10 Great Quotes from Denny Hatch
Friday, March 18, 2011
Denny Hatch's regular e-newsletter is a favourite of mine. Topical, insightful and full of sound advice they are one of the few e-mails that I always read.
Denny has taken the best of the quotes, takeaways, quips, advice and truisms featured in his e-newsletter and compiled them into a fantastic book split into 99 categories.
These shorty pithy segments contain some great ideas and thoughts and can be used to challenge your staff, in presentations, for training and a whole host of other things.
Here are 10 of my favourite nuggets from the first half of the book. Quotes are from Denny unless stated:
Advertising
"Here's the secret of successful advertising: interrupting what's going on in the front of a prospect's brain with headline, graphics, copy and action that seize upon a lurking fear or desire and exploiting it."
Agencies
When an agency is pitching potential clients, it's usually the high-powered agency president that glad-hands the prospect and does the razzle dazzle presentation. Once the account is landed, the work is turned over to underlings.
Before hiring an agency, get to know the worker bees that will be assigned to your account.
Branding
Before trashing a brand, add up the dollars spent on advertising, marketing and P.R. over the years to build a brand. What will it cost to make its replacement a household name?
Copywriting
"The seven key copy drivers - the emotional hot buttons that make people act - are fear, greed, guilt, anger, exclusivity, salvation and flattery"
Bob Hacker, Axel Andersson
Customer Relationship Magic
"There is only one boss. The customer(donor). And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending (donating) his money elsewhere."
Sam Walton
How to know customers
Once, every six months, have a brainstorming session to figure out innovative and inexpensive new ways to make your customers happier.
Direct mail letters
The tone of a good direct mail letter is as direct and personal as the writer's skill can make it. Even though it may go to millions of people, it never orates to a crowd, but rather murmurs into a single ear. It's a message from one letter writer to one letter reader.
After dashing off an email, but before clicking on 'Send' you might reflect for a moment on the consequences of your message appearing on the front page of every newspaper in the world.
Headlines
"On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar."
Hiring
Always hire A's. In the first place, they are more fun to work with. Secondly, they push you into excellence.