When I was first learning all these techniques that I am now teaching you, a disaster struck my menswear store. Well, it could have been a disaster. Instead, it was an OUTRAGEOUS success.
I came into the store one morning and discovered a sprinkler had malfunctioned and we had three inches of water in the store. I called the insurance company and made a quick settlement, and then I realized that most of my merchandise wasn’t really damaged. Yet I had to liquidate it … F-A-S-T!!!
So I wrote an advertisement and put in all the facts.
Imagine that. I was so OUTRAGEOUS that I used facts!
The facts were these: I had a sprinkler malfunction; I made a quick settlement; and now I needed to sell merchandise … fast! I put the name of the insurance company and the policy number and other settlement information in the ad so that readers would understand this was real. (See the sprinkler malfunction advertorial in the preface of this book.)
I also presented the ad as an advertorial, meaning it was designed to look like an actual newspaper story. Thus, surrounded by real news, the ad looked like real news. So not only was I presenting the facts; I was presenting them as news. News you, the reader, needed to know.
I had a great sale, but here is the truly OUTRAGEOUS part. The insurance adjustor who handled my case saw my ad and wanted to know why I didn’t put his name in there. So I ran another ad telling the story of my insurance guy, and the best part is, he paid for the ad!
Yes, that’s OUTRAGEOUS.
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OUTRAGEOUS exercise How many occurrences can you think of that you can use in your marketing? List at least five occurrences that have happened in your business or life, like the sprinkler malfunction, that could give you a reason to contact your customers, patients, clients, or prospects. Examples: • Your marriage • Your firstborn child • Your child graduating from college • A hurricane Your Life Occurrences: • _____________________________________________ • _____________________________________________ • _____________________________________________ • _____________________________________________ • _____________________________________________ |
Here’s an interesting fact about the previous story and why I used an advertorial. I used an advertorial because they are read three times more often than other types of ads.
That’s the beauty of this program. You don’t need to know why. You only need to know that it works. These are not guesses I am presenting to you. These are proven OUTRAGEOUS techniques that work.
Why do they work? Who cares!!!
They work because people notice OUTRAGEOUS things. And what I am saying to you, and will repeat in detail in chapter 10, is that these ideas are the exact kind that you can use. I encourage you, as you will see, to swipe and deploy everything in here for use in your business.
Why do it? Because everything else is boring, and there is a lot of it out there. Each day, you may think you see twenty, thirty, maybe forty advertising and marketing messages, but the truth is that each person each day is exposed to about 3,700 marketing and sales messages. Thus, your job, as an advertiser, is to stand out among that clutter. Yes, each person sees 3,700 or so marketing and sales messages every single day. Most, we don’t even notice because they are boring.
Cutting through that clutter and boredom is not easy—unless, of course, you are OUTRAGEOUS.
Daryn Ross as OUTRAGEOUS Superhero … Megaman. You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
Can a superhero be OUTRAGEOUS?
Well, if you compare the superhero to everyone else in blue blazers and gray slacks, he sure can be.
Let me tell you about Daryn Ross, the owner of Megafast, a company that supplies promotional products. One of the themes of Megafast is that the company is fast. So when Daryn Ross was looking for a way to promote his business, he invented a superhero—Megaman.
When Daryn is invited, as he often is, to speak at a conference, he almost always steals the show. While others put the audience to sleep with mundane, ridiculous, and unimportant trivia, Megaman in a full superhero outfit (tights and all) takes the stage and suddenly commands attention.
His is not just a speech. It is a show as he quickly presents a one-minute video running at three times its normal speed (to show the company is, you know, mega-fast). Then the superhero, Megaman, pulls out a treasure chest, offering training videos and saying that the first 450 people to the booth by 2:25 today get a free DVD worth $297.
As you can imagine, his booth is packed with prospects because as I’ve proven to you … OUTRAGEOUS works. The DVDs show his product line, testimonials, and how to enroll in a monthly telecoaching program. After they view all of that, they can print out bonuses, which are coupons for discounts off of products.
Megaman stands out in an industry of 3,000 or so suppliers because, as Daryn so eloquently states to me in a letter, “No other supplier in our industry would even dare pull a stunt like this … they’re all too professional.”
