1) Take The OUTRAGEOUS Path To OUTRAGEOUS Success
This is about taking the OUTRAGEOUS path and getting noticed.
OUTRAGEOUS doesnāt always mean getting wild like me in a straitjacket. It can be as simple as changing the font in a letter you send off to prospective customers so that it looks like you wrote it with your own hand.
By the way, if youāre wondering how to get your picture taken in a straitjacket, itās not as hard as you think. The first time I did it, I just rented one from a local costume store and had one of our staff take my picture with a digital camera. The one that you see on the cover was actually taken by a professional photographer in Dallas, Texas. (Douglas Bryan is a professional photographer who specializes in OUTRAGEOUS shots, including placing you in a straitjacket. He can be reached at (972) 642-2842 or through his web site www.bryanphotography.com.
the path less traveled, think differently
The first mass-produced handwritten sales pitch Iād ever seen was a letter that was sent out by Dan Kennedy. He first saw this tactic used in a letter written by political candidate Ron Paul. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it was something different, and Iāve always looked for ways that others have used to cut through the clutter (see chapter 10).
Itās not easy. The clutter of advertising messages can be overwhelming, but you must cut through it and understand that of the three possible answersāyes, maybe, or noāyou have the best chance of getting a āyesā or āmaybeā if you do something OUTRAGEOUS enough to get noticed. So I decided to try it at my retail store, Gage Menswear.
Handwrite a letter to my customers? OUTRAGEOUS!
But mine was more than just handwritten; it appeared spontaneous with big letters and small, wildly drawn parentheses, scratch-outs, and hand-drawn arrows pointing to a side note. And it was on yellow legal pad paper. Plus, get thisāit was five pages!
Cāmon! No one sends out a five-page handwritten sales letter. No one! I mean, who would read it?
Well, it turned out that lots of people read it. But more on the results later. First, take a look at the letter.
As you can see, there is a lot of copy in a five-page handwritten sales letter.
But hereās the thing: itās not blah, blah copy; it all serves a purpose.
And if you study the letter, you will see there is even more.
I will summarize the approach.
OUTRAGEOUS yet systematic
This approach was not simply OUTRAGEOUS. There was madness, sure. But there was definitely a method to my madness.
I am about to give you an outline of the five pages. You can certainly see the progression and, in fact, the elements of OUTRAGEOUS advertising, which you will learn in detail in chapter 5.
| OUTRAGEOUS resource City Print specializes in printing on legal pads. To contact City Print, call 1-866-907-1222 or visit http://www.cityprintusa.com. |
Page #1 of Bill Glazerās award-winning five-page handwritten sales letter
written on a yellow legal pad. 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.
PAGE ONE - The first page, as you can see, introduces that a sale is going on, why I am writing the letter, and that the recipient of the letter is a preferred customer. I also note that the business is in a tough cycle and I need to do something drastic to reduce inventory before the new stuff arrives.
āReason whyā copy is critical for results. The response goes way up when you give the recipient a reason why you are making him or her an offer, and it is best relayed in the form of a story, as I did on page one of this letter.
Thatās right; everyone needs to know the reason you are doing something. What have we all heard about a free lunch? Thereās no such thing! No one believes in a deal thatās too good to be true. So I gave the readers a reason why I was making what was about to be a tremendous offer and a reason why they were receiving a handwritten letter from me. (And in a side note on page one, I refer to āShameless Bribeā coupons on page five of the letter.)
In fact, all great copywriters and marketers often use stories. People like hearing stories. Itās because we were raised on stories. Our parents and relatives told us stories when we were children growing up, so we were trained to listen to stories.
So there you go. On that first page, I gave āreason whyā copy in the form of a story.
| OUTRAGEOUS exercise Develop your business story. ā¢ Why should people utilize your products or services? ā¢ Develop a main story. ā¢ Think of three others you can use for a particular offer or promotion or event. |
Page #2 of Bill Glazerās award-winning five-page handwritten sales letter
written on a yellow legal pad. 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.
PAGE TWO ā The second page provides details of the offerāall the pertinent information. How much will I save? Whatās on sale? What brands? What categories?
Pertinent information is another key element when you are developing an advertisement. Just think about it. If you left out just one piece of pertinent information, it could make the difference (and often does) as to whether someone responds to you or not.
For example, letās say you are a dentist and you forget to list your phone number. How are potential or current patients going to call you to make an appointment?
Heck, I even know one company that forgot to put their name on their advertisement. I guess theyāre still waiting for someone to call.
| OUTRAGEOUS exercise List the pertinent information that prospects or customers would require in order to help them make a decision whether to respond to your advertising or not. Hereās a partial list to consider: ā¢ Name of the business ā¢ Location ā¢ Hours of operation ā¢ Phone number ā¢ Web site ā¢ Items you sell ā¢ Brands you sell After you make your list, include it in its entirety every time you write your advertisements. |
Page #3 of Bill Glazerās award-winning five-page handwritten sales letter
written on a yellow legal pad. 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.
Once again, the handwriting itself, along with the copy, gives the letter tons of personality as well as personalized selling with hand-drawn ...