About Dean Kennedy
Direct response marketer and designer
My Mission
“To create more business & profits for your business.”
Direct response design and marketing is all about effective and persuasive promotion to get a pre-determined response. Strategies and ideas to influence someone to… make a sale. Garner their vote. Attend your event. Pique their interest in your product or service. Choose YOU over your competitors. I use a range of proven, persuasive marketing tools and tactics to boost your results – to attract, retain and grow your sales and customer base through effective and responsive marketing.
What Others Say
“Immediately Put Stacks Of Dollars In My Pocket…”
“Thanks Dean (and Mel) for your assistance on my last marketing campaign. You came up with a brilliant concept that immediately put stacks of dollars in my pocket. I have continued to use that concept to market my services in Australia and the United Kingdom with great success and needless to say, financial rewards.
I also appreciate the fact that you are easy to work with and get the job done quickly and professionally. Fantastic stuff!”
— Michael Grose, international parenting expert
“Increase Bookings By 500%…”
“Thank you so much for the spectacular job you did on my brochures. The May wedding expo was an enormous success that has seen the number of bookings I usually take from an expo increase by 500%! And the bookings are still coming in nearly 3 months later so that figure is sure to rise even further.
Everyone I talk to raves about the little pack they got with the DVD attached. They actually remember my brochure out of the 100+ other brochures they received that day!
I certainly couldn’t have achieved this incredible result without your expert help and guidance. So thank you, thank you, thank you, and I very much look forward to working with you regularly in the future on all my design projects.”
— Corinne Maunder, accomplished video producer and cinematographer, Melbourne, Victoria
“Mastered Marketing…”
“There’s a secret I want to reveal to you that’s not widely understood … behind all of this is marketing. You’ll never be a great copywriter, ad writer … until you master marketing. It’s like a step you cannot skip. When you employ these guys, in relation to what Dean does with your ad: he is a strategist, because he figures out your offer; he figures all this stuff out.
The only reason he can do that is because he’s mastered marketing. And it’s a clear distinction that’s not readily understood.”
— Mal Emery, Best Selling Author, Business Coach and Mentor to 1000’s, Buiness Owner, Speaker, Marketing and Internet Multi Millionaire
“Rare As Hen’s Teeth…”
“Dean works closely with me and many of my clients… couldn’t ask for a better mix… a graphic guy that’s a damn good copywriter and a damn good direct response marketer… rare as hen’s teeth.”
— Pete Godfrey, the “Wizard of Words” and Australia’s leading Copywriter, Copywriting Coach and Sales Strategist
“Freakishly Talented…”
“A true jack-of-all trades but definitely one freakishly talented graphic artist.”
— Bret Thomson, one of Australia’s highest paid in-demand copywriter/marketing & conversion strategists
“What All Designers Should Do!…”
“Dean Kennedy did the design for Mark Robinson’s report that Alexi Neocleous and I worked on, and it keeps on churning about $80,000 in sales each time he sends traffic to it. D.K. reads the copy and designs around it – that’s what ALL designers should do!”
— John Anderson, Conversion Masters
“An extra $200,000 per month…”
“As an Internet Marketing Strategist working on many of the biggest online businesses in Australia, I get to work with the best copywriters in the country.
I can proudly say that Dean Kennedy is a star. I recently used a Yellow Pages ad that Dean wrote and turned it into the main sales copy on the front page of the One Stop Patio Shop business that I was working on. Dean’s copy and the site design and Adwords added an extra $200,000 per month of revenue to the business. It was amazing.
Thanks Dean.”
— Regards, Greg Cassar, Internet Marketing Strategist, GregCassar.com
Profile
Dean provides expert marketing consulting to a (deliberately) small, select roster of small businesses, non-profit organisations and entrepreneurs, and works across a range of industries and mix of clients in Australia, New Zealand and Thailand.
Dean moved from six years of political marketing and public relations to establish his own consultancy in 1998. He is also Anthony Robbins’ Mastery University graduate (2002) and completed Power To Influence (Sales Mastery course) in 2003, along with being part of the volunteer crew at Unleash The Power Within in three countries (Australia, Singapore and Malaysia). He has also been a member of several high-level marketing mastermind groups since 2006 (investing as much as $30,000 a year per group).
You’ll find Dean’s mix of direct response marketing, graphic design, copywriting, sales, public relations and business skills come from practical experience rather than theoretical study. Dean was raised on “street marketing” tactics from an outrageously young age (earning money even before starting primary school). His advice is based on getting the best value for your marketing — he’ll tell you the best solution he knows of to meet your needs, regardless of whether he can provide it for you.
