To turn a prospect into a customer you must make them an offer and show them how to respond to offer. There are two ways to get response. The hard and soft response request. The difference between them is commitment you require from them. A hard request might mean that they must commit to speaking with a representative or even committing to product or service at that time. A Soft Response on other hand could mean getting a free brochure. The value of each response differs as well. The CPP (Client Per Prospect) Rate is much lower from a Soft Response Request than a Hard Response Request. The way you decide to go will depend on your circumstances. Direct sales should always close with a Hard Request. Whereas a department store would work better with a soft response. You must decide on your best Response Requests.

Gaining response is what we call activating your prospect.

Important rules to calling a prospect to action: 1) Be Prepared and know answers. 2) You must show, tell and/or demonstrate to prospect what he/she hey are buying. 3) You must make an offer that is too good to be ignored.

A few techniques used in activating a prospect: 1) The "Free Sample" 2) The "Great Introductory Deal" 3) The "No-Risk Offer"

In Closing: My goal here is to open your eyes to a process in action. These are just a few ideas to help you along in process of gaining response. As always I invite you to read more of my articles on marketing tips to help you succeed in business. Find more of my articles at "The InfoZone", largest Business & Marketing Article Archive on Internet. http://www.MakingProfit.com/articles

Your problem, unless you're looking for some turnover in secretarial pool, is which headline to go with. So, you run a test. With all other factors being absolutely, gruelingly, microscopically equal, and with some completely automated, totally foolproof, exhaustively planned tracking method in place, you send 500,000 with one headline and 500,000 with other.

The result? You'll never know. The list guy bonked and sent one headline to New York and other to Fiji. The computer guy bonked because it's part of his job description, so Data Entry had to handle tracking. Data Entry didn't bonk, they just stared at their shoes while you explained tracking and didn't do it.

The numbers you do get, however, paint a remarkably clear picture:

Testing is dumb.

So, how about little guy? The guy whose budget doesn't have room for wildly improbable, hugely inaccurate, utterly useless extravagances like testing a free car deodorizer against a free closet deodorizer?

Here are a few suggestions:

1. Guess. That may not sound very scientific, but marketing is really more art than science anyway.

2. Don't reinvent wheel. Unless your product or industry just emerged, you probably have vast archives of previous marketing successes and failures to analyze for free.

3. Train your ear. Develop a sense of pitch that tells you when any element of your marketing is off-key.

4. Try, try again.

On net, keying your links, watching your stats, and borrowing liberally from competition is all most of us really need.

Yes. "Scientific Advertising" is a great book and a must-read. So is Old Testament, but that doesn't mean we should all rush out and stone wicked.

(Unless, of course, they're passionately expounding virtues of boring marketing books written by dead marketing guys.)