Joe Vitale
Opposite Marketing, or, Why I Haven't Had a Glass of Water in 20 Years
Today I received a booklet in the mail that fascinated me. It’s a traditional 40-page sales letter in printed and stapled form. That’s the cover of it on the left. Take a look at it.
You’ll note it grabs your attention with a couple of tried and true marketing tricks. To wit:
1. The word “Discover” is a hypnotic word proven to grab attention. It’s used to begin the headline.
2. The essence of the headline is in quotes. As I said in my book fot The American Marketing Association, The AMA Complete Guide to Small Business Advertising, just adding quotation marks to a headline will increase readership by 15%.
3. The headline itself shocks you. How can anyone (let alone an M.D.) not drink water in two decades? You and I both have heard that we must drink water. Well, not so according to this M.D. But how is that possible? It stuns the brain. It makes you curious. You want to know more.
The rest of the booklet follows this same theme. Basically, it is going in the opposite direction of “normal” thinking. Throughout the sales letter you’ll find statements such as “Vegetarians die younger” and “Low cholesterol can be more deadlier than high cholesterol.”
This method works. The truth is, there is no one truth in the world. While someone can “prove” high cholesterol can kill you, someone else can find or create a study that proves high cholesterol won’t kill you. It’s all true. It depends on your perspective, which leads you to find supportive evidence for your perspective.
But that’s me wearing my metaphysical-philosopher hat.
When I wear my marketing hat, I simply smile and realize here’s another person capitalizing on “opposite marketing.”
You might try it. It simply means note what the public is thinking and position yourself opposite from it.
But also note that what this doctor is saying is what people want to hear. At first glance it sounds counter to what people are hearing from their own doctors. It is. But it’s not counter to what people want to hear.
Finally, do long sales letters work?
Does “opposite marketing” work?
You bet. Consistently.
I just signed up for a three year subscription to Dr. William Campbell Douglass’s newsletter and booklets. He sold me.
But I’m still drinking water.
As well as $166 bottles of rare Chartreuse.
PS – I don’t think the non-drinking M.D. has a website (he’s traditional old school direct marketing) but you might try Google on him. He’s Dr. William Campbell Douglass at Real Health Breakthroughs.
Luxury Gold Phones Anyone?
I’m still waiting for my new office to be completed so I can start putting books on shelves and behind glass doors.
But since my Control Center here in the office is up, complete with two big 19″ monitors, I couldn’t resist the urge to do a little online surfing.
What I just found surprised me.
I like luxury. So do others, apparently. In my curiosity about what common items could be made expensive, I stumbled across a gent in Austria who makes luxury cell phones.
That’s right: Cell phones.
He adds gold and diamonds to them. He makes them heavy. He makes them gaudy. He made his first one in 1998 and the media did all the promoting for him.
His site reflects his uniqueness (typos and punctuation errors are all his):
each fantastic aloisson diamante phone is a rebel of todays pace.
the industry says – we are making the phones lighter and smaller – i make my phones heavier with gold
the industry says – we are making shock- and waterproof phones – i completely encrust my phone with magnificent diamonds
the industry wants us to replace a perfect working phone every 3 – 6 months with a new model – i make these maginificent objects for eternity.
if a product swims that much against today’s trends and fights that hard against a whole industry’s order – it cannot be just a simple product or a commodity. it must be an object of art.
And each item of art he creates for you will cost you about $20,000.
Twenty thousand dollars.
He’s looking for investors, too, in guess you’re getting excited.
I think too many of us forget that people have money for what they want (not always for what they need).
And people often spend money easily on things the rest of us think is unnecessary.
But the people doing the spending think their purchase is necessary. To them, it’s rational.
They need to do it to feel unique, to reward themselves, to stand out in a crowd, to make others jealous, to feel the thrill of owning something rare.
So maybe you and I aren’t thinking big enough.
And maybe we’re not thinking counter-intuitive.
Maybe we’re too logical in our marketing.
Maybe we’re too intuitive in our marketing.
Maybe we should just be charging more for our goods.
Add a diamond to what you sell and see how much you can get for it.
Or paint it in gold and multiply the current price by one hundred.
Just how far can we go here, anyway?
PS – See the luxury cell phone artist’s site at http://www.aloisson.com/
Movie Review: No Pain, No Gain
Who’s in charge of your mind?
Last night Nerissa and I watched the film Crash. A friend told me about it, I ordered the DVD, and we popped it in. We didn’t know we needed seat belts for the flick.
It’s intense. It stars a long line of greats, from Sandra Bullock to Don Cheadle to Matt Dillon. It’s about stereotypes, prejudice, and anger. The movie left me feeling uptight, and it left Nerissa feeling depressed. It’s a masterpiece of a movie, but not an easy one to sit through. So thank goodness I heard about the premier of No Pain, No Gain, an independent film which we just went to see today.
