If I told you one par­tic­u­lar book sells almost 300,000 copies every sin­gle year, what would you guess actu­ally dri­ves those phe­nom­e­nal yearly sales?
Want a few hints?
1)   It’s not a how-to, Chicken Soup, or For-Dummies book
2)   The vast major­ity of those 300,000 copies are sold in the spring
Give up?
The book is Dr. Seuss’s Oh The Places You’ll Go – an incred­i­bly pop­u­lar gift for graduates.
That book man­ages to pow­er­fully com­mu­ni­cate what hun­dreds of thou­sands of par­ents and rel­a­tives all want to say but can’t seem to say nearly as well as the good Doc­tor Suess.  And because he has so gra­ciously sup­plied them with the means of say­ing it, Dr. Suess con­tin­ues to sells huge amounts of books each spring.  Spring, after spring, after spring — as long as there are proud par­ents of new grad­u­ates need­ing to hear the message.
The ques­tion for you, dear Busi­ness Owner, is what are you help­ing peo­ple say?  What are you help­ing them say about them­selves? And what are you help­ing them say to others?
Are you will­ing to har­ness the same profit engine that Dr. Suess has used to sell mil­lions upon mil­lions of copies of Oh The Places You’ll Go?
This bril­liant radio ad by Adam Don­moyer rep­re­sents a per­fect exam­ple of how to har­ness this power to drive sales:
****Radio Ad fea­tur­ing the “Daddy’s Lit­tle Girl Watch thingy*****
That ad sold more watches that Fathers’ Day than that par­tic­u­lar jew­elry store has ever sold on any day, ever.   All because they helped plenty of daugh­ters say what they really wanted to say, but didn’t quite now how.
What are you help­ing your cus­tomers to say?

If I told you one par­tic­u­lar book sells almost 300,000 copies every sin­gle year, what would you guess actu­ally dri­ves those phe­nom­e­nal yearly sales? Want a few hints?

  1. It’s not a how-to, Chicken Soup, or For-Dummies book
  2. The vast major­ity of those 300,000 copies are sold in the spring

Give up? The book is Dr. Seuss’s Oh, The Places You’ll Go – an incred­i­bly pop­u­lar gift for graduates.

That book man­ages to pow­er­fully com­mu­ni­cate what hun­dreds of thou­sands of par­ents and rel­a­tives all want to say but can’t quite seem to say nearly as well as the good Doc­tor.  And because he has so gra­ciously sup­plied them with the means of say­ing it, Dr. Suess con­tin­ues to sell huge amounts of books spring, after spring, after spring — for as long as there are proud par­ents of new grad­u­ates need­ing to hear the message.

The ques­tion for you, dear Busi­ness Owner, is what are you help­ing peo­ple say?

  • What are you help­ing them say about themselves?
  • What are you help­ing them say to others?

Because not quite know­ing how to say what’s on your heart is some­thing we all suf­fer from — and some­thing most of us will gladly pay for relief from.

Are you will­ing to har­ness the same profit engine that Dr. Suess has used to sell mil­lions upon mil­lions of copies of Oh, The Places You’ll Go?  This bril­liant radio ad by Adam Don­moyer rep­re­sents a per­fect exam­ple of how to har­ness this power to drive sales:

Daddy’s Lit­tle Girl

That ad sold more watches that Fathers’ Day than that jew­elry store has ever sold on any day, ever.  All because they helped plenty of daugh­ters say what they really wanted to say, but weren’t quite able to give voice to on their own.

What are you help­ing your cus­tomers say?

Post to Twitter Tweet This Post

No related posts.

Tags: , , Filed Under Psychology & Copywriting 

Comments

  1. Dave Young on 10.08.2009

    Jeff — Good to see you on your own blog! Gread ad. Adam is genius. He’s also got a bit of evil genius in him. Do a search for his name in the iTunes store and you’ll see what I mean.

  2. Jeff on 10.08.2009

    Dave,

    Thanks for the com­ment! I’m get­ting ready to announce this lit­tle project to the world, so it will be cool to already have a com­ment in place ; )

    As for Adam, it was a hard call whether to link to his “pro­fes­sional” linked in account or to link to his band’s Web­site or myspace page. He is both a genius and a crazy man — in a good way…

    - jeff

  3. Shane Arthur on 12.15.2009

    “I’ll be your lit­tle girl for all time” is the money quote.

    They weren’t sell­ing watches, they were sell­ing engraving.

    They weren’t sell­ing engrav­ing, they were sell­ing the feel­ing those engrav­ings left.

    Bril­liant way to drill down fea­tures into vis­ceral desires!

  4. Jeff on 12.15.2009

    Thanks for the com­ment, Shane. You’re right on the money — the deeper emo­tional “itches” are never about the prod­uct itself.
    .-= Jeff´s last blog ..How Sealy Steals Cred­i­bil­ity from Your Late Nights =-.

  5. Paul on 02.14.2011

    Great points Jeff. Dr Seuss has always been my men­tor! Hon­or­able men­tions go out to Mr. Rogers, Capt. Kan­ga­roo, and you A-list bloggers…many thanks for the thought pro­vok­ing writ­ings that prompt me to think and to act. And have a GREAT Valentine’s Day.

Leave a Reply




CommentLuv badge

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree