You’ve planned great media.
You’ve dug deep in the data.
Listened to your audience.
Hammered down prices.
Explored AI.
What’s left?
Your creative can make a bigger difference to the performance of your marketing than media, data, research or even AI.
‘Content is king’.
What story will engage your audience? What's going to inspire them to take action? Are the words and images doing heavy lifting or do they just look nice?
In a world filling with slop, marketers who spend as much time and effort getting the creative right as they do with media and data are the ones who win.
But getting it right is not just an art. It’s a science. It’s a lot more than clever ideas and obedience to brand guidelines.
Performance creative uses tried and tested techniques that give surprising improvements in results.
The techniques are tough and often counter-intuitive. They’re born from years of testing and experience, doing the hardest job any marketing activity has to achieve: getting people to actually do something, not just feel good.
The numbers are the final judge of the creative. And if your organisation looks at its marketing spend as an investment demanding a tangible return, I'd be happy to help.
I’m fundamentally a copywriter. But I’ve always looked beyond the copy. What’s the overriding proposition? What do you want your audience to do? Why should they do it? What response rate do you need to make your ROI work?
I can work with your marketing team or your agency to help them develop the story/proposition/appeal/offer that’s most likely to produce better performance. I can do this collaboratively in workshops or creative sessions, or I can come back with detailed recommendations.
I can review existing creative. Again, this can be an open forum or a more discreet session. I’d look at your creative to see what could be done to improve the results.
And I can develop new creative for you.
I'm happy to talk about payment-by-results; and for fundraisers I offer a discounted rate.
Direct mail remains one of the most powerful channels available. It’s a speciality of mine: particularly cold acquisition. I can help with not just the creative, but also all the other aspects.
There are a number of innovative techniques being used in the US and Europe – especially in fundraising – that are having some remarkable impacts and I can introduce you to some radical thinking.
Data and analytics are central to delivering effective direct mail and door drop campaigns. Working with experienced colleagues I can help with advanced targeting techniques to identify and reach your ideal audience, whether through named individuals, households, or carefully selected geographic areas that match your key customer profiles.
I can also help analyse campaign performance, identify the factors driving response, and provide insights that improve future targeting, creative strategy, and return on investment.
And I can advise on print and production. With ipostage costs being so high, I work with leading UK mailing houses to help create cost effective formats that take advantage of the best postal deals...including partially addressed mail.
I have worked with colleagues to develop some of the most successful DRTV campaigns ever – especially for fundraisers. With other highly experienced professionals I can help develop the creative, the production and the media, for first time users or for organisations who need to improve their DRTV results.
Donating via digital has become an increasingly important part of getting response, from mail, DRTV as well as the digital channels. As non-exec Chair of goDonate – the leading UK digital donation platform – I can help integrate the digital journey with the initial creative, maximising the income from your campaign.
I’ve worked in fundraising, in financial services, in wine and food, in collectibles, in travel and in publishing. I've done a lot of cold and warm direct mail, as well as DRTV and press advertising.
I've tried to distill some of the things I've learned about getting better results. They're not really rules, golden or otherwise, but maybe these ramblings might might help you take a fresh look at how your creative could work better.
After working as a copywriter in various ‘above-the-line’ agencies I discovered the joy of writing ads that actually got real results instead of an uptick on a research report. We'd run an ad on Sunday and by Wednesday we’d counted the coupons and saw success…or failure.
Creating words and images that got people to do things became addictive. So I started my first agency specialising in ‘direct response’.
This agency went on to become Ogilvy Direct but by then I’d helped set up another agency, WWAV.
We grew rapidly and ended up with more than 1,000 staff, offices in Leeds, Edinburgh, Amsterdam and Paris, specialising in direct mail with data processing, list buying and print and production: at one point we accounted for 10% of UK advertising mail.
WWAV was bought by Omnicom and renamed Rapp. I left and set up yet another agency, WPN, which later merged with Chameleon as performance marketing became increasingly digital.
I was founder Chairman of the Institute of Direct Marketing, the industry’s education body, and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship.
I was a non-executive director of Which? Ltd, the trading arm of the Consumers' Association.
I was a member of the NSPCC Full Stop Appeal Board.
I served on the RNLI Fundraising Committee.
I was founder Chairman of Mike Colling and Co, the media independent that became The Kite Factory.
I am non-exec Chair of goDonate, the UK’s leading charity donation platform.
At risk of getting a heap of spam, here’s my actual email address rather than a ‘hello@’ which never seem to get replies. Drop me a line. I’d be delighted to hear from you and I will reply (unless it's spam).