Does Your Marketing Sell?: The Secret of Effective Marketing Communications [Paperback]

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don't know which half." Viscount Leverhulme, 1851-1925"

Does Your Marketing Sell? brings together in one practical and visually attractive guide a new marketing philosophy. The old AIDA model -attention, interest, desire, action - doesn't get the results. Ian Moore has developed a new model - one which is simple, memorable and user-friendly - and is built on the astonishingly oft-overlooked principles of salesmanship. His New (navigation, ease, wording) AIDA concept includes clear details on how your customers interact with marketing and gives easy to follow advice on everything from simple navigation to correct language use which are proven to increase campaign results.

Ian Moore is the founder of Blue-Chip Marketing. He has written thousands of marketing communications for some of the biggest household names and has had literally millions of people responding. He has worked for Kimberly-Clark, Cadbury-Schweppes and Lloyds Bank and won the ISP Grand Prix for best UK promotion and best European FMCG campaign for the Kleenex Hayfever Survival Kit, as well as a further 50 industry awards ranging from Best Copywriting to Most Innovative Campaign. He is currently a Creative Consultant specialising in training staff in the development of effective marketing communications, helping people to understand how they will work and why they will sell. He has a monthly column in Incentive Business magazine. Whereabouts: Edinburgh and London

Whether you run a small business or a big corporation (or work somewhere in between), you probably get involved with marketing communications. This could mean ads, brochures, display cards, leaflets, mailings, on-pack offers, posters, sales presenters, websites... or simply "marketing" for short.

And like most people, you probably wonder if your marketing sells. You may not be 100% sure, even if you employ a specialist advertising, design or promotional agency to help you. Indeed, you're probably not even 50% sure.

Don't worry, you'd be in good company. Lord Leverhulme, founder of Lever Bros, famously said: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the trouble is I don't know which half."

In fact it can be more serious than that. John Caples, one of the pioneers of "scientific advertising" in the US, cited a campaign in which one headline created nearly 20 times more response than an otherwise identical ad.

The missing ingredient

So why does one piece of marketing succeed where another fails? What is it that causes almost 20 times as many people to respond to one message than to another? Just how do you make your marketing sell?
It seems there's a paradox. What well-intentioned marketers think they should do to make their marketing sell often doesn't work. And that's because they get salesmanship confused with showmanship.

Salesmanship is the missing ingredient in making your marketing sell.
What salesmanship means - and you may be relieved to hear this - are the quiet skills of empathy and perception. They are so often forsaken in modern marketing communications. Does Your Marketing Sell? is all about how to put them back.