Bankhead

Dear Business-Builder,

OK so youve got a product on your hands. Maybe its your product. Or, maybe youre a copywriter and its your clients product.

The question is, where do you find the prospects that are most ready, willing and able to become your customers?

Thats the question I was asked recently. Well, actually, the question was a bit more specific:

I have a new client selling jewelry items (ear rings, chains, broaches) targeted at those who feel patriotic about their country - and wish to display their pride on their clothing and body.

We are discussing advertising in The National Enquirer-type of publication. Danbury and Franklin mint are consistent in there with products in similar price points.

Where would I find mailing lists targeted at those who buy jewelry items at the $100 price point?

What about lists of buyers who are patriotic - where would I find such a list?

Soon as I read that question, I realized Ive been woefully remiss in writing articles about advertising media. Should you begin with TV? Radio? A Web campaign? Print ads in newspapers or magazines? Direct mail?

I mean its kind of an important question when you think about it. After all the medium youll be using not only determines the cost of your promotion; it also is a major influence on the approach youre going to take in your sales copy!

So today, were going to remedy that with a basic, plain-English guide to selecting the advertising media that will give your promotions the greatest likelihood of success.

Or, alternatively titled

MEDIA SELECTION 101

Right off the bat, it helps to understand three all-important facts of life about selecting the optimal medium for your promotion

FACT #1: There Aint No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. If you plan to rent a direct mail list, place an ad in a newspaper or magazine, buy time on TV or radio, plaster your business all over a billboard or even buy space on the back of a matchbook you might as well get used to it: Youre going to have to unlimber your checkbook.

Think you can dodge the media cost bullet by building your business on the Internet? Maybe with affiliate programs, joint venture or per-inquiry (PI) deals?

Good luck! These programs are important, but your affiliates and joint venture partners not you get to decide if and when your ads run and by extension, if and when youll become a success.

To produce the big numbers of new customers youre looking for, youll need to seize control of your own fortunes. And that means renting e-mail lists, buying banners on websites, signing on for pay-per-click campaigns -- and unless you personally have the time and knowledge required, paying someone else to make sure the search engines can find your site.

FACT #2: Some Advertising Media Cost More Than Others. The rates a particular medium charges you are generally based on four things

A. The number of people who will see your message: The number of people who subscribe, read, view or listen to a particular medium is often referred to as impressions or eyeballs and the more eyeballs you get, the more you pay.

The cost of a medium divided by eyeballs tells you how much youre paying to deliver your sales message to one prospect. Multiply that number times one thousand and you get that mediums cost per thousand or CPM. CPM is the number thats usually used to compare the cost of various media.

A 30-second television spot in a local market might cost you as little as $10/M. A red-hot direct mail list could cost you $150/M or more.

B. The size of your ad: In addition to the number of eyeballs you get, you also pay for how much time or space your ad will consume. Full-page ads cost more than little ones; 30-second commercials cost less than 30-minute infomercials. Even in bulk mailings, basic postage rates allow you up to three ounces of material. If you want to send more, youll have to pay more.

C. The type of people who will see your message: As a general rule

Media that deliver your ad to the gray masses are the cheapest on a CPM basis: Billboards, general-interest newspapers and tabloids, local TV and radio channels, for example ...

Media that deliver your ad to better-defined audiences cost a little more: Special interest magazines, cable channels and websites, for example ...

And the media that put your sales message only in front of people who are most highly qualified to buy your product charge out the wazzoo: Highly selected direct mail and e-mail lists of folks who have bought your type of product through this kind of medium in the recent past are at the top of the media cost pecking order (and usually, well-worth it!).

FACT #3: Some Advertising Media Produce Higher Response Rates Than Others. If you ever had the opportunity to run the exact same sales copy on every medium available, youd probably find that the percentage of folks who respond to your ad will be up to 100 times greater in some media than in others.

Same ad, same copy, same offer massive response differential.

Why?

Well, for one thing, theres the competition. If your sales message is just one in a big newspaper or magazine or clustered with others on TV or radio, not all readers will see or hear you and therefore, the media will probably cost you less.

