If I had a nickel for every time I heard that over the last 22 years, I could have retired years ago. When it comes to targeting, a couple of names come to mind. One is William Randolph Hearst and the other is Walmarts' founder, Sam Walton. These guys had targeting down to an art way before it was fashionable.

For those of you that don't want to sweat the details, I'm going to write a short version of this secret. And, for those of you that are more into the mechanics of everything, there's going to be a long version.

First and foremost know that there are basically 2 types of business:
1. Solicited Business and
2. Referral Business
This is where the average business starts to lose it. Getting your business name advertising actually seen when it gets to the target audience is imperative. Start looking for ad programs where you, the advertiser, can control ad impression at the target level. If the ad can't or doesn't actually get seen when it gets to it's destination, it does you no good. Another major obstacle is that the average business will lose 20% if its customers every year simple because of household turnover rate. So if you're not good at advertising, you better learn it or plan to just shut your doors and go home.

When it comes to the actual sale, consumers ask 3 questions when they buy products and services.
1. Do they need it?
2. Do they want it?
3. Can they afford to pay for it? (This includes "Do I have enough credit left on my credit card?")

As a seller of a product or service, you need to be able to answer "YES" to all 3 questions if you want to sell anything. If you can't, you don't have a sale. You can analyze it to death if you want to, but it doesn't change. That's the short version. For those of you so inclined, here's a little more detail.

Solicited Business and Referral Business go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. Most advertisers buy advertising based on cost and little else. So what actually happens is a lot of advertising actually gets produced, but almost none of it actually gets acted on.

The Real Marketing Secret.

Keeping in mind that the referral customer is usually more profitable, marketing has to feed the flow of referral customers with solicited customers. Business generated by means of advertising serves primarily one purpose . . . to get another referral customer . . . period . . . end of story. The average solicited customer generates approximately 2.3 referrals a year. Your numbers may vary slightly. Referral business pays profit and keeps the business running. Walmart knows it, Home Depot knows it and Best Buy knows it. And now, you know it. It is not possible to grow your referral business without growing your solicited business.

With this in mind, our challenge was how to get the message out, actually get it seen when it got to the target and reduce the actual cost factor in the process while using products and services available to us right now. We knew that the basic medium is going to be direct mail simply because it's the only way you can control which household actually gets the message. We knew it was going to be a postcard format because that's a product that's actually going get seen when it gets there. The Internet . . . what a novel idea. Put the ad on the internet and don't produce it until somebody actually wants to buy the product or the service. Another novel idea.

"Smart marketers bet on sure things".

And, there's one sure thing about advertising . . . 99% of your print advertising is going straight to the garbage can. I can personally guarantee that 99% of our ads are going straight to the garbage can too . . . but they only cost $99. Not $599, or $799 or $999. The average print ad gets 1.3 seconds of attention from reader and after that it's history. Using that 1.3 seconds to drive a prospect to an internet site gets about 10 to 15 minutes more. For $99 Target DFW is going to save you a lot of money and still get your message seen in 5,000 households. We're not depending in search engines to actually get your ad seen. We're driving our own traffic directly to your ad with our in-house mail programs.

As we drive more and more prospects to our site to see what it's all about, thousands will come back again. If you're one of those advertisers looking for a way to generate enough sales to pay for your ad . . . this is as close as it gets. You already know everything else you tried hasn't work . . . the difference is, WE KNOW WHY and we designed a product that works for the market NOW.

Email me direct, Larry Bell, at larry@targetdfw.com or
Call me at 972-424-8869 for details.