Outrageous Advertising That's Outrageously Successful. Bill Glazer

       You can see this in full color when you claim your FREE CD of all of the exhibits in this book by using the form on page 312.

      And on the back of the postcard, I put a coupon for $10 off any purchase, with a date to respond by.

      And since I was actually heading on a cruise to Alaska, I wanted to mail the postcards so that they came with an Anchorage postmark. And I had a few customers.

      I went to my printer and had them print up 10,146 postcards with this message that I wanted to send to my favorite 10,146 customers. Each was addressed, and I had stamps put on. All I needed was an Anchorage postmark. So I had my printer put all the postcards into a box and off I went with my wife on a nice vacation beginning in Anchorage.

      When we arrived at the hotel, I went up to the clerk and asked if I could mail postcards at the hotel. She smiled and said sure. So I reached down and picked up my box of 10,146 postcards. I smiled back and told her that I wrote them all last night and my arm was killing me. We laughed. I continued on my vacation, and then when I came back home, I found out that the postcard campaign was a huge success.

      As if you haven’t already figured this out … OUTRAGEOUS advertising not only works, but it is fun!

      In fact, when I finally figured this whole thing out, it became the most enjoyable and fun thing that I did in my business.

OUTRAGEOUS exercise Think of photo opportunities from everyday life or a vacation that can translate into an OUTRAGEOUS advertising campaign. 1. 2. 3.

      defining results

      The title of this book is OUTRAGEOUS Advertising That’s OUTRAGEOUSLY Successful. I’d now like to take a moment to define what it means to be successful.

      In this chapter, I showed you my five-page handwritten sales letter written on a yellow legal pad and I told you that of over 180 campaigns that I created for my menswear stores over a ten-year period, the handwritten letter received the highest response.

      But achieving the highest response doesn’t necessarily mean it was the most successful campaign I’ve ever created. In fact, as of the writing of this book, I’ve written nineteen sales letters that have generated more than $1 million in sales for my clients or one of my companies.

      Certainly, the five-page handwritten sales letter was very … very … very successful for my menswear stores, but it didn’t generate $1 million in sales for them.

      So this brings me to how you need to define and measure what OUTRAGEOUSLY successful means. The way you define success is not by the percentage of response you receive. The way you define success is by the amount of money the advertisement generated versus the amount you spent to get it out.

      This is what we call ROI (return on investment), and it is the only way I measure success—how much did you spend, and how much did you get back?

       Sizzling Outrageous Summation

      1) Always be on the lookout for OUTRAGEOUS opportunities to use in your advertising.

      2) The more you tell, the more you sell. Don’t be afraid of long copy to tell your entire story and pertinent information.

      3) Successful OUTRAGEOUS advertising can typically be moved from one media to the next.

      4) Everyone responds to OUTRAGEOUS advertising. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your customers are too sophisticated for OUTRAGEOUS advertising.

      5) Study what’s working outside your industry. OUTRAGEOUS advertising can often be moved from one industry to the next with terrific results.

      6) Join Mastermind groups to share ideas and network with other smart and open-minded entrepreneurs.

      7) OUTRAGEOUS advertising is fun, and it lets you make your business fun.

      2) Defining Advertising And The Three Possible Responses

      Most advertising stinks.

      For instance, this has probably happened to you: some hotshot salesperson comes walking into your place of business and tells you that you’ve got to get your name out there.

      Get your name out there? Um, what exactly does that mean?

      “You know, get your name out there. Like Pepsi and Chevrolet or maybe Goodyear with their blimp.”

      It makes me want to scream, “Go away!”

      See, here’s the thing. If you’re reading this book, you are most likely not like Pepsi or Chevrolet with unlimited resources to just get your name out there—and you probably don’t have easy access to a blimp. That’s not the way you run your business, or at least it shouldn’t be. If the big esoteric task of brand building is your game, this is definitely not your book. Go away. I mean it.

      On the other hand, if you are like the 99 percent of small business owners who are dissatisfied with the results they are currently getting from their advertising, then this IS the book for you.

      The only type of advertising that you should be doing is what we call “direct-response advertising.” This is advertising that is measurable and accountable. In other words, this is advertising that works.

      So, if you are looking for advertising that produces real results, this is absolutely the book for you. I mean it.

      My friend and business partner Dan Kennedy put it best: “The kind of advertising that you want to do is the kind where you pay for it with a check on Monday and it generates enough money so that you can cover the check by Thursday.”

      this is direct response, NOT BRANDING

      Direct-response advertising asks the customer to respond and allows you to track that response. Brand building, on the other hand, is advertising that gets the name of your business, products, or services out there but you have no earthly idea whether or not it is paying for itself.

      It’s that simple.

      Ninety-nine percent of all businesses cannot even think about brand building. Brand building will simply make you go broke. You may be told it will multiply your profits, but I contend that you can’t multiply zeroes.

      The kind of advertising I advocate does more than just get your name out there. It gets your message, your offer, and your deadline out there. Here it is; come and get it. Direct-response advertising does three specific things that I will discuss in detail in chapter 5:

      • It makes an offer.

      • It gives a deadline.

      • It allows you to track response.

OUTRAGEOUS exercise Go back one year and assemble all of the advertising you spent your hard-earned money on to promote your business and put them into three piles: Pile #1: Brand-building advertising that