A couple of weeks back a friend of mine, Don Farnden, did a nice promotion for his coaching work. To get physical addresses for his database, he offered to mail a special "Boosting Business" gift valued at $597 to everyone who replied with their mailing address.
He already had my mailing address, but I was curious so I sent my details in anyway.
A couple of days later I get a small package in the mail.
Inside was a disc with the company name across it, Boost Business Results.
I'm in a rush so I take it with me and stick it in the car as I drive. But it's not a CD, it's a DVD. I hadn't see that on the label.
When I get to the office again I stick it in my computer and watch a seminar room with people sitting at tables and no presenter, just a testimonial video playing at the front of the room.
I fast forward through and about 8 minutes in the business coaching seminar begins. The video is 6 hours long and is unedited footage.
When I realize this I immediately give up ever finding that much time, and eliminate the problem by throwing the DVD in the bin. Step 1 of Time Management. Elimination.
Question...
Was this bad marketing?
Let's take the story further.
A week later I phoned Don and he mentioned they had already had 2 big coaching sales from people who HAD watched the DVD all the way through.
This is the power of filtering.
Giving away a whole coaching seminar, unedited, meant that only the really keen were going to respond. But a whole $597 seminar for FREE! That's a WOW for the right prospect.
So, was it bad marketing?
Answer...
Not based on results. And actual results are the only way to decide. Opinions from non-buyers are simply dangerous.
Maybe however this approach was just a fluke.
Another example...
A few months ago a UK business coach, Eric Sutherland, set up a 7-week series of complete Business Coaching pdfs - once again for free.
He was asking busy business people to set aside consistent time every week to implement the information. Who has that sort of time?
Well, when I spoke to him he told me not only had he already gotten some big coaching contracts from the quality of the information he presented there, but he had also had ZERO unsubscribes.
[If you want to check out this quality of his coaching program go here.]
Rather than go for the big sale, you can use the classic funnel effect as shown in this video here from Ed Rivis where his free course on improving a sales website drew in 1035 subscribers in 35 days and Ed then built the relationship from small sales up medium sales and then to bigger consulting ones.
But if you truly give away quality, the method matters much less.
Getting known is more important than getting it right. Your ideal customer will love you and rave about you, but can NEVER buy from you until they know you exist.
NOTE:-
All 3 of these expert marketers, Don, Eric, and Ed made sure they got contact details up front.
Not all marketing works. That's not good or bad, it's just a fact. Even these experts could have produced a dud campaign.
However with contact details they could always try something else instead, let alone go for future sales as well.
Where is your list of people who have already been attracted to you?
Bad marketing is when you don't capture the list so you can't try again.
-Martin Russell
