I don't know if you remember the ... show "Wings" ornot. It was a cute comedy show whose reruns are now ... on the Nick at Nite Network about two brothers who rana small plane service on
I don't know if you remember the television show "Wings" or not. It was a cute comedy show whose reruns are now being shown on the Nick at Nite Network about two brothers who ran a small plane service on the island of Nantucket.
Anyway, the other night I had the show on and a girl was talking about how the travel business had risen 15% on Nantucket since she started working for the agency. One of the guys made that comment that it was cold there in the winter with absolutely nothing to do, so how had she managed that. She said she started thinking about what kind of person would really love being in a cold and barren place in the middle of winter and realized it would be a masochist. So, she looked up societies and found the Masochist Society and sent them a promo on travel to Nantucket in the winter. Lo and behold, a bunch of them made reservations!
Now, of course this was meant to be funny, but I thought how brilliant her idea really was. Talk about targeting your advertising! This was a perfect example of a person truly thinking about her target market.
And that's what you need to do to be successful in your business. If you spam or just send out ads anywhere and to anyone, you are wasting your time and money and resources. Stop and think about it: You would get many more sales if you target your market and send to those who would be interested in what you are selling. Would you rather send an email out to 50,000 horse lovers when you are selling dog shampoo or send the same email to 5,000 members of the American Kennel Club? Which one do you think would get you the most orders for dog shampoo? It's not always the number of emails you are sending that gets you the best results.
Don't forget, your time is worth something. Spend it wisely and you will reap the benefits. Building a business online or off is hard work and takes more time than you think. Don't waste it spamming people who will either report you or at the very least, delete your email.
Big business hires market research companies to tell them where to send their catalogs and direct mail. There is a reason they do that! They don't want to waste their money and efforts advertising to people who won't be interested. They want the best odds they can get, and you should be thinking the same way. Hey, maybe you aren't big business yet...but if you don't start thinking like big business, you never will be!
Pamela Geiss owns LotsaPerks.com, an online advertising agency. Visit her today at http://www.lotsaperks.com and get a copy of her free Ebook, "Digital Deception".