I love the marketing business…
It seems there are two outcomes. You either become wealthy, or you go crazy tryin’
You can take a strategy and apply it to one market and product and become a millionaire.
Then you can take that very same strategy, apply it to a different market and product and fall flat on your face.
Exact same input. Completely different output.
NOTE TO SELF: To win the game, you don’t have to hone your skills for years and years and years. It’s a whole lot easier to simply find opportunities worthy of your input.
That’s the game we play. Day in… day out.
It’s been a few weeks since I posted about helping a client retool his lead generation strategy.
So here’s an update.
It stunk.
We got a TON of leads… at an acceptable cost.
What we DIDN’T get was customers.
THE LEADS WEREN’T BUYERS.
Lots of leads. Flat sales.
Could we have known that before going in? Maybe… but until you do some hard testing, all you have are ideas.
And ideas aren’t worth a whole lot by themselves.
So what do you do when you’ve spent a TON of time testing a strategy only to find out it doesn’t work in the real world?
You simply keep going. Stuff your ego in the closet, take a step back, and start over.
(This is why I don’t charge for my time. Time invested has nothing to do with results. Input has little to do with output. Output is all that matters.)
Instead of trying to “tweak” the PPC campaign, we just decided to kill it.
Instead, I just suggested that they start sending emails. Just talking to their list. No hard sales, just high value, good stories, and a conveniently placed link to some related products.
Hardly the typical, “whack them in the face type of internet promotion.”
No scarcity…
No deadline…
No headline…
No B.S. whatsoever…
You know what?
IT’S WORKING.
Sales keep coming in. (Of course everything is TRACKED, so we know 
Why is it working?
I have no idea. But here’s my hunch…
Direct marketing is all about focusing your market, hitting your target (as much of it as you can) with an offer, tallying the results and then moving on.
You make a focused OFFER, you see what sticks, you continue to test and tweak.
My client’s strategy is different.
You build the relationship. You give several targets. You let the buyers decide how to move through your funnel.
Basically, you stop trying to control people and you guide them… gently… with respect.
And then you sit and wait.
Oh… the marketing experts would have a field day with this one. Because it breaks just about every rule you read about in the books.
Except that it works.
And in the results business, that’s all that matters.
If something isn’t working for your business, why not try something different… how about something really different?
The challenge is getting out of your own head. The challenge is not to accept someone else’s “expert opinion” about what will or won’t work. The challenge is to remove the self-imposed limits all of that “learning” puts on your brain and your creativity.
There’s a solution in there some where. All you have to do is find it.
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