Sad…shocked really…to hear the news of the death of Billy Mays on June 28.

I confess that living in Australia and not watching a great deal of TV, I was not familiar with Billy and his ads until recently.

When I started to look more closely at marketing with video, the name Billy Mays came up as a master of the modern infomercial…

…especially the shorter variety that last only a couple of minutes.

And that makes his work perfect for us to get some pointers we can use in our own marketing videos.

Digressing slightly, infomercials are viewed with some disdain in the mainstream marketing world.

But that’s a big mistake because the good pitch man knows how to sell.

And for we direct response marketers, at the end of the day that’s our objective…

…to make the sale.

I’ve mentioned before the excellent video “Gadgetmania” from the Discovery Channel (hat tip to marketing guru Stephen Pierce once again for introducing me to the video).

It’s a wonderful exploration of the art of the pitch and the infomercial (featuring classics such as Ronco, Ginsu Knives and…the Thighmaster!) and well worth checking out.

Back to Billy Mays.

There is a lot to learn from his infomercials.  I’ve been checking out a number of them and they all do a great job of grabbing attention, developing interest (with usually some astonishing and entertaining demonstrations of the product) and then making a great offer…

…but wait, there’s more!

Yup, he’s a master at piling on the value to an already great offer to make it virtually irresistible.

I considered a number of videos to include here for you to take a look at.  I love the “Might Putty” ad…

…but in the end I chose this one because of the offer, which I think is an excellent example.

I salute a modern marketing giant and I’m sure the Great Pitch Man In The Sky will smile when he hears…

“Hi, Billy Mays here!”