Use WhackedOut Marketing To Get Noticed In A WhackedOut Economy

Edit: I just finished writing the post below.  This very well could be the most WhackedOut blog post I’ve made yet - and could very well change a family’s life during the Holidays.  That is of course if someone is willing to get out of their comfort zone and take action!

I accidently glanced at some headlines this morning and saw some crazy numbers as far as retail sales numbers, November jobless stats, etc.

Now I’m not here to talk about the economy and doom and gloom all over you.  The media does enough of that to you.

What I do want to do is wake you up a little.

Here, step into my lab and take a seat.  

Now r..e…l….a…x….. deep breath.  Again.  Relax.

There, nice and relaxed.  All the worries and stress melting away.  Are you feeling relaxed and comfortable?  Well, if you are then…

Wake The &#!* Up!

You want to make it out there?  You got to get up and start hustling.  If you want to thrive while everyone else in your industry is doing what they can to survive, you need to get up and do what most others are not willing to do.

You need to kick yourself in the ass - and do so often to shake out some of those nasty habits you’ve developed over the years.  Sure, you can join the rest of the world cuddled up on your sofa watching TV for hours on end at night.  Just see where that will get you in the next few months.

It’s time to turn it up a notch.  It’s time to stand out.  It’s time to give it all you’ve got then give it some more.  Get a little WhackedOut if you have to.  While others in your industry keep on keepin’ on what they’ve been doing and complaining how bad things are, you could be cleaning house and becoming a media magnet because of your WhackedOut Marketing.

Come on.  Look at what this car dealership in Miami is doing.  Buy one get one free?  A truck?  Now how WhackedOut is that?

That little idea has given their little car dealership which normally relies on local advertising NATIONAL coverage.  And what happened because of it?  Check out what the sales manager said:

“We’ve been fielding phone calls and e-mail inquiries from every state in the country looking to get this buy-one-get-one deal,” Ahmed said.

Every state in the country.  A Miami car dealership.  Think about this.  Now that is WhackedOut Marketing.

Let me ask you….

What can YOU do to get local, national, or global attention?

Are you willing to get a little (or a lot) WhackedOut in your marketing?

If you’re not, others in your industry soon will - so you better get cranking now or else!

Whaaaaa.  Deep breath.  OK.  Let’s tone it down a little…

Let Your Ideas Steam And Boil Over

Don’t be afraid to let your WhackedOut marketing ideas steam and boil over.  If you come up with an idea that immediately makes you think, “Wow, that is just too crazy.  I couldn’t do that. I’d be embarrassed…”, Then you very well could have a winner there.

I have a notebook full of WhackedOut and crazy marketing and publicity ideas that have come to me over the years.  No idea where they came from or why they popped into my head most of the time so I just wrote them down.  Glad I did.

Some can get local attention, some can get attention in the state, a few national attention, and I even have a few possible global attention-getters.

Each and every one of these makes me get uncomfortable.  Every one of them makes me nervous.  So, I’ve come up with a few solutions.  I figured one way to solve this is to get a costume made to hide my identity.  Actually, I’ll need two costumes made because another idea has me doing something in public as well.

I’m naturally a pretty quiet/shy person.  I usually hang around or stand in the back during conferences or events pacing around.  Imagining myself doing my WhackedOut publicity and marketing stunts in public is so far beyond my comfort zone it’s ridiculous.  However, I know that if they hit and the media grabs a hold of it, the income they could generate would be just as ridiculous.  So it’s a fair tradeoff I’d say.

I’ll be beginning my WhackedOut marketing and publicity stunts early next year - lot of prep work to do.  More on this down the road.

Anyway, the bottom line is that there are more opportunities to market your business using unique and WhackedOut marketing methods RIGHT NOW than ever before.  Zig while others zag.  Be different.  Stand out.  Create buzz, news, etc.

THINK.

If you own a local business, what could you do that would get you national media attention and customers calling you from every state in the US wanting to take you up on your offer?  Or what could you do locally to get on TV, the radio, and in your newspaper?

You can do it - just THINK.

If you own a product that you market online, what can you do that others are not doing to drive more traffic to your site?  What could you do to attract local or national attention?  It’s going to take something pretty WhackedOut.  Come up with some ideas.  Launch them.

Wait a second… oh my… hold up… yes, yes YES!  Got one!

Ahhh… A WhackedOut Marketing Idea Suddenly Appears…

 

OK - an idea just popped into my head as I’m writing this…

I made a post the other day about my Christmas tree falling over twice.

One of the people who commented was Jason from Atlanta Tree Service.  (There is some link juice for you Jason!)  I’ve never talked to him before.  Don’t know him; don’t know how he found my blog.  But glad he did so I can use Jason’s business for my idea.  Well, I’m not sure if Jason is the one who actually does the tree work or if he sells leads to those who do, but here’s the idea anyway….

By the way, when ideas come to me, they just plop into my head all at once, the whole thing and I have to quickly get it out - same thing happens to me when I write sales letters most of the time.

Here goes….

Step 1: Contact local high school that has a shop class.

Step 2: Contact local elementary school.

Step 3: Find a local family who is struggling right now and can’t afford to pay their mortgage this month or buy toys for their kids because of job lay-off or something.

Step 4: Contact newspapers, radio station, local TV station, etc.

Step 5: Contact local business that sells paint.

Step 6: Find someone who needs a large tree cut down or has a tree that has fallen over.

Step 7: Put together a quick website with the story, VIDEOS of everything below, and an order page hooked up to your PayPal account.

Note: Above is not in step-by-step order… need to move a few things around.

The bottom line: You are going to bring everyone together in the spirit of giving and Christmas to raise money to help the family you found.

