make more money. Duh. OK, maybe we need to go...

This is about psychology, and a quick way of using it to get more mailings for your launches. It’s a way of helping your top JVs feel invested and excited, and giving them something they want to fight for. It’s also what caused the top executives of an entire industry to suffer a fit of collective insanity that cost them £17 billion. This happened in the year 2000, when people still knew what Netscape was and the internet looked...

A few days ago, I delivered a talk at the UK Marketing Summit 2014, organised by Simon Warner, Michelle O’Callaghan and Richard Fairbairn. As it was the first time I’d ever given this talk, I was a bit worried about the reaction. It turned out better than I’d ever expected: So in a couple of days, I’m running a webinar of the same talk for everyone who couldn’t make it. The talk is all about value, and how you can...

In 1925, a man walked into the Hotel de Crillon, one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris. Five other men entered with him, but this man was the one who was special. This man would buy the Eiffel Tower. His name was Andre Poisson. He’d been invited to the Hotel de Crillon by the deputy-director of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, as a leading scrap metal merchant known for his honesty and discretion. After a short presentation,...

Ask any experienced marketer, and they’ll tell you ‘long copy outpulls short every time’. And usually, it does. But there’s a weird double-standard at the moment where the same people who will encourage you to make your copy as long as possible insist that your VSLs should be at most 4 minutes long, because ‘people don’t watch long videos’. And sometimes, ‘long’ copy can be remarkably short. ...