Would you change the way you serve your customers?
Would you change the way you trained your staff?
Would you change the products and services you offer?
Would you quit your job and work for a different company?
What else? Add to the comments below.
Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful by Bill Glazer
My Notes on “Outrageous Advertising That’s Outrageously Successful” by Bill Glazer:
Recipe for a 5 Page Sales Letter
- Page 1: Tell your story, the reason why you’re doing this, and why buyers should buy
- Page 2: The details, what’s for sale, who you are, how much they’ll save
- Page 3: Offer free gift “premium”. A deadline. Write directly at them. Hint at coupons coming up on the last page.
- Page 4: Personal message reminding them how great you are, that they are your preferred customers, and not everyone is getting this offer, but they will later and then all the best stuff will be gone so they better act now. Another hint of the coupons on the last page
- Page 5: Use P.S. and P.P.S.
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Do you make the mistake of putting your brand and logo at the top of your print ads?
If so, you are not alone.
But even so, STOP IT!
Here is an example in this weeks edition of the Bay News for Metal Man Recyclers, Koromiko Street, Tauranga.
This approach is classic, and very common… But still wrong!
The problem is there are 3 audiences:
- The business/advertiser (who is paying for the ads)
- The graphic designer who designed the ad
- The potential customer (people who read the Bay News in this case)
Each audience has a different agenda, and unfortunately the potential customer doesn’t get a say so the advertiser and the graphic designer work together to create the ad.
That’s a shame because the potential customers opinion is the only one that counts!
The graphic designer knows that if they create an ad with the advertisers brand name and logo at the top, the advertiser is going to be happy and will pay the bill. The graphic designer doesn’t care if the ad works or not, that’s not their business, it’s not their problem, they just do what they are told.
If your advertisement doesn’t work, what’s the point? It’s a waste of money if this ad doesn’t get customers in the door isn’t it?
The key to a great ad is a great headline, because it achieves 3 things:
- It filters out non-customers (if the headline doesn’t appeal to them, they move on. Fine, let them go!)
- It tells potential customers what’s in it for them (that’s all they care about. They don’t care about your brand, they care about what they can get from you)
- It hints at what action the customer can take
With those ideas in mind, I propose the following headlines for this ad:
- Old Car dumped on your lawn? We’ll take it away for FREE
- Got old car batteries, lead pipes, copper wire, aluminum cans etc? We pay cash for scrap metal. So check under your deck and in your shed today
So my message to Metal Man Recyclers, Koromiko Street, Tauranga is:
Change your headline to one of these, and put your brand name at the very bottom and only put your logo there if there is room.
How many reward cards do you have in your wallet?
I’ve got a truckload. I’m pretty good a throwing receipts away, but I’m a sucker for a bargain so keep many rewards cards.
The most common type is “buy 9 cups of coffee, get your 10th cup free”.
From VTNZ Hewlets Road I’ve got “get 2 WOF’s, get $5 off the third, get 2 more WOF’s, get $10 off the fifth.
From BP Maunganui Road (beside the fly-over) I’ve got “fill your gas bottle 9 times, get the 10th free”
From Bakers Delight on Owens Place I’ve got “spend over $4 5 times, get a loaf of bread free”
From Subway I’ve got a Subcard for 20c credit for every 6 inch sub I purchase.
And the more famous nationwide examples would be Fly Buys and Air Points.
Here’s the trick: Some of these actually save me money (I would probably go to bakers delight anyway), but others are a real waste of time (it will take me 5 years to need 9 bottles of LPG), but I can’t resist the promise of saving money at some point in the future.
And in the meantime, I’m carrying around their brand name in my wallet. Their brand name is front of mind, because everytime I open my wallet I am reminded of it.
Is it the same for you? What cards have you got in your wallet?
How can you make this hugely successful tactic work for your business? Can you issue a rewards cards?
What ever you do, don’t be tempted to write an expiry date on them. The couple of times that happened to me it made me really mad and you don’t want loyal customers thinking dark thoughts about you!
Example of how new packaging can give boring products new life
Check out these fun and funky first aid kits
Are you selling a product or service that’s a little bit boring? How can you funk it up with new packaging?
The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
My Notes on “The Ultimate Sales Machine” by Chet Holmes:
- You can profoundly improve your company if you absolutely commit one hour a week in which you do nothing else than work on making the business much more effective.
- We all get good ideas t seminars and from books and business-building gurus. The problem is that most companies do not know how to identify and adapt the best ideas to their businesses. Implementation, not ideas, is the key to real success.
- To do’s, tasks, and deadlines must be assigned after every meeting. But the key is not to ask for too much to be completed. Make the gains small but constant. If you are having the meeting every week and you are making small incremental gains each and every week, think of the profound transformation you’re going to have in 52 weeks.
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