Introducing Ask Drayton from Drayton Bird
Drayton Bird is a legend in copywriting circles as he sold his own agency to David Ogilvy and worked with Ogilvy for many years. At Ogilvy and Mather, he was vice chairman and worldwide creative director of the agency which is now called OgilvyOne, according to his entry at Wikipedia.
Ogilvy is on record saying “Drayton Bird knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.”
Another important point is he’s British.
Why?
Because the British are generally quite reserved and can find the American direct response copywriters as brash. That’s not to say the techniques don’t work in the UK, just that there is more resistance but once hooked…
Drayton’s many years of experience marketing in the UK will give you more confidence to push through your natural reservations in your marketing. You don’t want prospective customers to sit on the fence because you haven’t given them enough convincing reasons to buy, backed up with proof.
What is Ask Drayton?
Ask Drayton is a monthly membership website where:
- Drayton shares about 60 minutes of ideas and advice each month in the form of videos about copywriting and direct marketing.
- Members are encouraged to ask questions and there’s a good chance that he’ll answer provided your question is realistic.
- There is a vault of extra goodies from his career which are released monthly for the first ten months.
- You get pdf version of two of his books – the classic How To Write Sales Letters That Sell (and given five stars in my review) and How Even A Business Idiot Like Me Made A Million Or Two.
- Another section he calls the Golden Key, which includes two videos of a presentation he gave along with two more books as pdfs, 51 Helpful Marketing Ideas and The LOST 51 Helpful Ideas (not previously published).
Ask Drayton Review
The Good Points – What I Like
Drayton is correct. People can be easily overwhelmed with information products and learning so the idea of limiting it to just 60 minutes per month is a good one. It avoids the problem of falling further and further behind.
It is a tricky balance since people also love to get plenty for their money which can immediately create the overload.
The trial price for the first month is just $1 and you get a lot of valuable marketing information, just for giving it a try.
When you start watching the videos, you’ll see Drayton has plenty of charm and a wry sense of humour. You’ll also see that he has plenty to say which is helpful.
I also like the idea of asking him questions.
I’ve had mixed success but he does say that sometimes he’s very busy and there will be a wait before he gets around to answering. What you can’t do is ask something along the lines of “I want to start am online business selling premium priced watches. What is my marketing strategy and detailed plan?” Obviously he’s not going to answer that kind of all encompassing question unless he accepts you as a client.
The Bad Points – What I Don’t Like
There’s a feeling that this membership website has never been properly resourced. Navigation around it is poor as you can’t move up and down, back and forward easily.
This isn’t a problem when you’re only in month 1 or 2 but it becomes an increasing problem.
There also isn’t a search facility so you can’t review what he’s had to say about “email subject lines” or “direct mail” without going down into each month’s contents.
It wouldn’t take a web designer long to fix these points.
Much of the content is in the form of videos which you can download and often the audio has been stripped out as a separate mp3 to download for those who prefer to listen than watch.
Both however are time consuming compared to having the ability to skim read so I’d have liked to have seen pdf transcripts. This would also help with a search facility.
Another issue is that there’s no clear structure to the information. This is not a course where there is a logical order of material to work through. It’s much more random so you don’t know what’s coming next month.
The titles of the videos are also often written as teaser copy. For example, here are the first three of eleven marketing gems from month 1:
- What to spend your marketing money on. There’s a lot of truth in the saying, when everyone is zigging, it’s time to zag.
- How a little planning can go a long way. But most people have no idea where to start..
- Money squandered by the lazy. I see this time and time again. Make sure it’s not you.
Overall Thoughts About Ask Drayton
I believe the good outweighs the bad and if you’re looking for a way to gradually improve your knowledge of marketing issues, then Ask Drayton is well worth trying.
Indeed, the first month’s trial at $1 is a bargain and irresistible value.
However, if you’ve recently bought structured marketing or copywriting courses to work through, I’d clear those first. It will give you a better perspective to approach the words of wisdom from Drayton Bird.
If you’re currently successful and money isn’t a problem, then the ongoing monthly membership fee is trivial. You will gradually build up a large store of successful direct marketing ideas.
If money is a problem, the lack of structure of the membership website is an issue. Drayton Bird is an excellent direct marketing expert to follow but I recommend you buy his two best known books – How To Write Sales Letters That Sell and Commonsense Direct & Digital Marketing. When you’ve put the ideas in those two books to work in your business, it’s then time for this monthly dose of his thoughts.
Where To Join
You can join Ask Drayton at this link https://askdrayton.com/
What Do You Think?
Comments are open to either tell your story about Drayton Bird, share you thoughts on this website or to ask me questions about it.
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