How ‘damaged’ can be a good angle to sell your products
10:30am
Saint Paul
“I tried that already,” Ruby said.
So yesterday, my daughter turned 13.
It’s crazy to think:
We now have a legit teenager in the house.
Ru asked for a desk for her birthday to replace a bookshelf, and to make room she packed up some 50 novels that she didn’t want any more.
We brought 20 to the local used bookstore where they bought them from her…
For $11.06.
Total.
And we probably spent a few hundred on the books to begin with!
We may bring the rest in, but I suggested she tries selling them like a lemonade stand.
“I tried that already,” she said.
Yes, but… you tried selling books at an actual lemonade stand.
Instead, I suggested, let’s make a book stand, and we can advertise it.
Even if they’re not new, the books’ contents don’t change, and since people buy at the used shop already, there’s not much difference here.
Except that, instead of earning 50¢ per book, she can charge $5 –– and still be cheaper than the book shop down the road.
Just selling 3 would likely bring in more money.
In the Robert Collier Letter Book, there’s an advert for damaged raincoats.
The raincoats weren’t selling and the vendor didn’t know what to do.
So Collier wrote the ad, and all the damaged, discounted raincoats sold in a matter of hours.
Not because people wanted damaged raincoats, or Mackintoshes as the Brits call them…
But because the damage was limited.
When the ad reached a wider audience –– beyond the store’s regular shoppers –– there was enough interest to wipe out the supply.
A few years ago, I bought Clyde Bedell’s How to Convert White Space into Advertising that Sells.
It’s a stack of printed manuals laying out design and copy ideas that make it easier for marketers to create a persuasive ad…
Ideas that, unfortunately, many professionals today still don’t know… or ignore in favor of something fancier and confusinger.
Anyway, when I bought Bedell’s materials, I knew they weren’t in perfect condition.
That didn’t matter, because the material inside was still valuable.
What do you have that may not be perfect, but you can use as a reason to advertise?
Love you,
Jeffrey “find a new angle” Thomas
Direct Response Copywriter and Growth Partner