Re: The respond rate of the survey? -- Small Businesses Discussion Forum

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Subject: Re: The respond rate of the survey?

Author:
Dennis Vogel

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Date Posted: 23:58:42 06/27/02 Thu
In reply to: Huy Dang 's message, "The respond rate of the survey?" on 07:47:41 06/25/02 Tue

Hi,

The main thing to consider is what the headline for each brochure will be. You can inexpensively test headlines by using classified ads or postcards. In some business situations (mostly business-to-consumers) flyers or posters may work. A basic way of testing headlines & sales copy is in distributing the advertsing messages in a way you can easily control whom get each version of it. Some basic principles are in "Re: How Much Testing Is Enough?" a response I wrote to another business owner.

You'll only know if your advertising is effective if you give yourself &/or customers a way of indicating which message they're responding to.

Jay Abraham gives the example of one of his clients. When prospects entered the furniture store, they were asked, "Which ad brought you in today?" That was the most effective opening statement they ever used. My guess is that's because it opened a dialog centering on what prospects were interested in. The staff could easily respond & help prospects to buy & become customers.

There are stories about business owners asking prospects how they heard about or saw the business, product &/or service. The prospects wre adamant about having heard or seen a commercial or ad in a medium the business owners didn't ever use.

So, it's best to have something prospects can bring in or ask for specifically.

Yes, when testing it's important to test one part of an advertising effort at a time. But in cases of putting one offer in one newspaper & essentially the same ad (but with a different offer) in another newspaper, that's actually testing an offer & a newspaper at the same time.

One way of partially overcoming that is by making the price & offer the same, but call it something different. Then the name(s) may make a difference is what seems appealing to prospects.

Example- Packaging together a food vacuum packing machine, a freezer & a microwave oven. That combination could be called 1) "The Busy Parent's Dream" 2) "The Bachelor's Buddies" 3) "The In-Home Variety Menu"
Though each one would feature the same appliance sizes & brands, plus the price would be the same, each name would appeal to different people.

The percentage of responses (compared to the number of recipients) may not be as important as the level of responses. In direct mail, a 2% response rate is profitable if the income is higher than the cost of the mailing & fulfillment (delivering products or services).

If you try to sell too much too soon, your marketing campaign will fail. If you're selling something that's high priced, your prospects may want want some preliminary information. If they like what's in your information, they may want more indepth information before they decide whether or not to buy.

What I wrote in "Setting Your Target Market's Buying Criteria Will Make You More Successful Than Your Competitors" may help persuade them to buy from you.

Other things to read/re-read are - Re: What's a reliable survey? & Re: What Should My USP Be? In reply to: candyshack's message, "What Should My USP Be?"

Dennis Vogel
WZ-ard of the business startups realm-
"Small Businesses Thriving in the Shadows of Giant Competitors "
http://wz.com/business/SmallBizThriving.html
http://www.thrivingbusiness.homestead.com

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