generating results (more on that later) and I wanted to take advantage of what I had created out of an idea that I had swiped from a politician.
So I looked outside of the direct mail media for other ways to reach my customers with this obviously successful approach. And from my five-page sales letter I created a one-page newspaper advertisement that featured the “Shameless Bribe” coupons.
And then I also used this one-page creation as a fax that I sent out to the many customers who gave us their fax numbers. So this one OUTRAGEOUS creation translated into three media—all OUTRAGEOUSLY successful.
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OUTRAGEOUS exercise Review your previous advertising for ideas that were successful. How can you use these ideas in other media? |
OUTRAGEOUS produces results from … EVERYONE
As you saw in the preface, this five-page handwritten letter won the prestigious Multi-Media RAC Award at the 2002 Retail Advertising Conference.
But winning an award doesn’t pay the bills. Money pays the bills, and this advertisement was my most successful ever. At my menswear stores, I had many successful campaigns. In fact, from 1996 to 2006 I delivered eighteen direct mail campaigns per year—each and every year. That totals 180 different campaigns. While most of them were successful, the five-page handwritten sales letter printed on yellow legal paper received the highest response of any of them.
Who responded? Presidents of banks responded. Board members of Fortune 1000 companies showed up for our sale. Accountants responded; doctors responded; lawyers responded; and they came to our sale because they saw a piece of mail in their mailbox that could not be ignored.
It looked handwritten. It looked important. So when the bank president/doctor/lawyer came home from work, his wife gave him an envelope and said (we were later told), “You’ve got to see this. It looks important.”
And it was important, OUTRAGEOUSLY important!
Now think about what I just said to you. People who you would normally think would not respond to five pages of UGLY handwriting responded. These are what we would normally categorize as educated, professional, affluent people, and they responded to a handwritten sales letter.
Whenever I deliver a seminar and show many of my OUTRAGEOUS examples to the attendees, there’s always one or two of them who come up to me after I finish speaking and say, “While what you showed us was great, my customers won’t respond to that kind of advertising because they’re too sophisticated for it.”
No, they’re not! If it’s interesting, people respond. Just as all kinds of people responded to my handwritten sales letter, they’ll respond to your OUTRAGEOUS advertising. Everyone responds to OUTRAGEOUS advertising.
That’s why I wrote this book—99 percent of small business owners are dissatisfied with the results they get from their current advertising. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I am here to help. Remember, EVERYONE responds to OUTRAGEOUS advertising.
ideas are in every industry
A theme you will see emphasized throughout this book is that my best ideas came from somewhere else, and I am not speaking of a vacuum. I do business in the world, and so I pay attention to everything I see around me—especially other advertising.
The idea for the five-page handwritten letter, as you know, came from my first seeing the technique used by Dan Kennedy, who saw it used by a political candidate. I was in the menswear retail business. Why would I be looking at what a political candidate was doing? Wouldn’t I have been better off looking at what other menswear stores were doing? After all, they knew what they were doing, right?
NOT!!!
I looked outside my industry. I looked for something that had never been done inside my industry. I looked for an idea I could translate successfully into my industry.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost If something is working in an industry, it will typically translate to others. In fact, it will often work better in others since it is new to them. |
And the truth is, that’s what I am always doing.
And I am looking for others who are looking for ideas as well, so I have joined Marketing Mastermind groups in the past and I continue to do so. In fact, I now lead three of them with over 140 extremely successful entrepreneurs.
In 1999, I was in a Marketing Mastermind meeting that was being facilitated by Dan Kennedy and others from over eighteen different industries. I was the retail guy. There was also a guy from the mortgage industry who was sending out pre-recorded messages that appeared on people’s answering machines.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource There are Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle chapter meetings and Mastermind Groups in most cities throughout North America, run by certified independent business advisors. You can see if there’s one in your area at www.dankennedy.com. |
This had never been done in the retail world before, so I wanted to try it. I essentially brought voice broadcast into the retail world, and it worked. It worked great. In fact, the very first time I tried it, it resulted in a 92 percent increase in response when I added it to a previous successful promotion. This was a breakthrough I made by looking outside of my industry.
ideas are everywhere
Once I started developing OUTRAGEOUS advertising, I was always looking for opportunities to use it. Mostly because it works. But partly because it’s fun.
When my wife and I went on a vacation to the Middle East, we went on a camel ride in the desert. Of course I had a picture snapped of me on a camel that I could send out to my customers. In fact, I sent it to the customers of my menswear stores and also to the members of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle.
It made for big laughs and big sales.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost Always carry a small digital camera with you because you never know when you might see an oppertunity to snap a photo that you can use OUTRAGEOUSLY in your advertising. |
You can see this photo in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.
In fact, I often view my vacations as marketing opportunities, and one of my best campaigns occurred when my wife and I went on a cruise to Alaska. Prior to the cruise, I had seen a postcard of the cruise ship with Alaska in the background. I liked it. I thought it would be a nice thing to send to my customers.
But I wanted to OUTRAGEOUSLY personalize it, so I wrote on the front of the postcard in pen, “Even when I’m on vacation, I’m thinking of you …” and then atop the cruise ship, I drew a little stick figure with an arrow pointing to it that