Continued from page 1
** Directly target a group of people who are in market for your product or service.
** Offer them what it is they want.
** Generate a response by forcing them to respond to your offer.
Proven Step #2
Your competitors probably waste a lot of money because they're charged for people who will never even consider their offer. There is a definite and specific market for your service and these are only people that you should aim your offer to.
For example, if you repair dental equipment you want to market your service to dentists, oral surgeons, etc.. But it's not generally that easy.
Consider a Home Cleaning Service in a suburb of Cleveland that advertises in Cleveland Plain Dealer due to tremendous readership. If 75% of cleaning company's clients and target prospects are 3 person families and larger, with incomes of $100,000 per year, living in suburbs A, B and C., they've wasted a big chunk of money. Here’s why.
They just spent a lot of money for an ad that will be seen by college students, low-income families, and others that would never consider using their services anyway. Their high percentage prospects make up only a small readership of that paper. Who knows what percentage of those people will see ad?
Maybe there's a magazine or community mailer that caters to middle/upper class families in a county neighboring Cleveland or in one of many suburbs. Sure, maybe readership is nowhere near as large but lower cost and targeted readership will generate a much greater return on company's investment.
A mailing list of 3-person households and larger with incomes above $100,000, who moved to such-n-such city or county within last year can be purchased. Direct marketing targets people most likely to respond to your offer.
Proven Step #3
Most advertising has no offer. And so prospect has no incentive to respond right now. Direct response always tries to get a response by offering something of value to your prospect right now.
Using home cleaning service in example above, you could offer a free hour of cleaning, 20% off first job, a free pack of sponges and a bottle of Simply Green or anything of value that will cause a person to act.
Since offer is subject to your terms, you set a date when offer expires, a number they have to call, a letter that they must bring in, a form that they must fill out.
So, at end of your promotion you know exactly how much was spent reaching how many people. Also, you will know how many people responded and how much business was generated.
Most of your competitors don’t do this little analysis! They repeat campaigns that cost more than they bring in. So they are forced to set advertising budgets that limit amount of advertising they can run each year.
But, if every one of your promotions cost you $55 and brought in $225 in business, why would you need a budget? Wouldn’t you just keep repeating promotion over and over?
Your goal should be to repeat and improve what works for you. If you do, you will not need a budget and you will be able to predict what kinds of repeat and new business each promotion will generate.
Bob Markovsky Millennium Services Group
http://www.Cleaning-Biz.com
Bob Markovsky is the owner of Millennium Services Group, a publisher of online business start-up books.