OUTRAGEOUS exercise How can you potray yourself as OUTRAGEOUS or use a character to promote yourself and your business just like Daryn Ross did with Megaman and I did when I jumped inside a straightjacket for the cover of this book? Write down three different ways you can portray yourself or incorporate a character of some kind into your marketing. Example: Take a picture of yourself behind a metal fence that looks like you’re in a prison cell. Then write down how you can use it in your marketing: Our Prices Are So Low … You’ll Swear It’s Illegal #1 OUTRAGEOUS character I can create: ____________ |
OUTRAGEOUS boost Daryn Ross won the coveted title of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle Marketer of the Year at the 2007 MARKETING & MONEY-MAKING Super Conference. He’s a great example of someone who has applied the OUTRAGEOUS principles taught in this book to turn his company into an industry leader. |
Daryn is professionally OUTRAGEOUSLY successful. How’s that for professional?
One thing that Daryn Ross proves is that this concept of OUTRAGEOUS works in many places in many ways. Newspaper advertisements or direct mail are just part of a bigger picture that includes, if you want, even superheroes.
Bill and Steve Harrison of Philadelphia own Bradley Communications Corp. (www.FreePublicity.com), which helps authors market their books and entrepreneurs get free publicity on radio/TV shows and in major magazines. Since many people know that a book is the best calling card, granting instant credibility, the business is very successful and busy. Well, it was so busy that they needed an assistant.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource Bill and Steve Harrison publish Book Marketing Update, a monthly newsletter that tells authors about successful book promotion campaigns as well as publicity opportunities in major magazines, newspapers, and radio/TV shows. If you have a book that you would like to get exposure for, go to www.MillionDollarAuthorClub.com (or FreePublicity.com for their other resources). |
Bill and Steve Harrison’s OUTRAGEOUS help-wanted newspaper flyer.
You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
They had tried finding an assistant in the usual newspaper help-wanted-ad kind of way, but they couldn’t find a successful candidate.
So they tried something OUTRAGEOUS. They wrote a one-page very personal help-wanted plea. “Could you be the great assistant I’m seeking …” it began.
This was inserted as a free standing insert (FSI) in a regional distribution of a Philadelphia newspaper, and it was so successful that 600 people applied for the job, including some who were perfectly qualified.
They found a great hire and proved again that OUTRAGEOUS advertising works anywhere.
I’ve been six times to see Dr. Scott Lewis’s Wild Comedy Hypnosis Show at the Riviera in Las Vegas. I love it. It’s terrific.
So when Scott asked me to help him promote his show, the first thing I looked at was how he was already promoting his show. And he told me about rack cards—a kind of promotional material about local tourist attractions. You’ve certainly seen them. They are displayed in almost every hotel in America.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost There’s an old saying in marketing that LITTLE HINGES CAN OPEN BIG DOORS. Look for little changes that you can make that will open up your big doors to greater response. |
Well Scott, who is a retired chiropractor (thus, Dr. Scott), showed me his rack card, and the one thing I noticed immediately was that when the card was actually in the rack, you only saw the top two inches. It wasn’t until you pulled the card out of the rack that you could see the wild picture of Scott with images of his hypnotized subjects next to him.
So we simply changed the design of his card so that the top included the title “DR. SCOTT’S WILD COMEDY HYPNOSIS,” the offer (which was cheap by Vegas standards, and thus a deal), and the words “Includes FREE SOUVENIR.”
Dr. Scott Lewis’s OUTRAGEOUS rack card. You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
This small yet OUTRAGEOUS change to the design of the card brought about OUTRAGEOUS results. Scott’s results tripled from the change in design. Those are hypnotic OUTRAGEOUS results!
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OUTRAGEOUS exercise Look at all of your advertising and ask yourself, “What’s the first thing that people see when they look at it?” Look for ways to make changes to that first impression the same way that Dr. Scott Lewis made changes on his OUTRAGEOUS rack card that could generate a big increase in response. |
Publishing Group of America, which is selling CDs and DVDs of the Statler Brothers’ Final Appreciation Farewell Concert, is a member of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle, my marketing company that provides cutting-edge advice to entrepreneurs.
Publishing Group of America’s OUTRAGEOUS Statler Brothers newspaper
advertorial-style ad. You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
They had been running an ad advertising the concert for a year when they contacted me and took my copywriting course and signed up for my newsletters. And then they changed their advertisement to include many of the techniques I taught, including using headlines and even using highlighting as you did when you were in school.
