A friend reminded me about David Ogilvy last night, and I remembered this video where he describes brand/vanity advertising versus direct response.

I wonder what he’d be doing differently in these days of the Internet? Probably not much!

The direct response principles that were his ‘first love and later became his secret weapon’, and which allowed him to grow his agency at record speed translate directly to web sites.

In my book The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy I explain how to utilise the principles of highly-effective direct response advertising — how to change a website from “all about you” to “all about your visitor” to dramatically boost enquiries, sales-lead generation, opportunity creation, and sales and profit!

If you have a web site that focuses on your brand (you know, the kind that start with “Welcome to our website. We’ve been in business ‘x’ years and won all these awards”) maybe you should consider why the visitor has actually come to your website… probably to get information on — and the solution to — a pain, challenge, problem or opportunity they have.

Probably not to learn about you and your business. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s true in most cases.

Give visitors answers… not branding… and you can have a successful website.

Ed.

I interviewed master web copywriter and conversion expert Daniel Levis last Thursday (23rd April 2009). At the end of the interview Daniel made you (my blog reader) a very special offer — access to his full 5R Web Conversion Formula at a preferential rate (i.e. big discount!). To help you decide if this is for you, here’s a quick video review I made over the weekend…

Watch this video to find out why I’m raving about 5R! (CLICK THE GRAPHIC BELOW)

In a nutshell, this is one of the best copywriting programmes I’ve seen, because of the systematic way it goes all the way from from market research through to the end result of highly responsive web copy that packs a powerful emotional punch.

As explained in the video, Daniel’s special offer to my blog readers and email subscribers (which obviously includes you!) is a fantastic $200 discount off the standard price.

==> Click here to get the full 5R Formula shown in my review at $200 discount.

Remember, Daniel’s special offer expires on the 30th April — that’s this coming Thursday!

Act now and take advantage of Daniel’s amazing 365-day guarantee — where he says “if after implementing his system you don’t see an extra $15,000 sales (more than £10,000) as a direct result then you get a full refund.”

How strong a guarantee is that! Who wouldn’t want to try this programme and put Daniel to the test?

I look forward to hearing about the amazing effect this has on your web marketing too. Click here now to go and grab your package too.

To greater web conversion,

Ed.

Here’s a very short video clip I created using the ‘green screen video’ technique I explain in the February 2009 issue of Web Profits Monthly.

Note: This video was published using YouTUBE… which is actually not the ultimate way to put video on a website. In the March 2009 issue of Web Profits Monthly I explain how to use YouTUBE to get video on websites but also explain the ‘power user’ way — which is how I normally do it, and how I created the fancy video here.

Ed.

Watch the video below to see how in just 35 days I welcomed 1,035 highly-targeted and fully-opted-in subscribers on to my email marketing list… all from one print advert and a dead simple webpage!

Remember, the tactic I used can be adapted for just about any industry. The only caveat is that your business has to be practising online relationship (email) marketing.

If you’re not… why not?

Also, where I ran an advert in a magazine — I could (and will) also employ direct mail, letters, postcards, and others like mail-drops, face to face handouts at seminars and conferences… basically promote the landing page anywhere you can identify and cost-effectively contact large crowds of your target audience.

More about this soon.

-Ed.

P.S. This is the first ‘live’ video to appear on my blog here — leave a comment below if you have any problem viewing it and let me know. Thanks.

Keith Goodrum received a pre-release version of my book and gave the following (unsolicited) video review…
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD6lKj-7hyQ 331 276]

Keith mentioned Amazon in the review – actually the best place to get it is from the book web site, mainly because it’s cheaper and faster (for some reason Amazon say they can’t deliver for weeks) but also because you’ll also receive a letter with links to extra book-byers-only download content.

Click here to order.

Add here’s a link to Keith’s excellent blog.