As you plan to sell your goods and services, your prospective buyers can be sliced and diced into many demographic categories.
One of the most important categories of prospects is those uninformed about your offerings, yet on your list of targets of those who would be likely to purchase them.
Your advertising is the most economical way to reach this group efficiently and quickly.
Messages placed directly in front of your prospects is the way to grab their attention. A number of years ago, when I was in a position where I needed to do this, I commissioned unique collateral materials which were mailed to our prospect list in about a six week cycle.
Given the same assignment today, I would likely not take the route of mailing collateral materials. Why? First, the cost of the materials would be expensive, as compared to other options. Second, my self-generated mailing list would be small and would not begin to cover the universe of likely prospects.
A telemarketing group could be employed to call the likely prospects, if you have a good list. However, this also has limits, in that it is likely confined to one language and just a few time zones. On top of that, actually persuading the prospects to stay on the line long enough to hear the message is very, very difficult.
Advertising in well-read (or listened to) publications is my answer today. The costs are low and the media's mailing list is much greater than any I could put together by myself (if I were not in the business of media publication). Advertising has the advantage of repetition--and repetition is what one needs when introducing offerings to uninformed targets.
One must obtain the attention of uninformed targets and then help these targets make the link between their needs, needs they may not even realize they have, and the solution you provide. This is not instantaneous, no matter how hard you wish it to be.
Advertising means repetition and repetition brings recognition that your solution is exactly right for the whole universe of uninformed prospects-including the ones you didn't even know existed (yes, we had an advertiser tell us of surprise, at least once, about the source of an order).
Jim Thompson is CEO and Executive Editor of Paperitalo Publications. He can be reached by email at jthompson@taii.com.
For more information on Paperitalo Publications, feel free to contact:
Curt Gifford
cgifford@taii.com
770-367-4823
Helen Roush
helen.roush@taii.com
937-403-8602
Jim Thompson
jthompson@taii.com
678-206-6010
