Lessons From Billy Mays About Blog Monetization

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.

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.

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