In Episode #387, Eric and Neil discuss marketing lessons you can gain from watching classic infomercials. Tune in to discover the similarities between infomercials and regular marketing tactics. You’ll also find out how infomercials have become so effective in their niche.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:27 – Today’s topic: Marketing Lessons from Classic Infomercials
- 00:35 – Neil remembers an infomercial he watched from OxiClean
- 00:50 – Neil learns about infomercials from his friend Ryan Deiss, who is a copywriter
- 01:04 – Ryan learned how to write copy from his childhood experiences
- 01:23 – Infomercial is about timing
- 01:30 – Most are run at night and target females
- 01:44 – “If you want to do any type of marketing, you have to target the right type of people”
- 02:10 – Eric remembers the P90X infomercial which encourages you to work towards a great body
- 02:36 – Being direct and to the point is what Eric has learned from infomercials
- 02:48 – Eric also remembers the Shake Weight infomercial which was quite comical
- 03:14 – Include bonuses and employ scarcity tactics so that people take action
- 03:36 – It’s also expensive for infomercials to gain users; just like regular marketing in that you can lose money
- 03:46 – In any marketing offer, make sure you have back end offers; an upsell and cross-sell
- 03:55 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool that maximizes your conversion and is easy to use
- 04:30 – Go to SingleGrain.com/giveaway for multiple entries
- 04:40 – That’s it for today’s episode!
3 Key Points:
- An effective infomercial is about targeting the right market at the right time.
- It costs a lot to create an advertisement, so make sure you have back end offers so you’re not losing money.
- Most effective infomercials have catchy headlines and are straight to the point.
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Full Transcript of The Episode
Speaker 1: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the dial and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You’re listening to marketing school with your instructors, Neil Patel and Eric Siu.
Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School, I’m Eric Siu.
Neil Patel: I’m Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: Today we’re going to talk about lessons learned from Classic Infomercials. Neil what’s a good Infomercial that you remember?
Neil Patel: I remember those clean ones like, what is that called? The Kaboom or The Powder I don’t know if it's called Kaboom, but oh! OxiClean, there you go. OxiClean, you put on and it cleans your clothes and it makes your whites whiter and it makes your colors brighter, right?
But I learned quite a bit from Infomercials, and funny enough most of the stuff that I learned from Infomercials is from a buddy of mine Ryan Deiss, because he’s an amazing copywriter but the reason being is, he learned how to write copy because his parents were separated.
When he had to go to school, he had to wake up early because one of his parents had to work early so they had to drop him off to lets say the mom or dad’s house, and then from there he would turn on the T.V they would be nothing on other than Infomercials, he was a kid he couldn’t go back to sleep, so that’s how he learned how to write copy.
One of the things I learned from him about Infomercials is it’s timing. He used to tell me a lot of Infomercials run at night because they are targeting elder women who maybe up because of menopause. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying, I learned from him that a lot of these Infomercials type of companies place it during certain times because it’s all about targeting, right?
The big thing is, if you want to do any type of marketing, you have to target the right people. If you’re messaging is amazing but you target the wrong type of people you’re not going to generate any sales.
Eric Siu: Yeah, so the other one I can remember and actually this might be an experiment we can try out because I feel like whenever we tell stories it becomes a little more engaging, so hey give us comments by the way, in twitter or email us or whatever if you feel like we should tell more stories.
But anyway, when I think about the P90X Commercial for example the Infomercial, you see the dream for everyone is to have a really nice body for guys it's we want to have a six pack or an eight pack, but you actually see the people with the results are doing all these exercises that makes you feel that it’s not that difficult to do, and then there is also all these testimonials in there that you learn about.
Again what Neil is talking about, you learn about headlines, you learn about copywriting and you also learn about kind of saying what needs to be said without saying too much other stuff, so you’re getting conscience and to the point, and Neil and I are both very "get to the point" kind of people.
When I think about a P90X or when I think about like the Shake Weight for example too, I remember the Shake Weight because it’s kind of funny, and it doesn’t seem that difficult to do and you see some popular athletes endorsing it.
That’s what I learned from Infomercial, you get to the point, there is good headlines that draw you in, there is results, and then being able to improve in the body and the bonuses too. You see people on the webinars all the time talk about bonuses that they are given away, and the bonuses actually do work and also there is scarcity too.
At the very end it’s like oh, you get this offer it’s expiring in one hour or so. That’s not really the reality but it does get people to take an action that still works in today’s world because that’s human nature.
Neil Patel: Yeah, the other thing you have to keep in mind is, a lot of these Infomercials lose money same as marketing campaigns. Why? Because their cost is really expensive to acquire a user, so you need to have a back end. If you work at P90X they’ll lose money on the front end because they make more on the back end.
Whatever you’re doing in your marketing campaign in paid ads, make sure you have back end offers up sales, down sales. That’s what will help make your campaigns way more profitable.
