5 Sure-Fire Ways to Guarantee Marketing Success

Nix creativity. Your products are so great they sell themselves. Fill every square inch of ad space with features. Forget color photos and snappy headlines. Emphasize data, not emotion.

Play hard to get. Don’t use “800” numbers, bingo cards, bounce-back’s or fax-on-demand offers in advertising or direct mail. Sales literature is way too expensive to send to just anyone. Make people prove they really want it.

Don’t keep records. Most people who ask for product information are just shopping around. It’s a big hassle to track names, addresses and contact status — so why should it come out of the marketing budget? Wait until somebody places an order and let the accounting people worry about record keeping.

Forget inquiry follow-ups. Send out product literature, period. Cover letters are a waste of time. If customers want to buy something, let them call sales rep or distributor. You don’t have time to waste on information gatherers.

Don’t worry, be happy. Management-types love big numbers, so report every inquiry as a success. The number of people who actually qualify as sales leads and eventually make the effort to place an order is way too small to impress a VP.

You can tell that I’m kidding, right?

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©1999 Ken Sethney