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Maybe you’ve heard this one before.
It’s a true story.
A few years back, commuters in Berlin started talking about a controversial billboard that appeared in the subway. I heard the police even got involved.
Why?
Because it might have talked a few people into killing themselves.
It was a plain white rectangle, with a few lines of tiny (i.e. barely readable) text at the bottom, and a huge headline near the top of just four words:
Come a little closer
The ad was on the other side of the track.
And — I kid you not — the small text, which you had to come really close to read, was a plug for a local firm called Bergemann & Son Funeral Services.
Talk about creating demand!
Admittedly, this is an extreme example of a desperate and cringeworthy billboard. And I’m sure there’s no attorney or law firm in your metro area who is that bad. But it underlines a point that I’ve made several times now.
There are two kinds of advertising in this world:
Advertising that gets people talking about you, that creates “buzz” and makes you “relevant”. And advertising that makes people want to retain you.
More often than not, renting a billboard is the first kind.
Authoring a book, though — it might not be as “secksy” as plastering your smiling face on a billboard or subliminally talking people into jumping in front of trains, but it reliably sets you apart from cheaper competitors in a way that is classy. And you can author a book for less than a week or two of rent.
If you’d like to jump on the phone, talk about our Speak-a-Book service with a human, and get the ball rolling on your new book, “come a little closer” here:
http://www.jacobsandwhitehall.com/speak-a-book/apply/
