Lack of Response Problem (written September, 1997)
Lack of response or poor response is probably the biggest complaint all publishers receive. Unfortunately we publishers have no control over response. We are paid to get your offers out in the mail. We have no control, nor are we paid to get response. We are paid for mailings – not miracles. It is up to you to make sure you follow good advertising practices to be successful.
These practices include:
#1) Consistency – There is no substitute for consistently getting your offer(s) out in the public’s eye. This is the single one element most people miss out on. The most successful companies, including mine, advertise as often as they can. If you don’t advertise all the time, then you are not in business. It is that simple.
#2) Patience – The second element most people forget is that nothing happens overnight. How long did it take you to get into the position you are in? Did it happen overnight or did it take years? Well this also holds true with advertising. Not only should you consistently promote, but you also have to be patient enough to evaluate the testing results over a 6-12 month period at the very minimum! If you don’t have the time, then you will never succeed and consequently, waste more time because you are not being patient enough.
#3) Volume – It’s a numbers game. You heard it before. Currently my own ads run to over 4 million people monthly. When I started years ago, my ads were running to about 10,000 monthly. I worked my way up to get to 4 million and my goal is to get to a 100 million monthly. That should be your goal too. It is a numbers game. The more people who see your ads, the better chance you have of getting response. Will you be able to start at large numbers? Probably not. You need to stay within your budget and get to as many people as you can afford and try to keep building the amounts up into the millions. It took me many years to get to one million circulation per month. As I just said previously, you need to be patient.
#4) Persistence – This is the main ingredient that separates successful people, from those who fail. Advertising has its ups and advertising has its downs. I once did a mailing to 75,000 people and got 1 response. Then with the same offer, I mailed it to another 11,000 people and got over 500 responses. Why? I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t give up. I kept trying by understanding that persistence was essential. Another time, my first mailing for a company called MMM netted me zero – .zero for 18 months – most people probably would have quit and I certainly felt like quitting, but many years later, I now realize if I had quit, I would of never made over a million dollars with MMM. I wasn’t going to quit on my dreams because one piece of advertising failed. The same holds true with you!
There you have it. I realize lack of response or little response is discouraging – very discouraging – and I realize we all have limited budgets. But the fact remains, most people fail because they do not follow good advertising practices. These practices are what is needed to succeed. You can’t attack the messenger because of the message and you can’t hold the truth against me. My goal is to help people succeed. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when people succeed, they’ll be with me forever! That is my goal. The problem is that people can’t succeed with out following successful advertising practices and too many people try.
If you wish to call me right now and discuss how we can fit these practices into your lifestyle and your budget, then by all means, please call me right now and we will figure out something together – like two adults trying to achieve our goals. When you deal with real people, who are looking for real answers, you get results. I have been here for many years and I have always been one telephone call away. Have a great mail order day! Thanks for reading!
The author of this article is Larry Costello, President of All-American Print & Mail, 2200 Wilson Blvd #102-57, Arlington, VA 22201.