The #1 thing holding your marketing and advertising back

I’m an adman, so you might expect this to be a rant about how clients need to take more chances and trust their agency or in-house creative teams. That’s a pretty common gripe among us creative types, after all. And truth be told, a lot of great ads do get watered down this way. But that’s not the biggest thing holding it back.

What’s really keeping marketers from their greatest success is the very way they think about marketing. There are debates raging all over the blogosphere about marketing media and disciplines. Above the line advertisers look down on direct response, while the direct marketers dismiss the former for lacking measurable results. It can get heated.

My best advice for writing direct marketing that works

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Getting people to take action, right now, without ever interacting with them face-to-face is really hard. In fact, a response rate of just 3% is considered a great result in many instances. Worst of all, we often make it even harder than it has to be.

That’s why what I’m about to share is my absolute best advice for writing direct marketing that works. If you follow this, you’ll get out of your own way, simplify the task at hand and improve your response rate.

So what is this magical pearl of wisdom?