Today, I want to share with you a marketing technique so powerful, so daring, so all-around incredible that I wish I had the circumstances and the courage to implement it myself right now.
Alas, I do not. But perhaps you are luckier and braver than I am, and so perhaps you will profit. Let me set it up with this true story:
Before P.T. Barnum got into the circus business, he made his living promoting rare and unusual talents. One of these was Jenny Lind, a Swedish opera singer who had won great fame in Europe.
Barnum decided to bring Lind to America.
Only problem was, Americans didn’t care.
Barnum started a big newspaper publicity campaign to build up desire for Lind. Once newspaper-reading Americans started to be intrigued by the “Swedish Nightingale”, selling tickets became no problem. But Barnum didn’t stop there.
Once excitement to hear Lind sing had grown to fever pitch, Barnum organized a spectacular event, a contest. And that’s the marketing technique I want to tell you about.
Barnum started selling tickets to the first Jenny Lind concert by auction.
And of course, he didn’t stop there either.
Instead, he went to a certain Genin, a hat maker in New York, and advised him to bid whatever it took to win the first auctioned ticket. Secretly, he then went to a certain Dr. Brandreth, a maker of a patent medicine. He told the same to Brandreth, to bid whatever it took to win.
“The higher the price,” Barnum told both men separately, “the greater renown it will give you all over the country within twenty-four hours.”
Brandreth did not do as he was told. He only bid as high as $200 — a princely sum at the time, equivalent to $7,700 today. But he lost the first Jenny Lind ticket. He had this to say later:
“I had better have paid $5,000 than to have missed securing the first Jenny Lind ticket. Such a splendid chance for notoriety will never offer itself again.”
On the other hand, Genin did as Barnum told him to do. He kept bidding and got the ticket for $225. And instantly, he became a nationwide topic of interest.
People all around the country suddenly started asking, “Who is this Genin who paid such money for a ticket?”
Men started taking off their hats and checking the labels inside, hoping that they too might have a real Genin hat. A man in Iowa who did find himself in possession of a ragged and beat-up old “real Genin”, which wasn’t worth 2 cents, auctioned it off for more than $360 in today’s money.
And Genin in New York started selling 10,000 extra hats a year on the back of that initial $225 investment — and became a very rich man.
As for Barnum and Lind, well, as you can guess, their tour became a yuge success. Barnum toured the country with Lind for several years, making tens of millions of dollars (in today’s money) for both Lind and for himself. Eventually, Lind decided to return to Europe and Barnum took his energy and his talents to other pursuits.
So there you go.
A blueprint for the best possible contest you could ever run to create demand and sales for your products, without cheapening, but in fact while heightening the perceived value of your offer.
If you do ever implement this scheme and profit handsomely from it, don’t send me a free ticket to your show — that would be against the whole spirit of the thing. Just write me and say thank you, and I will pass on your thanks to P.T. Barnum.
By the way, I really hate to give this idea away. But, like I said, I have neither the circumstances nor the courage to implement it myself right now.
All I can do is tell you to sign up for my daily email newsletter.
It’s available today for free.
If, like Genin the hatter, you would like to pay a princely sum for it and in that way distinguish yourself, you will have to wait until I start charging for my emails.
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