Bomb or Rifle?

Last week I wrote about making a sale to get a customer or getting a customer to make a sale. This week let’s take a step back and address how to get that customer.

We know that to get the customer to take action, you need the right message using the correct media and going to the right market or prospect base.

The problem that I run into with my customers and prospects is that the media they chose might be one of the correct ways to reach their prospects but they want to hit everyone within a given area, be it physical or demographic. An example is a truck bed liner company doing a Every Door Direct Mail post card to all the addresses within a 5-mile radius or running an ad in the Ad Pages or Clipper books. This company tries to appeal to everyone and anyone instead of sending a post card just to pickup truck owners within the 5-mile radius.

Usually they do this because on the surface the cost per person reached is far lower, but when you look at the return on investment it is much more cost-efficient to take a highly targeted approach. By this I mean that you should spend the extra dollars and get a list of the people who need what you have to offer, want it and can afford to do business with you.

Now sometimes it’s not possible to use a high powered rifle approach. Maybe you have a list and you have to identify the ones you want and put aside the rest for later use (I’ll write about them later). You can use your nuclear method (blast everyone with your message) and hope you hit enough people who are interested right now, or you can take another approach.

Want to know the other approach? Then contact me; we’ll set up a time to talk about your situation and the other approach.

Until next week,