“They don’t want you to score goals! They want blood! They’re booing ya!”
— Reggie Dunlop, Charlestown Chiefs
I’ve been laid up sick for the past few days.
So I’ve been watching lots of movies, including a nostalgic 1977 look at the bad old days of professional hockey, titled:
“Slap Shot.”
It stars Paul Newman as Reggie Dunlop, an aging player and coach of the Charlestown Chiefs, a losing team that’s about to be shut down.
Reggie thinks that if he can start filling up the stadium again, he might save the team.
So he resorts to a proven, age-old strategy to increase engagement, curiosity, and sales:
Drama.
For example, he regularly starts playing the Hanson brothers, a trio of teenaged goons wearing identical coke-bottle glasses, who are ready to start a fight at any moment — including during warmups, before the game has begun.
He also puts out a bounty on an opposing team’s captain, saying he’ll pay $100, out of his own pocket, to the first of his players to “nail that creep.”
Is it illegal?
Probably.
Reggie doesn’t care.
Nor does he stop there.
For example, he hires an ambulance to circle the stadium with the siren running, signalling the bloodbath that happens inside to the whole town.
And when the thuggish and criminal reputation of the the Chiefs becomes known throughout the league, and opposing teams’ fans wait to protest as the Chiefs arrive into town, he gets the whole team to moon the hecklers.
Yes, it’s becoming a freak show rather than a sports contest.
But it’s working.
The stadium is full, fans are ecstatic, and the Chiefs themselves are so motivated they even wind up winning the championship.
And so for you.
If you can work in some drama into your marketing copy — and you can — it will increase increase your engagement, curiosity, and sales.
Anyways, while I’ve been laid up watching movies, my book on Upwork success is still progressing.
And if you want to know when I publish it on Amazon, and run the initial free promotion, then skate on over to the page below, and slap your email address in: