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Sunday, September 10, 2000

Simple, Low-Cost Marketing Methods Sometimes Produce The Best Results

by  Bob  Leduc 

Simple, inexpensive marketing methods sometimes produce the best results. I discovered this by accident many years ago while trying to find a better way to get sales leads. We were mailing hundreds of direct mail letters and brochures every week to new business owners promoting our service. Folding all those letters and brochures, inserting them into envelopes, sealing the envelopes, addressing the envelopes and putting stamps on them was expensive and time consuming. But, it produced enough qualified leads to be profitable.

AN EASIER WAY
One week I decided to test a simple and less expensive way to get my leads. I had the following benefit statement printed on 1,000 postcards: "I can help you increase your profits, save taxes and reduce financial risk." I added my name and phone number at the end of the message, addressed the postcards and mailed them. Printing and preparing the postcards took only 1/5th of the time it took for the letters and brochures. Plus, the Postage and materials cost only 1/3rd as much.

To my surprise, I got over 40 inquiries that week from the postcards instead of the usual 20 to 25 inquiries I got from my letters. Almost overnight my sales and commissions shot up by over 50%. I was soon getting so many inquiries every week that I began selecting only the best ones to use myself and passed the others on to reps who didn't have enough appointments for the week. They were happy to pay me a percentage of the commissions they received from sales produced by my leads. The results from that first postcard mailing taught me a valuable marketing lesson I never forgot. Simple, inexpensive marketing methods often produce the best results.

A LOW-COST WAY TO TEST CLASSIFIED ADS
About 5 years ago I discovered another simple and inexpensive marketing tool while looking for a quick way to test some new classified ads. The deadline for accepting ads submitted to printed publications is usually 3 to 6 weeks before publication. It often takes 2 months before the ad starts pulling... or before you find out it doesn't work.

I discovered how to reduce this 2 month delay to less than a week. Simply post the ad on one of the online services such as America Online and place it in several email magazines (ezines) distributed to your targeted market. A 3 line ad in a well-known ezine with over 300,000 subscribers costs less than $40. Many ezines with a smaller number of subscribers will accept ads for $5 or $10 per run. Best of all, your ad runs a few days after you submit it.

NOTE: Insider Reports offers online classifieds for as little as $9 per month.

After developing a profitable ad online, place it in the print media. Be sure to use print publications read by people in the same targeted market you tested online. That's how you can be assured of getting the same successful results offline as you got online.

DON'T LIMIT YOUR MARKETING TO THE INTERNET
The low-cost and fast results of online advertising encourages some new businesses to restrict their marketing exclusively to the internet. They completely ignore traditional marketing methods. That's a serious mistake. There are a huge number of people without internet access. You're missing a large part of your potential market by ignoring these people. Use the internet to test new advertising. When you have a proven ad, continue it online and also place it in the print media. Don't limit your profits by ignoring any part of your potential market.