There hasn’t been a popular bodybuilding movie in decades, not since Pumping Iron, which I only mildly enjoyed. I didn’t know what to expect with this new one, but feared it might be boring. Even though I’ve transformed my body with bodybuilding, I don’t find the modern sport, with all its steroids, freak bodies and false promises, to be alluring.
Still, I needed a break from my office reconstruction and Nerissa was game to go. So we went.
Whew. The thing is inspiring. The key character is a likeable guy with enough brains to confuse the scientist he admires. He also idolizes the noble days of ancient bodybuilding, where you used your mind to command your body to get the results you want. His challenge is to prove his theories and enter a competition where the current king is a roid-injecting jackass.
There’s character, drama, tension, and a great story in this movie. The acting is less than ideal in most cases, but the lead character’s actor (Gus Malliarodakis) has big star written all over him. His arch enemy in the movie (Dennis Newman) also gives a command performance. The rest are adequate, but believable.
Nerissa, who has worked on major films and has a sharp eye, pointed out that the movie was filmed in and around Austin. We used to workout in the gym where much of it was shot. And a magician friend, Brad Henderson, has a moment in the flick. The music is upbeat. I want the sound track. The story is ultimately inspiring. My favorite line is repeated a few times:
“Your mind controls your body, but you control your mind.”
A friend of mine who has been into bodybuilding for decades didn’t think the movie was that great. He was the only person in the theatre in his city watching it. Nerissa and I might have had eight others watching it in our city theatre. But this was an independent film with little promotion behind it. Had Mel Gibson promoted it, there would have been a crowd. But this movie isn’t about Jesus, it’s about a man with a dream.
It’s about you.
I related to it.
I liked it.
I think you should see it.
After all, who is in charge of your mind?
Find out at http://www.no-pain-no-gain.com/
Ao Akua
A holiday gift idea (you can't blame me for trying)
I’m getting a lot of requests these days on how to get my recent best-selling book for holiday giving.
This year, instead of getting gift baskets of goodies that grow their customers and employees waistlines, many people are instead trying to help their family and friends, clients and customers, have a better life.
“The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or anything else) from the Inside Out” appears to be the answer for many this season.
So here’s the scoop: Just call Meg at 1-800-CEO-READ. If you’re out of the US, call 414-274-6406 and push 3 when prompted, or email her at [email protected]
She has prices that are better than I can offer you, and she is great at getting things out in a timely fashion. This is probably the best way for you to proceed if you are interested in getting 25 or more books at one time, at a very nice discount, to give as gifts this month. (She has a discount for less than 25 books, as well.)
After you dial 800-CEO-READ (800-236-7323) you can just push “3” when you hear the automated attendant, and you’ll be transferred to Meg. Tell her I said “Ciao.”
You can of course always get the book at Amazon, too. If you do, you can still have all of the bonuses I offered before. See https://www.mrfire.com/factor
Expect Miracles,
Joe
PS – And here’s a gift for you: You can still hear my first interview from last April where Alex Mandossian interviewed me about my book as it became a#1 bestseller (beating even Harry Potter) at http://www.AskJoeVitale.com/replay
The Magic Furnace, or, People Reading is a Joke
I’m typing this on my laptop. Four guys are upstairs putting together my new office. I’m hiding downstairs at the kitchen table, trying not to cringe whenever I hear them bump something or say “Oops.”
Earlier two other guys were here. They are the ones who do maintanence for us, cut the grass, trim the trees, etc. I’m hiring them to build a walking/jogging trail on the back part of our acreage. While here, we got to talking. They came inside to pick up some of my old office furniture, which I donated to them, and they of course saw the mountain of books on the floor, lining the walls, etc. Turns out these guys are big readers, too.
I was stunned. I never would have suspected they were even literate, let alone book worms. I don’t mean that in any way as a negative comment. I like these guys. They are honest, dependable and talented. But both look and act like stereotypical Texas rednecks. They talk with a heavy southern accent, wear battle fatigue clothes, work outside all the time, chew tobacco, and never mention their interests. So how would I have guessed they liked to read books?
The taller of the two said his favorite books are on physics. He just finished a book called The Magic Furnace: The Search for the Origins of Atoms. He loaned it to his partner to read next. I haven’t read the book but it’s said to be about how we all started from star dust. Pretty deep.
Like everyone else, I often judge people based on a first impression. I’ve often been wrong, too. I need to remind myself to just look into people’s eyes when I meet them, meet their spirit, and ask about their interests rather than guess at them.
I wonder how many people mis-judge me, too, based on a first impression?
