Ca$hvertising by Drew Eric Whitman is probably the best book on marketing and sales psychology that i’ve ever read. When i heard that Whitman would be a keynote at Affiliate Summit West I was pretty psyched. To be honest, i’m rarely up in time to make it to a keynote. After long nights at Affiliate Summit it’s pretty hard to get up by 9am to see someone speak. I set my alarm and made it in time to grab a front row seat to see the keynote.
Drew Eric Whitman is a fantastic and energetic speaker. He keeps you engaged with him throughout his entire speech. The guy knows how to brand himself. He calls himself the Dr of Direct Response and comes out wearing a lab coat with his name embroidered on it which strangely increases his authority. He does a great job getting his points across and I thoroughly enjoyed his session. I was live twittering some of the points I took home from the session so here they are again:
- Show your product being USED in ads for greater response
- All caps slows readership By 11.8%
- Always put captions under pictures – they get 2-3x greater readership than body copy
- Times New Roman is the least preferred font online
- Sans serif printed body copy reduces ad readership by 53.5%
- Dont design with white text on a black background – it reduces readership up to 70%
- Direct peoples optical flows with arrows
- The shorter your return period the more returns you get
- In print: covers are the ONLY positions worth paying extra for
- Always sell benefits, not features. People don’t want drills, they want holes. They don’t want ovens, they want a hot meal.
There were a lot more great points but those were some that I remembered.
One of the purposes of writing this post was to give an alternate viewpoint for a lot of the people that think they won’t like the sessions at Affiliate Summit. Yea, the sessions can be hit or miss. I personally attended at least 1 session that I didn’t like at all but then I also attended this keynote which I thought was a huge value for anyone attending with a sessions pass. My point here is don’t just follow the pack, take a look at who’s speaking at Affiliate Summit and see if it’s worth it to you before automatically dismissing a session pass just because people say it’s not worth it.
Did you see this keynote? What did you think of it?
Disclosure: I attended Affiliate Summit West 2011 on a complimentary speaker/press pass. No one asked me to write this post and all opinions are those of Ad Hustler. No other compensation was received in exchange for writing this.
Thanks for sharing those highlights – Ill be posting the full video on YouTube when I get it from our video guys.
I really wish I went to this! 🙁
I missed the keynote but finished Ca$hvertising on the plane home. It really is a great book about the psychology involved in marketing. I found some of the dialogs he had in the book ring true in real life (and quite comical) when you start dealing with trying advertise/brand a company. There is so much in that little book. Soon as the video gets posted I’m going to have to check it out.
Ca$hvertising actually sits on my desk. Whenever i’m stumped for an idea I open it up and the juices start flowing.
The keynote was awesome and I know AdHustler’s ROI for attending was pretty good.
I almost wish I didn’t read the book before attending the keynote but it was still great to see everything again.
@Browie – hahaha
I actually forgot about the ROI. Before the session started Shawn Collins gave me $1 and said “you’re going to need this.” Then during the session Drew asked if i’d like to trade $1 for the $3 in a clear envelope. I took the deal so i did make a positive ROI from attending 🙂
Unfortunately, I missed the keynote last week. I heard nothing but great feedback on it during the show and will definitely check out the video once it gets posted. I actually wrote up a book review on Ca$hvertising yesterday. No question, this is one book every affiliate marketer should read. Filled with great ideas.
You could seriously pick any of the sub heading in ca$hvertising and turn it into a series of blog posts.
You could seriously pick any of the sub heading in ca$hvertising and turn it into a series of blog posts.
I like directing your readers flow, nice ideal. The Ca$hvertising Monday morning talk was pretty good. I like the suggestion to describe things in a way that creates visualization of the product.
Thanks for sharing that news 🙂 Next time I would love to go there!
Good book. Damned partying/hangover kept me from seeing him speak though. Maybe I should have set my alarm.
I thought a lot of what he had to say was interesting. My only complaint is that his ad-examples that were projected during his presentation all seemed old and out-dated. Some might argue that the consumer psychology doesn’t change, but I felt the presentation could have been more powerful with newer ads as proof-points.
The keynote was money! If you didn’t make it, you missed out!
I’ve started using images of people wearing white lab coats in all my campaigns and conversions are through the roof…Thanks Dr. Drew!
Doesn’t the point about body print being sans serif (without serif, as in Arial, Verdana etc) reducing readership by x% almost invalidate the fact that Time New Roman is the least liked online font – or is that for actual print only?
Also, does Drew actually back these statistics up with full on studies across a multiple of industries and campaign types, or is it all drawn from one source?
Drew Whitman is the man… damn, wish i had gone.
I could not attend the Affiliate Summit. I received some great feedback . Thanks for sharing your experience there.
I got Cashvertising on my desk after reading about it on Wickedfire and it is an excellent reference. Everyone should have it.
Thanks for that summary
The keynote was definitely awesome – and our front row seats were the place to be. I was really hoping for a more interesting reaction out of him when you told him your name was Ad Hustler though.
It’s definitely a must see keynote for any affiliate – and it goes to show that the sessions can be worth while. Just because you’re a long time affiliate doesn’t mean you can’t learn something from some of the speakers.
Solid summary, and I can’t wait to see it again on Youtube.
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