Companies Dean has worked with include ongoing local marketing services (design and printing) and advice for internationally recognised brands Helloworld Travel, Harvey World Travel (both on national projects and with more than 200 franchisees), and Jetset Travel; a series of public websites for a travel industry wholesaler, marketing consulting to Thailand-based Coffeöl Ltd, as well as coaching and consulting, strategic marketing advice and marketing projects for several marketing and PR companies, entrepreneurs and many local retail small businesses.
Dean was Marketing Manager for the successful and well-regarded Oaklands Park Estate in the 1990s and 2000s, a privately sold real estate development (without using external real estate agents) in Oaklands Junction, Victoria, near Melbourne Airport, at the time worth in excess of $12 million and now with a capital value in excess of $100 million.
Other successful projects have included:
- Helping a professional speaker “triple her earnings”,
- Getting a 127.2% increase in members at a client’s new gym in the first 3 months,
- Creating a prospecting tool that resulted in a 500% increased response in enquiries for a videographer at a bridal expo,
- Helping a client get a 95% SAME DAY response from her CEO ad agency clients, and
- Helping a client achieve more than $100,000 in internet sales within 24 hours in 2017 and again in 2018 and 2019.
Dean has also used these direct response skills for his own business marketing, including one project earning a nett $24.82 return on investment for every dollar spent, and another resulting in a 729% boost in customer orders.
Dean has also provided individual training and group presentations on marketing and internet technologies at conferences, business events and business networking groups. He was approached in 2013 to be featured in an international best-selling business book series and in 2013 was named on a list of ‘182 Greatest Copywriters… of the Internet Age.’
Outside of his professional consulting, Dean’s interests include Rotary (Rotarian 2005-2018) and helping, supporting and volunteering other community organisations (including service clubs and support groups), golf, axe-throwing, photography, and sales and marketing psychology. He has twice achieved a Taekwondo black belt (as a Junior in the early 1980s and again as an adult in the early 2000s), and was selected in several leadership roles in taekwondo, golf (Lone Pine Golf Club junior captain and Tullamarine Country Club minor pennant captain) and as School Captain (Pascoe Vale North Primary School).
Dean is a past member of several community organisations including the Geelong Chamber of Commerce and the Portarlington Business Development Association. He has also served in the past on a number of executive committees including the Australia Day Council (Victoria); the Caroline Chisholm Society, Hume Gateway Tourism Association, Board of Brunswick Rotary Club (past President and Secretary), Monash University Sports and Recreation Association and the Sir Robert Menzies Lecture Trust. He has also completed the Rotary Leadership Institute program.
Professional Fees
I treat your project as if it’s my own: so that means projects are generally undertaken on a fixed fee basis, as this approach offers clients a more manageable financial investment and avoids any concerns about “open-ended” billings.
Personally, I believe hourly rates for in-depth projects are less effective and not as rewarding: the better my skills, the less time it takes, the less I earn. I’d rather deliver projects based on VALUE, not the time taken: I personally don’t want to earn more by taking longer than necessary! I’m far more prone to trying to spend as LITTLE of your budget as possible, not the other way around, that’s just my nature.
(An example: I used to have a retail client with several high-profile restaurants across Melbourne and regional Victoria, and helped them with branding, design and printing. But they always kept wanting to change things (even what was working). Now you might think, from my perspective, that I’d be happy to keep getting lots of extra work from them. But we (diplomatically) parted ways. To me that’s not the best use of my time, even if it is all billable).
From my perspective, knowing the agreed project value allows me to invest as much of my time and skills as possible and needed into your project without having to worry about a ticking clock. I get to concentrate on giving you my very best advice, however long that takes.
In some circumstances, where an hourly rate is applicable, the professional rate is calculated as follows:
GRAPHIC AND WEB DESIGN at $175 per hour (partial hours billed in 10 minute increments at $30). A VIP rate is available for longer term work (generally $145 per hour or $24 per 10 minutes).
MARKETING/COPYWRITING/PR CONSULTING at $320 per hour, or $1,100 per half day / $1,950 per full day.
Very special VIP rates may be applied for non-profit organisations and clients with advanced payment plans in place, which includes billing increments of shorter duration for very quick tasks.
These rates are valid from July 2023 and are subject to change without notice.