Customer Reviews

Outrageous Advertising That's Outrageously Successful: Created for the 99% of Small Business Owners Who are Dissatisfied with the Results They Get From Their Current Advertising

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Some books written by top marketers are essentially just sales letters, however poorly or masterfully disguised. This is not one of those books.

This is really a decade-spanning swipe file of the very best marketing campaigns Bill Glazer has seen and done.

This book is messy in the same way that good marketing is messy. It's not a book about brand-building or graphic design, it's a book about getting attention, surprising and delighting customers with provocative messages and promotions. It's sort of like Bill dumped the contents of his filing cabinet on the floor and started going through them one by one.

Most of the examples in this book are direct mail. Direct mail is a whole lot less fashionable than Facebook and online video, but done properly it commands far more attention. And since the size of most peoples' "junk mail" pile is at an all time low, mailing to existing customers and high-probability prospects is a strong bet. No sensible person can go through this book and not find a great idea they can use.

This is outstanding for retailers because of Bill's retail background. Many examples in this book are from retail.

As for my own audience, online marketers, it's good for us because it FORCES you to consider things you would never otherwise think about. Just by executing one or two of these ideas you'll put yourself in elite company.

Ideas in this book include examples of making web pages more outrageous with documented response percentages; sending things like popcorn and lunch bags and birthday specials. Placemats and x-rays and collections of winning headlines.

The only drawback is that the print in the book is sometimes fuzzy and you can't read the fine detail in the pictures. Fortunately, however, he offers a CD with all the exhibits.

Bill, thanks for putting out such a great addition to my swipe file.

Perry Marshall

In a world where your prospect is bombarded with millions of marketing messages this book teaches you how to get attention. Bill Glazer deconstructs outrageous advertising and shows you the components that have to be present for the outrageous to generate customers.

At the beginning Bill gives you a lot of background on the effective ways to use advertising to generate customers. Bill's an advocate of direct mail and he shows you several examples of campaigns that have worked for other people. But, rather than talking about advertising theory, Bill provides you real examples of mailings that business people have used to promote their business. Anyone can tell you what should work. Bill gives you examples that did work and tells you why.

You've probably seen ridiculous attempts by advertisers to get attention that leave you asking, "What?" In this book Bill dissects effective advertising campaigns to show you how to turn the attention you get from the outrageous and into buying activity. In chapters 5-8, Bill gives you the essential components to make your advertising effective as well as several ideas you can select from to boost your response. This book includes several split test examples so you can see the results of the letter mailed one way compared to the results of another method.

Appropriately, there's an entire chapter about follow-up campaigns. Outrageous advertising isn't all about one mailing and then done. It's about persistent communication with your customer. And, Bill's book gives you several examples of follow-up letters that are equal parts outrageous and easy to create.

I'm so glad to have this book. It'll be a huge short-cut when I'm looking for ideas to get attention and a checklist for the elements I must include to turn the attention I generate into new customers. I recommend that you add this book to your library. It'll be one of those books that pays dividends to you for years.

Let me get this out of the way in the beginning. I love this book Outrageous Advertising That's Outrageously Successful. It's not for the seasoned marketer, but I don't think it is trying to be. Every page has another usable and unique idea to promote yourself or your company. These are real world examples of campaigns which brought results.

We've all seen brilliant TV commercials which are so memorable, we will never forget them. The problem is, many people cannot recall what was being sold. That is a problem which Glazer addresses, although not regarding TV ads. He shows how to be different enough to be noticed, without being bizarre to the point of distracting the prospects.

If you want to have people notice you, you can't beat this book or even The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales. if you're considering a direct mail campaign. For general theory of setting yourself apart from the pack, check out 10-Ways To Stand Out From The Crowd by Connie Podesta. So what do you use to get all these ideas written on napkins and rattling around in your brain into a usable platform? I use ThoughtOffice Brainstorming and Creativity Software, which asks you questions which you never even knew you needed to answer.

