Offline marketing isn't as easy as I thought!
Posted 12-03-2009 at 10:14 AM by MrYossu
Tags offline
Following David Preston's hugely popular (and now deleted) Cash Cow thread, and the plethora of follow-up threads, I decided to venture into offline marketing. It looked interested (you get to talk to real people!), and I figured I knew enough to be able to make a real difference to an offline business.
Well, that was almost a year ago, and I still haven't had a cheque in my hand. In fairness, there are a lot of mitigating circumstances, not least of which being that my baby daughter spent five months in hospital waiting for open heart surgery, which left me at home being Mummy! This severely curtailed the amount of time I had in front of the computer, or anywhere else not connected with washing clothes, cooking dinners, wiping noses, etc.
So what happened? Well, David Preston's original letter didn't work very well for me. I sent out 100 letters, and only got one call back. Admittedly, that one person was interested, and after a few minutes on the telephone, asked me to come in and see him. The meeting went well and I came out with a job, or so I thought. Unfortunately, he is a procrastinator, and ten and a half months later, I'm still trying to push him into getting going.
Next try was Shaun O'Reilly's client-attracting report. I decided to do better this time, and paid someone to ring up 80 businesses I had selected to get the owner's name before mailing them. He managed to get about 50%, which wasn't bad.
I sent out about 80 of these reports, and had the same chap follow each one up with another call, asking if they would like a free telephone consultation with me. He managed to get two appointments - not quite the results Shaun had predicted.
Anyway, one of those two was very interested, and agreed to go ahead. His only reservation was that they were thinking about moving shop, and wanted to get that sorted first. To cut a long story short, the move never happened, but other bills made him think twice about spending any extra money. He's still keen on the idea, but is waiting until the new year to see if he feels he can afford it.
I then turned to Andrew Cavanagh's private forum, and the 4-line letter his members get. At last I started to see some results! I sent out just 32 letters, and got 13 calls! Out of these, I ended up with about five people who were seriously interested. Unfortunately we ran into the "wrong time of year" issues, as they are all too busy thinking about keeping on top of the end of year madness, and want to wait until the new year before embarking on a new venture.
I sent another batch of 29 letters, and got 10 calls. A few of these sounded like they might be interested, but again, it's all "wrong time of year" and "call me back in the new year."
Ho hum, and I thought it was going to be straightforward. I have 14 possibilities, some more possible than others, but nothing paying money yet.
Maybe I'll go and hide until the new year!
Well, that was almost a year ago, and I still haven't had a cheque in my hand. In fairness, there are a lot of mitigating circumstances, not least of which being that my baby daughter spent five months in hospital waiting for open heart surgery, which left me at home being Mummy! This severely curtailed the amount of time I had in front of the computer, or anywhere else not connected with washing clothes, cooking dinners, wiping noses, etc.
So what happened? Well, David Preston's original letter didn't work very well for me. I sent out 100 letters, and only got one call back. Admittedly, that one person was interested, and after a few minutes on the telephone, asked me to come in and see him. The meeting went well and I came out with a job, or so I thought. Unfortunately, he is a procrastinator, and ten and a half months later, I'm still trying to push him into getting going.
Next try was Shaun O'Reilly's client-attracting report. I decided to do better this time, and paid someone to ring up 80 businesses I had selected to get the owner's name before mailing them. He managed to get about 50%, which wasn't bad.
I sent out about 80 of these reports, and had the same chap follow each one up with another call, asking if they would like a free telephone consultation with me. He managed to get two appointments - not quite the results Shaun had predicted.
Anyway, one of those two was very interested, and agreed to go ahead. His only reservation was that they were thinking about moving shop, and wanted to get that sorted first. To cut a long story short, the move never happened, but other bills made him think twice about spending any extra money. He's still keen on the idea, but is waiting until the new year to see if he feels he can afford it.
I then turned to Andrew Cavanagh's private forum, and the 4-line letter his members get. At last I started to see some results! I sent out just 32 letters, and got 13 calls! Out of these, I ended up with about five people who were seriously interested. Unfortunately we ran into the "wrong time of year" issues, as they are all too busy thinking about keeping on top of the end of year madness, and want to wait until the new year before embarking on a new venture.
I sent another batch of 29 letters, and got 10 calls. A few of these sounded like they might be interested, but again, it's all "wrong time of year" and "call me back in the new year."
Ho hum, and I thought it was going to be straightforward. I have 14 possibilities, some more possible than others, but nothing paying money yet.
Maybe I'll go and hide until the new year!
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