Eric Siu: Great, so that’s it for today but before we go we have a one-year annual subscription of Crazy Egg to give away to giveaway to you, so Neil what is Crazy Egg?
Neil Patel: Cray Egg is a visual analytic store, show you where people will click, where they won’t, it will show you where they are dropping off within your funnel. You can make clicks within Crazy Egg, you don’t have to be a designer or a developer, all your marketing changes could made through a WYSIWYG and then you can even run AB test.
In other words it’s a visual tool that will help maximize your conversions, takes very little time to set up, and it’s easy to use.
Eric Siu: Great so, if you want to get in you can actually get multiple entries for these giveaways. Just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. We are giving away one of these every single week for the next year, and so again if you want multiple entries go ahead and check it out singlegrain.com/giveaway and we will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This session of marketing school has come to a close, be sure to subscribe for more Daily Marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We’ll see you in class tomorrow, right here on Marketing School.
Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School, I’m Eric Siu.
Neil Patel: I’m Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: Today we’re going to talk about lessons learned from Classic Infomercials. Neil what’s a good Infomercial that you remember?
Neil Patel: I remember those clean ones like, what is that called? The Kaboom or The Powder I don’t know if it's called Kaboom, but oh! OxiClean, there you go. OxiClean, you put on and it cleans your clothes and it makes your whites whiter and it makes your colors brighter, right?
But I learned quite a bit from Infomercials, and funny enough most of the stuff that I learned from Infomercials is from a buddy of mine Ryan Deiss, because he’s an amazing copywriter but the reason being is, he learned how to write copy because his parents were separated.
When he had to go to school, he had to wake up early because one of his parents had to work early so they had to drop him off to lets say the mom or dad’s house, and then from there he would turn on the T.V they would be nothing on other than Infomercials, he was a kid he couldn’t go back to sleep, so that’s how he learned how to write copy.
One of the things I learned from him about Infomercials is it’s timing. He used to tell me a lot of Infomercials run at night because they are targeting elder women who maybe up because of menopause. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying, I learned from him that a lot of these Infomercials type of companies place it during certain times because it’s all about targeting, right?
The big thing is, if you want to do any type of marketing, you have to target the right people. If you’re messaging is amazing but you target the wrong type of people you’re not going to generate any sales.
Eric Siu: Yeah, so the other one I can remember and actually this might be an experiment we can try out because I feel like whenever we tell stories it becomes a little more engaging, so hey give us comments by the way, in twitter or email us or whatever if you feel like we should tell more stories.
But anyway, when I think about the P90X Commercial for example the Infomercial, you see the dream for everyone is to have a really nice body for guys it's we want to have a six pack or an eight pack, but you actually see the people with the results are doing all these exercises that makes you feel that it’s not that difficult to do, and then there is also all these testimonials in there that you learn about.
Again what Neil is talking about, you learn about headlines, you learn about copywriting and you also learn about kind of saying what needs to be said without saying too much other stuff, so you’re getting conscience and to the point, and Neil and I are both very "get to the point" kind of people.
When I think about a P90X or when I think about like the Shake Weight for example too, I remember the Shake Weight because it’s kind of funny, and it doesn’t seem that difficult to do and you see some popular athletes endorsing it.
That’s what I learned from Infomercial, you get to the point, there is good headlines that draw you in, there is results, and then being able to improve in the body and the bonuses too. You see people on the webinars all the time talk about bonuses that they are given away, and the bonuses actually do work and also there is scarcity too.
At the very end it’s like oh, you get this offer it’s expiring in one hour or so. That’s not really the reality but it does get people to take an action that still works in today’s world because that’s human nature.
Neil Patel: Yeah, the other thing you have to keep in mind is, a lot of these Infomercials lose money same as marketing campaigns. Why? Because their cost is really expensive to acquire a user, so you need to have a back end. If you work at P90X they’ll lose money on the front end because they make more on the back end.
Whatever you’re doing in your marketing campaign in paid ads, make sure you have back end offers up sales, down sales. That’s what will help make your campaigns way more profitable.
Eric Siu: Great, so that’s it for today but before we go we have a one-year annual subscription of Crazy Egg to give away to giveaway to you, so Neil what is Crazy Egg?
Neil Patel: Cray Egg is a visual analytic store, show you where people will click, where they won’t, it will show you where they are dropping off within your funnel. You can make clicks within Crazy Egg, you don’t have to be a designer or a developer, all your marketing changes could made through a WYSIWYG and then you can even run AB test.
In other words it’s a visual tool that will help maximize your conversions, takes very little time to set up, and it’s easy to use.
Eric Siu: Great so, if you want to get in you can actually get multiple entries for these giveaways. Just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. We are giving away one of these every single week for the next year, and so again if you want multiple entries go ahead and check it out singlegrain.com/giveaway and we will see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This session of marketing school has come to a close, be sure to subscribe for more Daily Marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you’ve always dreamed of. Don’t forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We’ll see you in class tomorrow, right here on Marketing School.