Their results were phenomenal. But just to be sure, they tried running their old ad one more time. The comparison was this:
OUTRAGEOUS advertising improved results 53.2 percent!
It’s enough to make you want to sing along.
In Blackwood South, Australia, Julie Thorp manages Reflection Skin and Body Care, and she sells body wraps, among other things. These wraps are designed, in the course of three $130 treatments, to help a woman drop a dress size.
Julie Thorpe’s OUTRAGEOUS
Window Sign
to sell body wraps: You can see
this exhibit in full color when you
request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS
CD-Rom by using the Request
Form on page 312
But she rarely advertised them, and if she did, she mentioned the product—body wraps.
After applying my OUTRAGEOUS information, she came up with a new idea for a sign that would sell not the wrap but the result. Her sign said, “drop a dress size!”
In her letter to me, she wrote, “Before this sign, we would be lucky if we did one of these treatments every month. Since I put this sign out we do a minimum of 40 on average a month. Plus they pay for a course of treatments and take home the prescribed products to go with the body wrap and they book in for other services we provide. As you can see, these are very good dollars!!”
You could even call them beautifully OUTRAGEOUS.
OUTRAGEOUS exercise More than 30 percent of all buying decisions are made when people read signs—either inside or outside of a business. Take a site survey of your business for places it makes sense to display a sign that a customer or prospect will see. Create a sign for that specific spot. |
Vicky Irvin, who teaches a real estate investment seminar and then sells educational material, found that a string of bad news about real estate in general was beginning to affect her business.
She had been running radio advertisements for her seminar, but she found that free attendance at her seminar was running at half of its normal 500 people. So she took action.
She decided, in OUTRAGEOUS fashion, to attack the facts head-on. This is how her new, OUTRAGEOUS ad began.
My name is Vicky Irvin, the Real Estate Investment Queen. You’ve seen the lies on TV. You’ve seen the lies in the newspaper. They say it’s a bad time to get involved in real estate.
They’re all lies.
From there, she dropped in two testimonials from satisfied students and an offer to receive her free CD.
Response to this ad brought attendance back up to the pre-slump number of 500 per seminar.
I was asked by Levinson’s Menswear of Petersburg, Virginia, to help with a liquidation sale.
In order to have the most successful sale possible, I recalled one basic rule of OUTRAGEOUS advertising: people notice celebrities.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost People love celebrities, and there are many ways to get the benefit of celebrities with little cost. Besides voice impersonators, you can also hire retired athletes, famous in one city, or local sportscasters. |
Okay, here’s the best part, maybe even the most OUTRAGEOUS of all: you can benefit from celebrity recognition without actually paying a celebrity. For Levinson’s, we benefited from Eddie Murphy by simply hiring an Eddie Murphy voice impersonator.
All you have to do up front is tell the listener, in the voice of the celebrity, that this is not the celebrity.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource The Great Voice Company offers professional voice impersonators at a reasonable cost. Their contact information can be found at www.getgreatvoices.com. |
So here’s the ad I wrote for Levinson’s.
I’m not Eddie Murphy, man, but look I got something to tell you: Levinson’s is going out of business FOREVER! No more, it’s over, goodbye. They’ll be going out with a last blast like you’ll never forget. It’s the going-out-of-business sale that’s rockin’ the whole Petersburg area. Levinson’s going-out-of-business sale and it’s the last chance to stock up on the quality menswear Levinson’s has always been famous for. Only now at 50 percent off! 50 percent! Not 25, not 30, but 50 percent off names like Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, J.J. Chochran, Adidas, and so many more. You’ll see fine suits priced from just $57.50, great ski jackets from $42.50, velour warm-up suits from $47.50, stylish leather jackets from $112.112 dollars! Dress shoes, shirts, slacks, designer jeans, dress coats, top coats, and all at half price! It’s unbelievable! It’s during Levinson’s incredible going-out-of-business sale! Levinson’s Menswear, at the corner of Washington and Sycamore. Just like the tree, it’ll soon be a memory. So hurry in now for the best selection in Levinson’s incredible going-out-of-business sale!
It’s not Eddie Murphy. We say it up front. But the voice sounds just like the famous comedian, and the copy is funny. These two elements, taken together, offer an OUTRAGEOUS attention-getting advertisement that has to be listened to. And it was. In three weeks, the entire store was liquidated.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource You can hear this and other recordings mentioned in this book when you request the free OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM. |
So let’s pretend you own an automobile repair shop in Minnesota and you receive an envelope addressed to you from another automotive dealer in the same area.
