Wednesday, May 2, 2018

#4 Lower Back Pain? Great Product! Great Marketing!



Issue #4 - Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Lower Back Pain? Great Product! Great Marketing!
Posted by Denny Hatch


I’m 82. Amazingly lucky in terms of good health.

The one recurring problem: lower back pain. When walking or standing anywhere—street, museum, supermarket—my back hurts and I need to sit for 20 seconds. I continually searched for places to rest—bench, fire hydrant, bumper of a parked truck, low wall, sofa arm, etc. Sit for 20 seconds; okay for the next four minutes.

Enter a Design Masterpiece!
Our friend Kathleen—high-powered, brilliant, estate lawyer here in Philly—saw me waiting for my wife. I was sitting on the rim of a giant planter on the sidewalk outside her house.

A week later Kathleen rang our bell and presented me with a sturdy, lightweight walking stick with a handle that turns into a seat. It creates, in effect, a 3-legged stool anywhere!



The Stick Chair changed my life.

Additional benefits:
• When used as a walking stick, pressure on my back is relieved and I can go for 20 minutes or more pain-free.

• The hard rubber tip (firm on smooth surfaces) can be removed and the Stick Chair works fine on turf.

Tip Problem
The rubber tip self-destructed in a week. The denouement occurred on the marble floor of a museum when the steel turf spike punched through the rubber tip and damn near sent me sprawling.

I called the company. Owner/designer Malcolm Bull answered the phone.


He was deeply distressed by his tip failure. However, after many weeks of testing various tips unsuccessfully, Bull said he had designed a powerful proprietary new version. I ordered four. They arrived and are sturdy and long lasting.

Stick Chair's Textbook Brilliant Website 
I urge every online marketer—whatever your product or service—to visit www.thestickchair.com and savor what can only be called digital marketing perfection.

The website follows the dictum of legendary copywriter Claude Hopkins: “The offer should be so attractive only a lunatic would say no.”

The product is shown and described in readable text plus myriad sales and instructional videos, testimonials and an earnest pitch from Malcolm Bull himself. Plus a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

One aspect of the Stick Chair: When using it, I am continually stopped on the street and at gatherings by people wanting to know about it. I am a walking, talking testimonial for this marvelous gadget.

You may know people (and marketers) whose lives could be changed by Malcolm Bull!

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Word Count: 400


Note to Readers:  May I send you an alert when each new blog is being published? If so, kindly give me the okay by sending your First Name, Last Name and e-mail to dennyhatch@yahoo.com. I guarantee your personal information will not be shared with anyone at any time for any reason. I look forward to being in touch! Cheers!

Invitation to Marketers and Direct Marketers: Guest blog posts are welcome. If you have a marketing story to tell, case history, concept to propose or a memoir, give a shout. I’ll get right back to you. (Kindly stay within the limit of 500 words.) I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com. 
215-644-9526 (rings on my desk).


You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!

6 comments:

  1. Legendary Direct Marketer Peter Rosenwald in Brazil tried to post a comment and it never showed up. He have me permission to post his comment.

    Fom Peter Rosenwald
    I Posted a Comment...
    ...but it disappeared.
    It began provocatively:
    Dare I ask But No, I won`t.
    And went on to say what a great gadget that was, one octogenarian to another and perfect as I had always been taught to walk softly but carry a [name of product which in my old age I have forgotten.]
    And I said it would be impossibly expensive to ship to Brazil but if they were looking to possibly produce and sell it here, I was their man.
    Anyway, try and write something and unless you are recognized by any of those unrecognizable clubs or whatever they are (no facebook or LinkedOut or The Princeton Alumni Association, you can't or better, I couldn't.
    Which may be why you didn't have any comments to a splendid piece of (dare I say, 'native') writing and did they give you a free stick? (You are probably debating what you might suggest I do with one. Go ahead, Denny: say it!)
    Abrs,
    Peter

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good evening, Denny!

    I've had a couple of similar ones for years! One is a genuine antique, made in England, where they were called "shooting sticks," because that's how they were used, to sit in the bush waiting for game to appear. It has a wide leather strap that goes over the two folding wings, and is very comfortable. The other looks similar to yours. The problem with both is sitting on a hard, slick surface. That new tip might be the answer!

    Good luck with the blog!

    Best regards!

    Tim Orr

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tim,

      Always great to hear from you.
      Fascinating development: yours is the 4th comment received (off line and in the comment section) regaling me about how the parent of the Stick Chair is really the shooting stick of country weekends in Jolly Old Blighty.
      I knew about these from the myriad BBC etc. Brit series on TV—Downton Abbey et al. But my focus—and wonder—was on how it relieved my lower back pain.
      Am going to do a couple of pieces on the USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
      Enter “Shooting Stick” on Google and 3,520,000 results turn up. I did not click on each one (obviously!), but all I saw were about gun business and none about lower back pain.
      Google “lower back pain” and you get 11,400,000 results.
      This says to me there are one helluva lot more people with lower back pain than shooting enthusiasts.
      With the vast $$$$ spent advertising hot patches, creams, ointments, opioids, OTC pain killers etc. etc. I think I may be on to something.
      More later.
      Thanks again for taking the time to contribute. Do keep in touch!

      Delete
  3. From John Prince (who gave me to permission to print this in the Comment Section):

    Denny,
    I tried desperately to send this message through your “open ID” URL. The system couldn’t “verify” (or maybe it was “validate”) my identify. So I went direct…

    Glad to see this is helping. In the UK this implement is known as a shooting stick, has been around for generations, and is very common. Gentlemen hunters use the stick to walk over the rough moors (their shotguns are carried by "loaders") and then used to sit/relax as the "beaters" flush out the birds. Shooting sticks are as common at county fairs and horse meets as tweeds, tatersall shirts and wellies. Good on Mr. Bull for bringing the concept to America. “Original” might be a stretch, though.

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete