Machine Gun Marketing

I remembered a piece of advice I received from another Duct Tape Marketing Coach on targeting your direct mail, which I call the Machine Gun approach. For obvious reasons, I won't disclose the source, but the following statistics were shared:

I don't have a success story, I have a sobering story. Here it is: Number of pieces mailed: 10,000 Response rate: 1% Number of inquiries: 96 Number that you manage to reach by phone to qualify: 70 Cost of qualifying by phone, per inquiry: $30 Number who turn out to be qualified leads (20%): 14 Total cost of qualifying ($30 X 70): $2,100 Campaign cost of $10,000 + phone qualifying cost = $12,200

Total cost of $12,200 divided by 14 qualified leads = $871.42. In other words, you must spend $871.42 to get to each lead who needs your product or service, can afford it, has authority to buy, and is ready to buy now. Not so good for a small business....

I will call this method Machine Gun Marketing. Another method of Machine Gun Marketing is the Marketing Idea of the Week. You have an Ad Rep call on you and they have this special 3 for 2 deal. Plus, they will be attending and handing out another 1,000 pieces of whatever they are selling. Oh yeah, you will also be exclusive to your area of expertise and they will even create the ad. What a deal! But….you will have to do something by Thursday, this being Tuesday. Sounds like a great idea?

If it is not part of your overall marketing strategy, if it not targeted, and I mean really targeted, and you don't have extra cash in your marketing budget that you were just clueless on how to spend it and you don't have collateral material supporting it and you cannot create the ad yourself(a two-step ad, by the way), and you already know how you are going to measure it and….. I have told Ad reps, that I do not respond to this type of marketing, many have stopped calling. I wonder why…has their machine gun jammed or just ran out of bullets?

Example of Machine Gun Marketing: Do you know the last time I was on a horse?

Ok, I am going to rant a bit over an honest mistake but in this day and age, I wonder what demographics this company is using? Several months ago, I started receiving a very high-end horse magazine. Suburbia me, I can't even remember the last time I was on a horse. In fairness, 15 years ago I did attend a horse show.

The last 3 to 4 months I have continued to receive this magazine. It became a joke in the neighborhood and became a topic in my speaking on what a little Lean Marketing can do for someone; Reduce waste. Recently, I was notified that my trial period had ended, but I continued to receive the magazine with last issue warnings and so on. They have received no response from me. The magazine has continued to come but now the list I was on has been sold to 2 other "Horse" related publications and it goes on. At this time, I am receiving 3 horse publications, and additional supplemental mailings from catalogs and such.

My fist indication is that these publications have needlessly increased their circulation at the expense of their advertisers. Do print publications buy list on a regular basis? Is there that little verification on developing a mail list? Are they this willing to buy an un-targeted list such as this? Are that unknowledgeable about their target audience? I am flabbergasted that as a marketing person that a reputable magazine would so blindly put someone on their circulation list, never verify them and even more importantly maybe sell the unsubcribers to another company.

However, the advertisers may be the ones to blame. Do they have this amount of cash to pay for this type of advertisements? I wonder?

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