Why is he writing to you? You’ve got to open it, don’t you?
Of course you do, and that’s exactly what Chris “Chubby” Frederick, president of the Automotive Training Institute, located in Maryland, figures when he sells his training program. You’re more likely to open a letter from another local automotive dealer than you are to open a letter from Maryland.
Automotive Training Institute’s OUTRAGEOUS letter.
You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
Automotive Training Institute’s registration form.
Chubby’s OUTRAGEOUS approach to getting customers is to enlist existing customers to his cause. And so, as the owner of your own Minnesota automobile repair shop, you’ve now opened this letter, which came from Dan Robinson, owner of Dan’s Champion of Mankato, Minnesota.
And by the looks of the letter, the first thing you see is a yellow Post-it note attached to what appears on first glance to be an ad from a newspaper. The Post-it note is from Dan, a local owner of an automobile repair business.
In handwriting on the Post-it note, Dan writes, “Chubby increased my car count and cash profit. He can do the same for you. Look at this letter to see what he is giving away for FREE…!”
And then there’s the letter, full of all the elements you would expect in a proper direct-response advertisement—a headline, an offer, and a deadline. There is a picture of Chubby, plenty of descriptive copy about what is being offered, including parts highlighted in yellow as well as underlined.
It looks like a letter, and it looks like a magazine advertisement. There were many OUTRAGEOUS elements to this approach, and the results were equally OUTRAGEOUS!
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OUTRAGEOUS exercise Think of ways you can leverage your customers to help j you, like the way in which Chubby got the letter advertising ; his service sent from one of his satisfied customers in a local area. |
If I give you a business card, you want to keep it.
You want to show other people. You want to say, “Check this out.”
My business card looks like money—fanned-out $100 bills. Yes, it’s a keeper—as valuable as money. If you get my business card, you really do want to keep it.
You can see this exhibit in full color when you request the FREE OUTRAGEOUS CD-ROM by using the request form on page 312.
Beyond what I can do for you is the clear conversation-piece nature of my card versus all other cards, which, as you know, are boring. You’ve seen business cards and you know that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Unless of course you’ve seen mine. Mine is rich.
And mine is actually a foldout card that provides, on the inside, six quick selling points about what I offer. Any of these can be a trigger to action.
And so I offer a memorable card that you must keep. And when you do keep it, you find yourself looking at my selling points over and over again. “Hey,” you think to yourself, “maybe I should hire Bill.”
Not maybe. You should!
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Your business card is a mini sales card. Besides the obvious pertinent information, such as name, title, business, phone number, fax, and e-mail, you want to concentrate on a number of things depending on your type of business: 1. What do you do? 2. What results do you offer? 3. What products or services do you offer? 4. What achievements have you accomplished? 5. What can you guarantee? 6. How are you different or special? 7. Why should someone choose to do business with you? In other words, provide more than the pertinent information. Finally, list some OUTRAGEOUS ways to design your business card so that it gets noticed and kept. Think in terms of: • shape • color • paper stock • graphic design |
The competition for attention is intense. As a consumer, you know that, and you know what gets your attention.
Facts are hard to ignore, and the facts are these:
• People are bored.
• People are overwhelmed.
• People like to be amused.
You can be like everybody else and be treated like everybody else. Or you can be OUTRAGEOUS.
Think about the biggest day for advertisers in America—the Super Bowl. What happens? People watch the biggest football game of the year, and they watch the commercials. Why is everyone interested in the commercials? Because they are OUTRAGEOUS, and people love OUTRAGEOUS advertising!
You can be OUTRAGEOUS without spending Super Bowl money. People will love you, and you’ll earn super money!
Step #1
Grasp the concept that all advertising can be OUTRAGEOUS.
You don’t have to be boring. You can actually stand out no matter what you do and in what media you do it.
For instance, cited in this chapter are examples of OUTRAGEOUS advertising by dressing up in a costume, in help-wanted ads, on rack cards, in magazine ads, on window signs, in radio ads, in direct mail, and even on business cards. Throughout this book is proof that you can successfully use OUTRAGEOUS advertising everywhere.
Step #2
Understand that you are NOT your customer.