I do think this book was about 25% longer than it needed to be. It became a little repetitive, but not obnoxiously so. Some people would probably benefit from having these good ideas drummed into their heads a little. Also, I think he makes it all seem a little easier than it actually is. Million dollar ideas don't just pop up every day, but with this book you have a better shot.

Summary: If you want better results from your advertising, and you're a small business owner, or an entrepreneurial decision-maker in large company, this could be the most valuable marketing book you read all year.

Why?

Because there are more proven, effective, immediately useful advertising tips and examples in this book than any other I can remember.

Advertising rookies will benefit from this because, if you read it early in your business career, you'll have far, far fewer bad habits to unlearn later.

Advertising veterans (like me) can pick up a half dozen new tricks every chapter on such topics as direct mail, offers, deadlines, headlines, premiums, holiday promotions, and sequential mailings.

Bottom line: If you have to feed your family tomorrow with the ads you write today, get this book.

Three takeaways:

1. Understand that there are 3 possible responses to every ad: "yes," "no," and "maybe later."

Key corollary: When you pay attention to people who say "maybe later," your profits will soar.

How to do it?

Follow up multiple times and offer valuable information that educates, informs, and ingratiates your business with your prospects. You can deliver marketing-based information to convert more "maybe" prospects into "yes" customers via web pages, email, direct mail, tele-seminars, webinars, brochures, articles, etc.

2. Think of your business card as a mini sales letter. Because it is one.

Your business card must stand out or get thrown out. Don't scrimp on this and get the $25 "name, rank, and serial number" type cards from Vista print.

Instead, put some thought into your business cards. What would you include on your cards if they were the only chance you had to impress prospects enough to call you? If you're stuck, Google "creative business cards" to get ideas.

3. You can't sell to people who don't know you exist.

This is actually the thesis of the book. Anything you can do to stand out and be memorable (within reason) will improve your advertising. Examples from the book include:

* mailing a sales letter inside a coconut, a bank pouch, a wastebasket, etc.

* personalizing your sales letters wherever possible with the prospect's name

* taping a rubber band, a nickel, or other "grabber" atop your sales letters

* tying your promotions to holidays, current events, prospects' birthdays, etc.

No, you don't have to dress up in a straitjacket and imitate the local used-car dealer on late night cable. But yes, you do have to get noticed to get customers.

Not only can you do it with your dignity intact, but you can use Outrageous Advertising to make your business fun again. That's important. Just as most cars rust out before their engines wear out, most small business owners tire of their businesses before their customers and markets tire of them.

The number one sin of all marketing is "Boring." In fact, 72% of all Direct Mail (which this book addresses) is sorted over a wastebasket. Bill shows page after page of outrageous marketing that never gets thrown away. Such as yellow legal-paper letters, little kids crayon letters, lumpy mail with nickels pasted to them, holiday cards that show a turkey saying, "Eat Ham!" Now that's funny; I don't care who you are!

However, what I like best is that Bill is not just some ordinary consultant or guru who only tells you how to do it. He's actually done it all himself! Bill has owned the number one men's retail store in Baltimore and many of the examples are from his very successful campaigns.

Everyone will enjoy these fun filled, exciting marketing ideas that will make their marketing stand out from the crowd.

On a personal note, I have known Bill for several years and have waited patiently to read this book. Bill has given us one of the biggest marketing swipe files that exists, with the best of the best marketing ideas I personally have seen. Bill even gives us a free CD with examples of all of these successful marketing pieces. Congratulations to Bill on an outstanding book.

So many times in advertising and marketing bad ideas are ripped off from other industries so much so that one ad for tires looks like another add for toothpaste. There is no real attention getting device to get the consumer involved. Some of the problem comes from academics and professors who have never had to write copy in their life and tell graduates of college how to write, the other comes from business owners who are guessing and think that what some other company is doing may work wonders for their business. In those examples companies go out of business or they see the light and buy a book like this.

