A TRUTH: Most marketers don't know their numbers

There is a survival technique that is very common in nature. Sea
turtles, for example, use this. What’s it? They lay a lot of eggs
and so produce a great numbers of offspring ‘knowing’ that only a
few will make it to maturity.

We see this in other places in the animal world as well, even in
humans. A man produces millions of seeds to fertilize one egg!
What a waste … well not really – the more sperm, the greater the
chances for fertilization to take place.

Just this morning I read this:

“Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well”.
-King Solomon

What’s the lesson here? It’s all in the numbers!

You see, when I first started in 2002 to advertise online I was
very disappointed in the meager returns. I sent my ad to
thousands of classified sites and Safelists and sometimes made no
sales. Then I decided to build my own email list and only after
the list went beyond 10,000 that I started to see any sales.

It happened almost like a miracle. Now tell me why didn’t those
SAME buyers make the purchase when my list was just under 10,000?
It’s almost like a law of nature.

It’s also a lesson in persistence. If I had given up at 9,000
then I would have never seen the results that I got after 10,000.

You will discover that the difference between the marketer who is
making money online and those who are not is that the successful
marketer has a greater reach – they market to more people either
directly or through affiliates. Success comes to ANYONE who
understands this principle.

You see, the failing marketer cuts back on his advertising budget
when sales are low in order to save money while the successful
marketer spends MORE on advertising when times are hard.

Did you get that? Most newbies after losing a couple hundred
dollars run away and say that this Internet thing does not work.
I spent over $3,000 online BEFORE I made my first penny. Was I
frustrated? Oh yes .. but I knew that others were doing it and I
only needed to do whatever they were doing — and be PERSISTENT
with it.

So how many sales did you make last month? How many exposures of
your ad were needed to make that sale? If you want to improve
that number then simply increase the exposure. If this increase
in exposure will mean a loss to you then you have to find NEW
ways of advertising but not stop advertising.

A door-to-door salesman knows just how many doors he has to knock
on to make one sale. So what does he do to improve his sales? He
knocks on more doors – simple isn’t it?

Is just doing more the key to success? Well, yes and no. You need
to do more of what works. If you find that one method of
advertising is not working for you then you put more into those
campaigns that work. This is assuming of course that you are
tracking your campaign ads and know where your sales are coming
from. You will still find that the harder you work the ‘luckier’
you will get.

Going back to the sea turtle, not only does she lay a lot of eggs
but she seeks out the sand where it is warm and the environment
is just ideal. You too should place your advertising dollars
where they are most likely to hatch into a healthy bottom line.

-Ray Edwards