Drayton Bird
Drayton Bird is one of the biggest names in the history of marketing — even before the Internet. His company, Drayton Bird Associates, consults with clients about most areas of marketing, specializing in direct marketing. His seminal work Commonsense Direct and Interactive Marketing is now in its fifth edition, and appears in thirteen languages. No other British book on this subject has sold more copies than this one.
Growing up in Liverpool, Drayton Bird spent time hanging around his father’s pub, talking to the customers who came in each day. These experiences gave him an interest in meeting and talking to people that would last a lifetime.
This interest turned into a keen awareness of what people want and how to make them believe that they need the things that they want. This success did not go unnoticed by the rest of the marketing industry: Advertising guru David Ogilvy has said of Bird that he “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world. His book about it [Commonsense Direct and Interactive Marketing] is pure gold.”
In November 2003, Bird appeared on the Chartered Institute of Marketing’s list of 50 living people who have made modern marketing what it is. He also appeared on Campaign Magazine’s list of the 50 most important contributors to marketing in the UK over the past 25 years. In 1994, Bird became one of the inaugural six Fellows of the Institute of Direct Marketing.
His list of client brands is also impressive: Philips, Ford, American Express, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Visa, Deutsche Post, and British Airways.
The schools and firms he has lectured for and consulted with contains most of the heavy hitters for students headed into the marketing industry: Columbia University’s Business School, the London Business School, A.T. Kearney, and McKinsey.
His book, How to Write Sales Letters that Sell, is in its fourth reprint. His columns from the British publication, “Marketing Magazine,” became a book as well. He has also written over 1,000 additional columns on marketing for magazines in Europe, India, Australia and Malaysia.
When you go to the Drayton Bird Associates website, you’ll see a wealth of free marketing tips designed to help the direct marketer overcome pitfalls that keep them from success — a useful blend of articles, podcasts and videos.
Bird’s company offers a variety of services as well — evaluation of your marketing materials, development of materials for your company, general marketing consulting, as well as seminars and in-house training. The website has an impressive list of samples that the firm produced for other clients, who were so impressed that they allowed the firm to post certain items for prospective clients to view as they made their hiring decision.
As one might expect, Bird’s website is filled with testimonials — many of them with specific numbers that show the results that the firm has brought to clients. Seeing direct mail response double or triple while costs shrink to half or less of that of prior mailings is definitely a common result.
One of Bird’s most common mantras goes like this: “The world is divided into two types of people. The realists and the fantasists.” In other words, there are some professionals in marketing who believe that success lies with the next innovation, right around the corner. Somewhere out there is a new marketing method (or even an acronym) that will solve the problem of building and generating leads and bring revenue in without any work at all. The realists, however, understand that there is no substitute for work, or for the advantages of knowledge. The realists are the ones that Bird wants to help.