After I deliver a seminar on OUTRAGEOUS advertising, there is always somebody who approaches me with, “Bill, I love your kind of advertising, but it won’t work in my business because my customers (or clients or patients or prospects) are too sophisticated for that kind of advertising.”
While I seldom get into a heated discussion over it, they are typically dead wrong because people are bored and overwhelmed and often the only way to cut through the clutter is to be OUTRAGEOUS. Who notices? Everyone. And if they notice, they are much more likely to buy. This type of advertising appeals to all types of customers from all walks of life.
If it’s appealing and interesting, it’s plenty sophisticated. I’ve had presidents of Fortune 1000 companies, presidents of banks, accountants, and lawyers respond to OUTRAGEOUS advertising. And they’ve done so with enthusiasm. These are some of the same people who many think would never respond to this type of advertising because it isn’t “sophisticated” enough for them.
Remember, you are not your customer (and besides, you like this type of advertising too or else you wouldn’t be reading this book!).
Step #3
Train your brain to look for ideas in “obvious” places.
Advertising is everywhere. All you have to do is look around. This step essentially says to pay attention to other advertisements and trends and to think of ways to make them fit OUTRAGEOUSLY into a campaign of your own.
By training yourself to notice what others regard as clutter, you may find a sliver of an idea in something that doesn’t look like an idea at all. For instance, in chapter 4, you’ll read of my diner placemat mailer that I created for my menswear stores. This idea came to me when I was sitting in a diner having dinner with my wife and the placemat itself was an advertisement for the diner. But I saw it as something more.
The truth is you can receive inspiration for your OUTRAGEOUS advertising in just about anything that you encounter in your everyday life if you train yourself to constantly be on the lookout for it.
Step #4
Train your brain to look for ideas in “unobvious” places.
If you are on the lookout at all times, you sometimes stumble upon a great OUTRAGEOUS idea. I find this is especially true whenever I travel.
For instance, I thought of ideas for creating OUTRAGEOUS advertising while I was riding a donkey in Santorini, Greece, and riding a camel in the Negev Desert in Israel. Both of these examples are used in this book.”
Even when you think you are completely removed from your business, you can still find opportunities to create OUTRAGEOUS advertising.
Step #5
Get involved in the OUTRAGEOUS campaign.
You as a personality can take the lead in your OUTRAGEOUS campaign. You can position your business, your products and services, and yes, even yourself in an OUTRAGEOUS manner that will get noticed.
So consider ways to get involved. Personal involvement when done right really does increase business.
Step #6
Swipe and deploy (S&D).
This concept is so powerful that I wrote an entire chapter (chapter 10) about it titled: “Swiping Ideas and Deploying Them into Your Business.” What does this mean? It means that even if you don’t consider yourself creative or able to find ideas in which to apply OUTRAGEOUS advertising as I suggest in steps #3 and #4 above, you can S&D (swipe and deploy) them from others.
Frankly, that’s one of the big benefits of this book. I give you stuff to swipe and deploy.
This book is, in fact, full of proven and successful OUTRAGEOUS advertising that are ready to be S&D’d for your own business. All you have to do is swipe the ones that work for you, tweak the copy for your own purpose, and get it out. That’s how easy applying OUTRAGEOUS advertising is.
Step #7
Discover that OUTRAGEOUS advertising is FUN.
Have fun.
One of the biggest bonuses to applying OUTRAGEOUS advertising is that it’s simply fun to do. You’ll find out very shortly after you apply it that your customers love it. You’ll also find it to be the most enjoyable thing you do in your business (with the possible exception of making more income, which the OUTRAGEOUS advertising brings to you).
But it’s true. This kind of advertising is fun. This was true in my retail menswear stores, and it’s still true in my Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle marketing company. Sure, my customers and now members are always looking forward to the next piece of OUTRAGEOUS advertising that comes from me, but I really have fun creating it.
I no longer think of how much money I make. I don’t have to. I just know that by applying OUTRAGEOUS advertising, I will be OUTRAGEOUSLY successful—and so will you.
Sizzling Outrageous Summation
1) OUTRAGEOUS works. Why it does is irrelevant. It does.
2) OUTRAGEOUS works in any media for any product.
3) People are bored and overwhelmed, and want to be amused.
4) People love OUTRAGEOUS advertising.
5) Always be on the lookout for the next OUTRAGEOUS idea.
6) Discover that OUTRAGEOUS advertising is the number-one most fun thing you’ll do in your career.
