Test Your Ads or Throw Money
Down the Toilet!
It is Your Choice.

by Bob Blagg

I was talking to one of my HVAC clients the other day and he told me about a mailing he did a couple of weeks ago.

He said he got this great ad from the company he buys his equipment from. They told him just to make copies of the ad and mail them out and in no time he would have a ton of work.

The manufacturer also told my client that they would co-op 50% of the mailing up to $1000.00.

So my client took the ad to his local print shop and asked them to make 5000 copies. He figured that at 39 cents each to mail out he could mail out all 5000 and it would only cost him $1000.00 since the manufacturer was paying half.

Well my client sent out all 5000 pieces at a cost of almost $2000.00 and low and behold he did not get one response.

In a panic he called me and asked what he had done wrong.

I told him he had made the biggest mistake of all!

He did not test his ads response.

What do I mean by testing the ads response. I recommend you always take a small portion of the list you want to mail to lets say 10% and send out a copy of your ad or direct mail piece to them and see what results you get.

If you get no response from the small test sending then you know not to send out a larger mailing.

Mailing an ad to a larger group doesn’t mean you are going to get a better response.

So think about it. My client spent $2000.00 on a direct mail campaign and got $.00 dollars in return which means he would have lost all $2000.00 he had invested if not for the Manufactures 50% co-op so he only lost $1000.00.

Aren’t you happy he had co-op.

But if he had tested as I suggest he would of invested say $200.00 and with the manufactures co-op we would have only lost 50% of the $200.00 or $100.00 instead of $1000.00.

So if you have an extra $2000.00 laying around that you don’t need send it to me I will be more then happy to co-op it 50% and send you back $1000.00.

The Moral of this story is TEST, TEST, TEST AND TEST again.

Sincerely;

Bob

Test Your Ads or Throw Money Down the Toilet! It is Your Choice.

Test Your Ads or Throw Money
Down the Toilet!
It is Your Choice.