Marketing Outrageously: How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts! (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Spoelstra (Ice to the Eskimos: How To Market a Product Nobody Wants) offers another fine book on creative marketing strategies and motivation. His book, which shows how considering marketing problems "outrageously" but consistently can benefit an organization, is instructive in its marketing ideas and stories of triumph. President of the professional sports division of Mandalay Entertainment, Spoelstra has held positions or served as a consultant with several sports teams, including the Portland Trail Blazers, New Jersey Nets, and Dayton Dragons. Here he describes how in his own experience a lack of adequate funds for marketing and advertising goals led to his "outrageous" approach. In each of the 17 chapters, Spoelstra illustrates one of "ground rules" of marketing, claiming that, for instance, each company must differentiate itself and that budget constraints need not prevent a company from doing its best work. His concerns for increasing revenue through marketing will be useful to professional marketers and students of marketing. Recommended for the academic and public libraries that serve them. Littleton Maxwell, Business Information Ctr., Univ. of Richmond, VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Jon Spoelstra, one of the country's best sports marketers,contends there is less risk and more payoffs in creating outrageous marketing.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bard Press (July 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885167504
• ISBN-13: 978-1885167507
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #96,731 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great update to his previous book, July 7, 2001

By	John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The author, Jon Spoelstra, is a hired gun marketing consultant who goes in and turns around companies with severe lack of revenues. Most of them are sports teams. So, we could think of him as a serial-turnaround artist. For this reason, you should read the book to see his techniques in action.

This is his second book. The other is "Ice To The Eskimos". This book is very similar to the first book. I consider this second book an update to the previous one. Both are highly recommended. In some ways I thought the first book had more meat. This second book is easier to read.

The author has about 20 major points that he makes in both books. One such point is to think outrageously when working on your marketing ideas and programs. He gives lots of stories and anecdotes to help you in this regard.

Another point by the author is the use of direct marketing over indirect marketing. He recommends that you let the customer tell you when to stop running the ad based on the returns that it generates. He gives lots of examples. His recommendations regarding TV ads follows the recommendations of Roy Williams, who wrote "Wizard of Ads" by the same publisher. In TV he recommends that you dominate a niche, or segment.

On one hand he believes in accepting the product as a given. Many sales and marketing people blame poor sales results on the product, just as a failed warrior is quick to blame his weapons. He believes most of the problems are caused by lack of creativity and action. But on the other hand, the author guides you on how to change your product offering. One technique is to understand what business you are really in. He gives you some checklists and examples on how to do this.

The author is totally revenue focused. He foresakes short term profitability to build revenues so he can pick up profitablity on subsequent purchases.

The hallmark of this second book is a call to action to write two important questions on a 3x5 card... and carry it around with you. To find out those questions you'll need to buy and read the book.

After reading this book you should have several important things to change for your business. So it is highly recommended. I would have given this book a "4" but because he made the case so convincingly that the CEO and chief marketing guy should make frequent sales calls... that I had to bump the score up to a "5". Read the book to find out why.

I think there are better 5's out there, but this one will pay you dividends if you apply some of his recommendations. He is a player with real experience.

John Dunbar

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for anybody interested in marketing and/or sports, November 25, 2002

By	Blaine Greenfield "eclectic reader" (Belle Meade, NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Loved reading MARKETING OUTRAGEOUSLY by Joe Spoelstra, one of America's top sports marketers . . . he uses many real--and often funny--examples to show how it is possible to get a company known without going into bankruptcy.

Even if you're not a sports fan, there is much here that
can be applied to almost any marketing situation.

What I so much liked about this book is that Spoelstra
has been involved in what he writes about . . . he has
consulted with major sports organizations including baseball,
hockey, soccer, and basketball in the United States, Spain
and Japan.

Also, he was general manager of the Portland Trail Blazers for
11 years, during which time he was the focus of what was perhaps the strangest trade in sports history. Portland was in need of a guard to fill a hole created by injury. The guard the Blazers wanted was the starting point guard for Indiana Pacers. A deal was struck; the compensation to the Pacers wasn't a player, but one week of Spoelstra's time. He then played a key role in the restructuring of the Pacers' front office.

Later, as president of the New Jersey Nets for three years, he
increased that team's revenue by almost 500 percent.

There were several memorable passages; among them:
* Learn to ask this question: "What's it going to take?"

Most business people are thinking, "How can we
make our budget numbers?" or "How can we
improve our profit over last year?" They are
asking the wrong question.

What if you asked the following question at
your company: "What's it going to take to be
the best company in our industry this year?"

You don't have to be CEO or a business
owner to ask this kind of question. You could
ask, "What's it going to take to become
the best marketing department in the industry
this year?" or "What's it going to take to be
the best department in our company this year?"