I have to make a confession I like to read books on business, marketing, persuasion and body language for fun. Many times some new guru pops out and recycles old information and the wraps it up all pretty and then hopes someone will buy it beofre the word gets out. You are in luck this book is nothing like that. If you have ever wondered how to write copy or ads and how to trigger a response from a reader then this book will do great fro you as long as you do the work involved.

To get noticed you will have o do things that others are not doing and sometimes that may put you in the category of looking silly. There is nothing silly about counting stacks of money and even if you felt that way seeing extra money in your bank account makes the feeling go away quick. The beauty is the ideas are broken down for you and explained, it makes it a no brainer.

A few things that I liked about the book were: look outside your industry, if the idea works somewhere else it will probably work for you. Define your success in advance and work backwards make it measurable and accountable, meaning know where it came from and how well that ad works. Know and learn the difference between marketing for results vs branding a name or idea. Getting your maybe later clients engaged turns into profits (page 28). If it's boring people will ignore it, your letter, commercial or even business card. How to write a headline that has impact. Create a time urgency false or real get some action. Make your add compelling enough to look at, draw on it with crayons, write messages in the margins or even rip off a corner.

Even if you have read just about every book on marketing there is something that you can take and use from this book.

The only thing that I didn't like is that on just about every page there is a push to join the group on page 312 although it is an effective way to up sale a product or service use that idea in your business get a hook and grab a client.

I recently bought this incredible book on Amazon and was thrilled when it arrived. It's not your normal book on marketing. The examples Bill gives in this book might stun some marketers that have always done things the normal way. "My company wouldn't do something like that!" they'll say as they keep getting horrible results from their generic advertising. They'll continue to make their advertising look pretty but not drive in the sales their boss really wants. They'll blame it on the economy or the area they are trying to advertise to. They just won't get it.

Read this book with an open mind and don't be afraid to try some outrageous marketing. It's worked for Bill and countless others. Give it at try and I think / know you'll be amazed at the results you'll get. On LowCostMarketingTips dot com, my internet marketing review site, I gave this book my highest rating. I have a closet full of books on marketing including many by Dan Kennedy, Bill's mentor. I have to say I enjoyed this book more than any I've ever read by Dan or anyone else.

...but the good news for most business owners is that your competitors probably never will.

I predict that this book quickly becomes one of my more tattered, dog-eared, post-it-noted, highlighted, underlined resources that I will use time and again to improve the revenue and profits of my own businesses as well as those of my hundreds of small business owner clients.

This is far from "just another business book", or one you read once and hope to "just get one good idea from". It is absolutely packed from beginning to end with hundreds of the very best examples, ideas, resources and exercises I've ever seen collected all in one place that any business owner can use to put more fun into your marketing and more money into your bank account.

The subtitle of this book says it was "Created for the 99% of Small Business Owners Who are Dissatisfied with the Results They Get From Their Current Advertising". In my experience working with thousands of small business owners as a sales and marketing consultant, that number is sadly but absolutely accurate.

This book could change that number for the better.

But only for those who BUY it, READ it, and take the time to IMPLEMENT what it teaches. Thankfully, Bill Glazer has made that fun and easy to do for all of us.

Although the good news is that our competitors probably never will...

If you are new to marketing, this book will provide you with many great ideas. Unfortunately, the material presented in this book has been talked about by other marketing guru's for years. However, Bill's "outrageous" advertising got me to buy the book, so it must work.

Length:: 5:32 Mins

Recently our friend Bill Glazer released a top quality book called Outrageoud Advertising That's Outrageously Successful. This book is stuffed with excellent ideas for creating advertising gets noticed. This is right up our alley!

We've been testing some of the ideas from the book, and the results have been stellar. Highly recommended. Watch the video to hear more about it and to hear about our two favorite ideas from the book.

Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller

Authors of Gravitational Marketing: The Science of Attracting Customers