When I started in business in the 1980’s, I stumbled onto something…
Back then, even though I had studied it in truth I knew almost nothing about marketing and even less about sales. But I was successful right from the start because I stumbled onto this thing, and it was … A word I like to use for it is “campaign.” Another word you’ll often see me use is “sequence.”
The idea is that you can’t depend on any single piece of marketing, on a single video, on a single ad, on a single sales call or proposal to make the conversion. Because while this is the first thing you learn in marketing – you have to have multiple touches.
I mean, the conventional wisdom used to be it took seven to nine touches before someone made the purchase. I don’t know what the number is now, but it seems like we are all working just as hard. Any way – 9 touches was just a theoretical number. But I do know that the more times you can reach out and communicate with someone, the better you do.
In my early launches, I always did a big buildup to it. What I used to use was a concept called the sideways sales letter, (which I still use today) This is based around the concept if you could only sell somebody by writing a letter what would you put into that letter and how would you frame it for maximum effect!
To do this I used to lock my marketing team away until we crafted that all-encompassing letter. And once we were happy with it I’d say well lets not waste it on a one shot and instead lets turn the letter on its side and work out how we can drip the information out to our prospects bit by bit but all along increasing the intensity to build up such a buzz that our prospects felt this irresistible urge to buy.
I remember the first time I used this concept I got 2 sales which was around $500,000 worth of revenue. That was absolutely amazing, mind-blowing to me. I had a whole sequence, a whole campaign leading up into the sale.
Now, one thing I didn’t do back then was I didn’t have a real follow-up campaign. Between that first promotion and the second promotion, I put together a follow-up campaign with a deadline. My sales went from 2 sale to 8 sales – so that was four times increase by having a follow-up campaign, by having a follow-up sequence.
Now, back in those days, it was purely email.
That was pretty much the only tool I had, the only way I had to communicate with people on my database. These days, we’ve gotten a lot more sophisticated. You can reach out via social and there are so many more tools that you can use. You can do a podcast like this. You can use a message bot. You can send video… on and on and on. There are so many different options. But the math stays the same – that you’re going to get 50 to 70% of your sales after whatever the campaign is.
So, you open the doors and launch, great. You make some sales right at the opening, but it’s the follow-up during the launch period. You do a seminar or a webinar, fantastic. You make some sales, but that’s only a small portion of the sales you can make if you have the right follow-up.
The reality is, this has become more important as the entire marketing world has gotten noisier. There is a lot more people competing for your prospect’s attention.
It’s a lot harder to reach people in their inbox. It’s a lot harder to reach people via paid ads. It’s a lot harder to reach people via social media.
They’re only seeing a tiny fraction of the messages that are coming at them. That’s just the reality.
There’s more noise. So, when there’s more noise, you have to make sure that your follow-up campaign is even stronger. That’s where all the gold is. That’s where all the sales are.
Do not make the mistake of, just because you do a pitch and you make a few sales, thinking you’re done. You release a sales video. You make a few sales; you think you’re done. Because at that point, you are just starting. That’s when the sales process really starts – when the presentation ends. It’s when that email goes out. That’s just the beginning.
So please think in campaigns. Think in sequences.