How?  Well, contact the local high school that has a shop class and share the idea.  The idea is that you will be cutting the tree up into smaller pieces.  The kids at the high school would then cut those pieces into blocks that are about 5 inches or so tall.

The blocks will then goto a local elementary school where the kids would paint all of the blocks red and green.  Let’s say there are 1000 blocks.  Paint 500 red, 500 green.  Let the paint dry.  Then the kids paint a letter on each block.  Some kids paint the letter E.  Some paint L.  Some paint E again.  Some paint the letter B.  Some paint V.  Others paint the letter I.  And there are a few kids painting some more E’s.  

Let the paint dry.

Now it’s time to put the blocks together and put them into about 142 boxes.  What do we get about 142 of?  The word “BELIEVE”.

What would someone do with these blocks?  They would put them on their fireplace or somewhere in their house during Christmas.  It stands for believing in Santa.  It stands for believing in community.  It stands for believing that anything is possible….

Record videos of the high school kids cutting the blocks.  Record videos of the elementary kids painting the blocks.  Record a video of the local paint store donating the paint.  Record videos of you cutting the tree.  Record videos of… you get the idea.

Oh… and record a video of you - the first video people see on the home page about WHY you are doing this.  Tell the story about the family you met who can’t pay their mortgage this month and/or can’t afford to buy their kids a Christmas present this year.  Make it emotional.  Some soft music.  Use the techniques that the TV show - can’t remember the name - that builds houses for people in need uses.  Oh.  Extreme Home Makeover I think is…

Launch the website.  Make sure you have the name of your business on your site.  Have the videos on your site.  Have the video of you telling the story on the home page.  Record all of these and upload to YouTube as well.  Ways to make this viral… lot of ideas there… oh boy… need to type faster… Have PayPal up.

Contact local media - let them know the deal.  Do a big launch for the site… like Wednesday at 5:30 live on your local news.  Have newspapers there to take pictures so it’ll be in the newspaper the next day.  Contact local radio so you can be interviews on the local radio the next day.

Sell each set of blocks for: $19.97.

142 X $19.97 = $2,835.74

Add in a little more $$ for shipping and packaging costs…

Announce your goal is to sell all 142 sets within 24 hours.  Give the website address to everyone live on TV.  I have a feeling that you’d sell all 142 sets within 3-5 minutes or less.

Also… you can keep it a secret on who the family is that you picked….  WHOA!  Cool idea here… need.. to.. type… faster…. errrr…

Let ALL of the media know that on Christmas eve you’re going to go to the families house and give them the money.  You want to have it broadcast live on your local TV, radio, get pictures from the newspaper, etc.

If at all possible, invite everyone who worked on this to come to the house too (to stand outside and cheer).  Man - I’m getting chills - this is going to be HUGE.

Have all the kids who worked on the blocks there.

Wait… only sell 141 sets and give 1 set to the family before you give them the money.

Go up to the door, knock on the door, when they open it have everyone standing on both sides of the street start cheering.  Have the TV station recording the video - broadcasting live.  Tell the family that you know that they are struggling right now and that you want their kids to “believe” in Santa and you want the parents to “believe” in their community, then give them the blocks, and then hand them the check for $2800 or so dollars.

Everyone cheers.  Tears flow.  Everyone in the community watching their evening news for just a moment forgets about their situation.  They forget about the economy.  They forget about the fear that they may lose their job.  They feel what it’s like to believe again.  And suddenly a new hope begins to arise within everyone around the community.

I have a lot of other pieces and ideas for the above, but I hope the above gives you enough to get started on it - NOW before someone else in your area jumps on this and becomes the most known tree service guy in the area.  (That is of course you are a tree guy and you don’t just sell leads to tree guys.  If you just sell leads to them, then share this with a tree cutting company and help them with it.  You’ll have a customer for life!)

A few things this will do…

The paint shop guy will get publicity… the kids at the high school and elementary school will learn about believing, giving back, helping families in need (you can even go to the schools and talk to the kids about what you are doing and why you are helping a family)… the local press will finally have something POSITIVE to report instead of the doom and gloom they are reporting… you will be helping a family in need… 140 or so people around the area will have the “BELIEVE” blocks displayed every Christmas as a reminder about believing and giving to those less fortunate… and of course, you will become the most WELL KNOW tree service guy in the area… maybe the state… maybe even the country!

Now this Jason, and the 8 or 9 people that I have reading my blog, is just one example of a way to WhackedOut Marketing to get a ton of press locally, get your business known by everyone, and maybe… just maybe this would get picked up by the national media and we’d all see this on TV, in USA Today, or even talked about on morning and late night TV.

So there you have it - a glimpse into the mind of a WhackedOut Marketer who gets ideas like this plopping into his head all the time.  Now of course I have more ideas on how to leverage this into something even bigger - something that all communities in the entire world can do to help families in their area.  But going into all of that would require several hours of writing to get that idea written out.  ;)

I’d love to see you jump on this Jason - or anyone who is in the tree business.  If you are the first, you have the greatest opportunity to be picked up by local and maybe even national media.  Forget Joe The Plumber!  The world needs to know about Jason The Tree Remover!

[B]  [E]  [L]  [I]  [E]  [V]  [E]

 

 

Until the next WhackedOut idea comes,

Rob

PS… Did you like this post?  Help spread the word and idea to inspire people to get WhackedOut with their marketing!  To help spread the word, you can: Digg it, Social Bookmark it, post a link to it on your blog, on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, or you can even hire a plane to skywrite “WhackedOutMarketing.com”.  Help spread the link juice love and I’ll return the favor!