I know how difficult it is to answer that question.
I've asked it many times. Sometimes I've just
asked myself, because it can seem too outrageous
to ask anyone else. Sometimes I've asked others,
even though if they'd been carrying guns I'd
probably to dead. But you have to ask it, because
that's the only way to come up with truly outrageous
marketing ideas.

* I've got a warped perspective on advertising: I think
advertising should get results you can feel. Don't
hive me any of that image or identity stuff; I want
revenue that I can track to the ad. Anything less is,
to me, like throwing my money into a tornado and
hoping for the best.

You might ask me: "How much revenue would
make you happy?" Well, I've got a simple little
formula for that: $4-to-$1. I call it The Ratio.
For every dollar I spend on an ad, I want to see
four dollars in revenue as a direct result.

* At the beginning of this chapter, I asked you to
take out of your pocket the piece of paper on which
you had written, "What's it gonna take . . .?" because
I was going to ask you to write something on the
back of it. Here's what I want you to write. It's another
question:

What did I do today to make money for my company?

Go ahead, write that down on the other side of the paper.
I'll wait.

That piece of paper is going to become an important
tool for you. Just two simple questions. They could
have a lot of different answers. But to really get into
Marketing Outrageously, you've got to ask yourself
those two questions--every day.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great and Fun-To-Read Marketing Book, March 4, 2002

By	Peter Hupalo (MN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're looking for a great marketing book to kick your promotional ideas into high gear, pick up a copy of "Marketing Outrageously: How to Increase Your Revenue by Staggering Amounts" by sports marketer Jon Spoelstra. (You've got to love a book with a cover picture of a sumo wrestler slam dunking a basketball!)

But isn't doing outrageous things dangerous to your corporate or personal image? Spoelstra argues that conservative marketing is far more dangerous for a small company, because you won't build revenue as quickly. The slow growth and incremental improvements many marketers seek isn't adequate.

Rather, Spoelstra says you must begin asking yourself the question, "What's it going to take?" Think big. Consider your biggest goals. Then, add the goal to the end of the question: "What's it going to take to __________?"

By asking the above question, Spoelstra says you can start to generate ideas and a plan for achieving breakthroughs. Spoelstra asks the reader to write down a question to be asked every day: "What have I done to make money for my company today?" That seems like a good question.

Spoelstra tells many stories from sports marketing. For example, when brought in as a marketing consultant to revive the Sacramento Kings' season ticket renewals, which had fallen through the floor, Spoelstra was advised that, even though he wrote a great renewal letter, it wouldn't be read by the fans, who were now throwing away all correspondence from the team.

Spoelstra guaranteed the letter would be read. The letter was tied to the leg of a three-foot-long rubber chicken wearing a jersey that said, "Don't fowl out!" The rubber chicken was stuffed into a tubular Fed-Ex container and mailed to fans.

As Spoelstra explains, the Fed-Ex box was the headline. The rubber chicken, the subheadline. The only purpose of the headline is to get the prospect to read the subheadline. The purpose of the subheadline was to get the prospect to read the letter. Fans did read the letter attached to the chicken. And, a $12,000 rubber-chicken campaign generated about $2.5 million in extra renewals.

While the above is clever marketing, sometimes 'clever' can border upon unethical or misleading. For example, Spoelstra tells about the marketing of the independent film Blair Witch Project.

To promote the film, Spoelstra tells us that Artisan Entertainment sent about 100 college students to hand out fliers about three 'missing persons,' and the fliers asked people to visit the Blair web site for more information. The web site gave the impression that the three 'missing persons' were real--not that this was all promotion for a film, which is all it was.

Obviously, this marketing worked, because this ultra-low-budget film made for $50,000 went on to gross over $100 million at the box office. And, there have been many, many take-offs on this hide-a-scripted-fictional-film-as-a-true-documentary, even though that's a lie. A film claiming to follow a person on dates, one following a couple of people who start killing people and go on a murder spree, etc., are just a few of the poor follow-up marketing attempts.

And, today, some people still think that the witch thing really happened which is sort of frightening. People tend to be more interested in reality than pure fiction, so we've seen a whole host of TV shows which appeal to this by following real people. I guess it was only a matter of time before some producers would realize that they might as well script the darn thing but claim it's true anyway and get the best of both worlds--better action and the mirage of truth. I don't call that 'outrageous.' I call it something else. Do we really want large companies, and, maybe, even, governments adopting such 'outrageous marketing' methods?

The book also has a good discussion about AOL's marketing of its online service. Spoelstra, like many good marketers, prefers marketing that is measurable. If you don't really know what the results of a campaign are, how do you know if it worked? AOL was using direct mail, and, surprisingly, Spoelstra says that all those billion (or so it seemed) free AOL disks had a very high return, because many people tried the service and stayed with it.

Unlike the competitors who were trying to charge a fee for their software, AOL realized profitability lay in providing the service, not selling the one-time software. So, it gave the connection software away free. That's good marketing--the old get-the-razors-out-there-even-at-a-loss and make up for it with sales of razor blades....