I celebrate Leap Day.
That’s right, I celebrate the extra day in February that comes around once every four years. It’s an extra day! Why wouldn’t you celebrate … especially when you can use it as an excuse to make an offer to your customers?
Well, in my menswear business, I used to invite my customers to celebrate right along with me, and I found that it was a successful, fun promotion that benefited my customers as well as my store.
I sent out a postcard once every four years to tell customers I was celebrating Leap Day, and since it was an extra day, I looked upon it as a free rent day. And I wanted to share my good fortune with my customers, so I offered them 29 percent off (only on February 29th) of anything they bought on that day.
You might not have thought of Leap Day as something to celebrate. But you should now. More important, you should remember that the year is full of events to celebrate and your OUTRAGEOUS advertising should take full advantage of the special days on the calendar.
People always respond to what’s already on their minds.
What’s on your mind? Well, what time of year is it?
You see, if it’s the middle of October, you’ve probably at least thought of Halloween. And if it’s early February, you are most likely thinking of Valentine’s Day.
And that’s why people respond better to special occasions. They are already thinking of them.
Robert Collier, one of the godfathers of direct-response marketing, is famous for having said, “You always want to enter the conversation already happening in someone’s mind.”
In other words, they’re already thinking of the approaching holiday, so you may as well be part of their thinking.
Others are, in fact, enforcing this idea, so joining into that conversation every time you can is a smart decision.
The anniversary of your business is not necessarily on your customers’ minds. In fact, it isn’t on their minds at all because they probably don’t even know when it is.
But …
Your business’s anniversary is a great reason to hold an event because it is a believable reason for you to communicate with them and to make them an offer in celebration of it.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost Even more believable than anniversaries are milestone anniversaries—5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20, 25, 50, etc. These are special and extra believable. |
Customers and prospects have been conditioned to do so. Others are already reminding people that the anniversary events are legitimate. You see them all the time. Businesses often hold anniversary events, and customers accept them as legitimate. This is your “reason why.”
You should celebrate every chance you can, but there are four holidays that should be at the top of your radar screen.
1) Christmas. This season seems to start as early as October, and if you have a reason at all to take advantage of it, you should remember that almost everyone gets and gives presents in December.
2) Halloween. Boo! No, it’s not scary, but it offers a million opportunities to take advantage of this day of ghouls and goblins and dress-up and candy. In fact, it is the second most celebrated holiday.
3) Valentine’s Day. Love is a wonderful selling point, and Valentine’s Day is an actual must-buy-something holiday for anyone in a relationship or even trying to get into one. With all those lovers on the loose, you have an audience waiting to hear your message.
4) Mother’s Day. Good old … “MOM.” ‘Nuff said. But I’ll say more anyway because Mother’s Day is, again, a must-buy holiday. Not all businesses can tap into this holiday, but a lot more can than think they can.
Yanik Silver, an online marketing expert mentioned many times in this book, has drawn up a succinct list of major holidays and possible promotions that is a great tool to get you thinking about how to use holidays in your marketing throughout the year. So, here it is …
Connecting a story with a holiday is one of my favorite OUTRAGEOUS techniques.
And so one year at my menswear store, I connected Valentine’s Day to the greatest gift of love ever given. That’s right, I claimed the Taj Mahal as an OUTRAGEOUS gimmick.
Gage Menswear Valentine’s postcard front and inside. 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 there it is, in handwriting surrounded by hand-drawn hearts—“What’s the most fantastic gift of love… [and at the bottom] Open to discover the answer!”
And behind it, as you see, is a photo of the Taj Mahal.
And so, of course, you open to discover the answer is …
The most fantastic gift of love ever given was the Taj Mahal, and, as you see, the inside of the card goes on to tell the story of why it was built, and then in a quick “reason why” twist, I explain how my sincere appreciation is my Taj Mahal gift.
And, tying the theme of love into Valentine’s Day, the coupon is, of course, for 14 percent off.
The essential elements are there, including the offer and deadline, and at the bottom, as expected, is the pertinent information of location, store hours, phone number, etc.
How cool would it be to go to a Fourth of July party and pull out a flag wallet to show your friends and family?
Pretty cool!
