Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Lessons From Billy Mays About Blog Monetization

July 31, 2009 | Feature, Marketing

Billy Mays was a TV marketing powerhouse. Like many, when I saw Billy Mays on TV, I got a little chuckle at how “over the top” he was. When the show Pitchmen came out, I got a new respect for the hard work and thought which goes into those commercials. And when I got news that Billy Mays had passed away, I was sad.

In looking back, however, there are lessons to be learned from Billy Mays. Lessons that anybody interested in marketing should pay attention to.


bmays Personal Branding

When you first think of Billy Mays, what image do you get? Most likely, it is the blue shirt, slacks, and the thick beard. In every single commercial, Mays wore the same thing. In every commercial, he conducted himself with the same level of excitement and volume (which was pretty loud). Why?

It is his personal brand. It is the unmistakable persona of Billy Mays. He stood out from every other pitchman.

The key thing to observe here is that Mays had a noticeable demeanor and that he was CONSISTENT about it. He never changed. That brand consistency is VERY important to building the brand.

Ever thought about why Vince Shlomi hasn’t found the same success as Billy Mays. Things like this certainly harm his brand consistency.

As a blogger in your niche, what is your personal brand? How do you stand out? What is it about you that stands out in the minds of your readers?

Importance of the Irresistible Offer

When making an offer, Billy Mays always overloaded it with value. He’d sell you on the value of something, then “Wait, There’s More!”. If you buy right now, we’ll TRIPLE THE OFFER!

He overpowered the offer so much that a customer feels they are getting an insane value. In the show Pitchmen, it was also clear that a lot of thought went into this beforehand. Mays and Scully would turn down products that didn’t have that WOW factor, and would even sometimes get into pissing matches with inventors who were unwilling to lower the price enough to make it an irresistible offer.

When you are making offers (and, if you’re serious about monetizing your blog, you better be), think about how you can front-load the value of your offer. Really pile on, because it is that which will take a customer from “thinking about it” into the “impulse buyer” stage.

Important Marketing Lessons

When you watch several of the Billy Mays commercial and watch the behind-the-scenes action of Pitchmen, a savvy observer will notice several important things in play:

  1. Have a product worth offering. Mays and Sullivan turned down a lot of products because they were either dumb or not demonstrable on TV. The lesson here is to have a solid product and make sure you can provide proof that it works.
  2. Solve real world problems. All products Mays pitched solved real-world problems and, as mentioned above, were demonstrable. The idea was to make people’s lives easier.
  3. Have a strong call to action. All Mays commercials have a VERY in-your-face call to action. He’d double or triple the offer, then tell them “CALL NOW”.
  4. Do lots of market testing. One of the most interesting things about Pitchmen was watching how they tested their commercials. First, they would run commercial tests in only a few markets in order to test the profit margins. Only the successful campaigns would be expanded nationally. Additionally, they would sometimes film the same commercial with only minor differences (such as where Mays is standing in the camera frame). They would then do A/B split testing to see which commercial performed better. The lesson for online marketing is hopefully obvious. Perform split tests and be sure to do small tests of your landing pages before going nuts with your online promotions.

The Power of Going Social

Most bloggers now know the importance of being accessible and active in the social media sphere. You want to be a real person.

Billy Mays knew this as well. The very fact that Pitchmen was even created was a definite effort to bring the public into the world of direct response marketing and build connection with the personalities. Mays was also on Twitter. He was regularly on radio shows, often appearing on the MJ Morning Show here in the Tampa Bay market.

In short, Billy Mays was not in a cocoon.

When you’re in online business, at the end of the day, you’re pretty much engaged in direct response marketing. And this form of marketing has been around well before the Internet. It is also in full-form on television. By watching Billy Mays in action on TV, a lot can be gleaned about how you can improve on your own blog monetization efforts.

If you liked this article, consider retweeting it to your Twitter followers. :)

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

  1. Lessons From Blog Masters Club Launch
  2. Top 10 Blog Monetization Strategies, Ranked In Order
  3. Blog Monetization, PayPerPost and Ebook Affiliate Saturation
  4. Don’t Be a Video Spammer – Here’s Why
  5. What Times Square Can Teach Us About Blog Marketing

Learn The Real Story On Blogging As a Business...

  • Get immediate FREE access to the Six Figure Blogger Blueprint
  • Get exclusive stuff NOT available on this blog.
  • Get the latest updates from the weird Risley man who runs this site.

Enter email:

  • I like the 4 points on 'Important Marketing Lessons'. I believe these 4 points have to work hand-in-hand, that is, inseparable and they are indispensable as well for the SUCCESS of a marketing campaign.
  • The "Wow" factor and the "$19.95" price point were also two major components of his formula - he always fought to have them both. I would love to see a few guys try to apply that in the MMO space. I think Darren (problogger) kinda did with his ebook which was an amazing value compared to some $2,000 programs I've seen. You seem to be following in those steps as well.

    I caught my first episode of Pitchmen the week before Billy died and have watched every one since. Amazing what he and Sully did for that business and most people will never notice it. It's very kind of you to tip your hat and acknowledge Billy.
  • Billy Mays was very good at his "job". I never gave the ubiquitous pitch man must thought until I discovered his TV reality show "Pitch Men". I was hooked and tried to watch each episode.

    Once, while watching the show with my brother he mentioned Vince Shlomi's hooker/hotel room incident. Your above link to ShamWow guy's shenanigans gave me a better understanding of what occurred in South Beach. It was not pretty.

    To use a boxing analogy, Vince was Sonny Liston to Billy's Floyd Patterson hey?

    It's sad that Billy is gone. Can you hear him pleading his case with Saint Peter to enter the Pearl Gates? "But Wait, There's More!"
  • Thanks for your Post David. I am also a big fan of Billy Mays and wrote a post on him here: http://honestholly.com/emotions-running-high-on.... I think the key points you have shared here are very valuable when it comes to marketing; online and offline. Thanks.
  • BobHereYo
    Nice to use Billy Mays in a positive way but this article sounds like you are referring to Mark Joyner's Books the "Irresistable Offer" and the "Great Formula". Both great reads.
  • I am a HUGE infomercial fan. I just love to see the way each product is promoted, as you know if they show them over and over again they are definitely making money. Billy Mays was one of the best at promoting everything well, including himself.
  • Without having given it much thought before, it's pretty amazing how universal the strategy for marketing really is.

    Billy was THE MAN,demanding your attention from the get-go and closing the deal with his trademark pitch.

    Really nice article, David.
  • I'm not familiar with Billy Mays that much (not so visible here in Europe I guess), but he must know his stuff to be that successful. I agree that blogging/social networks is nothing but direct response, and taking lessons from TV marketing and apply that to online is great tip..
  • I use to stay up all night watching these things and your right you can learn a lot from them. I love them as a kid I would stay up all night watching them not sure why. I been tell people for years that my 40 goal is to do one of these. Part of the reason I started learning Internet Marketing figured it would give me a base. Easier and cheaper to start.
  • Your lines:
    - Have a product worth offering
    - Solve real world problems
    kind of some it up for me.

    Surely these were a big part of Mays' success, & as bloggers, we would be well advised to constantly remember this when we seek to monetize our blogs.
  • I loved the Pitchman show with Billy Mays. I liked how the two guys on that show had different styles of marketing. You are right Billy Mays could sell anything and he was good at it. Thanks Greg Ellison
blog comments powered by Disqus