And Ben Glass, a lawyer who helps other lawyers with marketing (www.greatlegalmarketing.com), knew this. So one year in late June, while trying to reach some unconverted leads, he sent out exactly that—a flag wallet with a sales letter headlined “Effective, Ethical and Outside The Box Marketing For Personal Injury Attorneys.”
Ben Glass’s wallet mailing. 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.
I, at first, can’t get past the headline without thinking he missed an opportunity for a lawyer joke. But that’s just my way of drawing attention to the elephant in the room, and besides, all lawyers know all the good lawyer jokes anyway.
But that is a minor difference of opinion on approach. The rest of the campaign is brilliant. It ties the holiday to the gift, which is memorable and will most likely be used, and the letter itself even has a little flag at the top.
Obviously a flag wallet on the Fourth of July is fun, and it’s memorable! Once again, he’s entering the conversation going on in the person’s head with the approaching holiday.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost Unconverted leads are those people who have requested information from you in the past but have not yet purchased. A holiday is a great time to reach out to these people again because it gives you a “reason why.” One of the things I that Dan Kennedy always teaches is there is money to be gotten from people who have expressed interest in the past but have not bought yet. |
A few Halloweens ago, Yanik Silver was about to release his “Ultimate At Home Internet Copywriting Course” when he decided to take advantage of the holiday.
Halloween may be the easiest holiday to have fun with, and Yanik Silver is a master. Yanik first remembered that he had been to a Halloween party the previous year and had dressed as “The Count” from Sesame Street.
So he had a photo. All he needed was a campaign to go with it.
The first thing he did was send out a short eight-line e-mail from “Count Yanik” to his customer list. He then directed his readers to a Web site for a “terrifyingly profitable message.”
And that’s when his message became really fun.
His Web site had Flash animation with an animated bat that turned into Count Yanik, using his real voice to relay his message.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource For flash animation at a reasonable price, see www.rentacoder.com |
Yanik Silver’s online Halloween promotion.
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.
At that page, as you can see, is another link to a PDF preview, keeping the customer engaged.
And then Yanik continues his Halloween-themed campaign in a step-by-step process until you almost can’t wait to see what he’s going to do next.
Of course, in his regular e-mail communications he uses phrases like “monster wealth” and “frightening profits,” but he continues to have fun with the holiday theme later in a more elaborate Web landing page with his sales letter “written” in blood—or rather, a dripping bloody font.
Yanik Silver’s landing page for his ONLINE Halloween promotion.
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.
As you notice, there is also an audio message from “The Count” and a continuing use of the Halloween theme.
It just shouts out, “Fun! … OUTRAGEOUS FUN!!”
And Yanik goes on to present a Frankenstein image, a boiling cauldron, and even a bat next to the sentence “Am I batty?”
But he still wasn’t finished as he continued with a follow-up e-mail that contained a link to another audio message from “The Count.”
And Yanik says this campaign sold 114 packages of his material for $114,350—pretty good for one holiday campaign!
I can “Count” too!
And so I did when Dan Kennedy sent out an e-mail letter with the subject: “This is Frightening!”
In Dan’s letter, he told the story of how I wanted to lower prices for our Glazer-Kennedy products and how he was scared that the prices were too low, and then the reader was directed to a Web site where I was dressed as Count Glazula.
Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle “Count Glazula” Online Promotion.
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.
This was an OUTRAGEOUSLY successful Halloween campaign, proving the power of “The Count” in marketing.
But what it really proves again is that holidays offer a great “reason why” to hold a campaign. And, they also offer you an opportunity to have fun!
Rory Fatt is the top marketing consultant to the restaurant industry in the world, and I’ve worked with him to develop an outstanding loyalty program for many categories of businesses including restaurants, retailers, and auto repair shops, which is called Royalty Rewards.
Royalty Rewards is a swipe card program that allows customers to accumulate points from purchases and then to redeem those points with gift certificates that they can use at their businesses.
Frankly, I believe that EVERY business should have some form of loyalty program because it works! For example, those businesses who use Royalty Rewards find that their customers return much more often and spend more each year. How could you ask for more?
Rory’s original idea was to teach businesses to do this for themselves. But he found they’d rather have it done for them, and now he has nearly 1,000 businesses with more than 3 million customers enrolled in the program.
But the program is more than just a loyalty program. It also is a marketing program because everyone who is in the program is on a list. And that list includes great information including purchase history.
Rory then took the program a step further by creating holiday-themed campaigns for customers enrolled in the program. Each campaign is different, but the idea is to marry holiday-themed campaigns to your customer loyalty program—called Royalty Rewards if you do business with us. Here is a collage of holiday-themed cards that Rory sends out for businesses in our program.
Examples of Royalty Rewards trademark-protected holiday postcards
for Father’s Day, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries, Mother’s Day,
half anniversaries, birthdays, and half birthdays.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource If you would like to find out about the “best” loyalty program that I know about where everything is practically “done for you,” go to www.Royaltyrewards.com/outrageous. |
In 2007, Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle held a Holiday Promotions Contest, and the winner was an orthodontist who was aiming to get referrals from general dentists’ offices in his area.
This orthodontist’s name is Dr. Brian Bergh, and he cleverly took advantage of oddball holidays such as National Pistachio Day and National Ice Cream Day to send gifts with a personal letter to dentists’ offices (B2B/peer-to-peer marketing).
The letter always included some bit of personal information, and then the gift was tied to the letter and the oddball holiday. It was brilliant.
Here, for instance, is the letter for National Pistachio Day.
Dr. Brian Bergh’s National Pistachio Day letter. 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.
This works brilliantly because he’s reminding the dentists out there that he exists, and he is sending a gift.
It is so well written and so personal. The National Pistachio Day letter begins with a reference to his father, who loved pistachios, which makes it memorable on a different level and he comes across as the kind of person you would want to refer a patient to.
And by choosing the oddball holidays, he stands out from those using the common holidays that everyone is aware of.
For example, Dr. Bergh also used follow-up letters of other oddball holidays such as National Siblings Day, the birthday of Winnie the Pooh creator A.A. Milne, and National Ice Cream Day.
In the case of National Ice Cream Day, Dr. Bergh sent a gallon of ice cream along with a nice letter.
Dr. Brian Bergh’s National Ice Cream Day letter. 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.
Here’s the best news. By using oddball holidays and related gifts to stimulate referrals, Dr. Bergh’s referrals went up 300 percent.
Three hundred percent!!!
So what happens on Memorial Day that you can take advantage of?
How about a cookout?
Gage Menswear Memorial Day
newspaper ad. 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.
Well, that’s exactly what we did at my menswear store one year when we asked, “What would we have to do this Memorial Day to get you to start the cookout after 5 p.m.?”
But we didn’t just ask. We designed a catchy newspaper ad to look like a coupon and draw you in.
This ad features an eye-catching headline, a prominent deadline, and something else—a heavy-dashed border that gives the appearance of a coupon even though the ad is NOT a coupon. Americans love coupons, so your eyes naturally go to that dashed-line border and what’s inside it.
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OUTRAGEOUS boost Putting “dashed” borders around display ads will increase readership even when you are not making a coupon offer. |
February 29 is special.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, once every four years, we get to leap, and so in my menswear business we used the special day as a chance to have a sale. It even gave us great “reason why” copy—we called it a rent-free day.
This was a really easy and fun promotion that only involved sending out an inexpensive 4 × 6 inch postcard.
We discovered that Leap Day is as good a day as any to hold a promotion. It’s actually rather advantageous, but then tying a promotion to any holiday is advantageous if you can deliver the “reason why.”
In fact, a member of one of my private coaching groups ran a seminar over a Leap Day and used the “rent free” ballroom theme as the reason why he could make the seminar registration fee lower. He got more sign-ups than ever before. As you can see, what works in one business is easily transferred to another when you put your mind to it.
Gage Menswear’s front and back Leap Day postcard. 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.
Take a look around. Our Congress has created a holiday for every single date on the calendar, and a little imagination can make any of these days special, if you so desire.
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OUTRAGEOUS resource For a more detailed list of all holidays you can use for possible marketing campaigns, see Appendix B at the back of the book. |
Sizzling Outrageous Summation
1) Holidays are already on people’s minds, so enter the conversation in their minds and use the holidays to create OUTRAGEOUSLY successful advertising.
2) Businesses have anniversaries every year, and you should use them to hold a promotion because they are believable.
3) The top four holidays are Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day.
4) Tying a promotion to a holiday increases response.
5) Oddball holidays are attention-grabbing days.