On the other hand, if your sales message is delivered all by itself (as in direct mail or e-mail blasts), your response rate could be up to 100 times higher and the media cost will also be higher.

But theres another, more crucial reason why the response rates produced by some advertising media are so much higher than others

THE SELECTIVITY FACTOR

Media that produce the greatest response rates are invariably those that deliver your ad to your most qualified prospects. Put simply, they allow you to select your audience using one of three general criteria

1. Geographic Selection: Some media billboards, general-interest newspapers and tabloids and local TV and radio stations, for example cant tell you much about wholl see or hear your ad.

Sure -- theyve done polls, so they can also give you a good idea of the average and/or median age and income level of their readers and what percent are men vs. women. But thats pretty much it.

Beyond that, all they can really tell you for sure is the geographic area in which your ad will be seen -- a particular neighborhood Zip code SCF (the first three digits of your Zip code) city metro area county state region or nation, for example.

By their very nature, they cant offer you the choice to advertise only to men or women or folks above a particular income level.

On the other hand, these media are extremely cheap. So, if just about everyone in a particular area is a prospect for your product, these geographically defined media can actually be highly cost-effective.

But

If only women buy your product, you could be wasting up to half of your advertising dollar effectively doubling your media costs ...

If only women over 50 are prospects, you could be quadrupling your media costs ...

If only women over 50 with osteoporosis are prospects, you could be multiplying your media costs by a factor of ten

And if your best prospect is a woman over 50 with osteoporosis who would try an alternative treatment, and can afford your product, you could be wasting 99% or more of every ad dollar.

2. Demographic Selection: Because they exclude obvious non-prospects, advertising media that deliver consumers based on their sex, sexual orientation, race or ethnic group, age, education, profession, income level, home ownership, etc. tend to produce substantially higher response rates.

Media that allow you to focus exclusively on the appropriate demographic for your product include

Special-interest magazines: Playboy, Maxim and Popular Mechanics deliver mostly men. Cosmo, Glamour and Womans Day give you the ladies. Seventeen gives you young girls, Modern Maturity gives you us old fogies and Black Enterprise gives you Afro-American professionals. Prevention gives you health nuts Guns & Ammo gives you gun nuts Sports Illustrated gives you sports nuts ad infinitum.

Special-interest cable channels: Lifetime gives you women Discovery Health gives you health nuts The History Channel and History International give you history nuts Speed Channel gives you car nuts etc.

Special-interest web sites: With millions of sites out there, its a deadlock cinch that youll find a site that delivers your prime demographic and then place your banners on that site.

Plus, just about every special-interest magazine you can name has a website and most will allow you to place banners on their sites for a fee.

Direct mail and e-mail lists: Take a look in the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) for mail lists, and youll see three kinds of lists:

1) Compiled lists lists of names and addresses that were compiled from public records. Typical compiled lists include lists of addresses without names attached (occupant lists), lists of folks with drivers licenses, homeowners, plus lists of professionals and so forth.

2) Inquiry lists folks who have asked for more information in response to a lead-producing ad, but who have not made a purchase.

3) Buyer lists folks who have actually purchased a product (or donated money) as the direct result of a promotion sent to them by mail. Naturally, these include the lists of people who subscribe to all the specialty magazines named above.

Depending on your product, all of these lists might give you the ability to ensure that your message is going to folks who satisfy your demographic criteria but because buyer lists contain the names of folks who have actually spent money through the mail, theyre by far the most responsive of the three.

3. Psychographic Selection: The greatest response rates youll find by a long shot are produced by media that allow you to select your prospects psychographically.

Psychographic selection allows you to find prospects on the basis of their PROVEN interests, beliefs, fears and desires.

Proven is the operative word, here. Psychographic media mostly mailing lists and e-mail lists (and the co-ops, ride-alongs and insert programs that go to those lists) -- deliver folks who have actually purchased a product like yours through a medium like the one youll be using!

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Looking back at the question at the beginning of this article, my friend was thinking about 1) Advertising his patriotic jewelry in National Enquirer because Franklin Mint does, and 2) Mailing to lists of folks who previously bought jewelry items for around his $100 price point.

To me at least, either would be a mistake. Why? Because it totally leaves the prospects dominant emotions out of the equation.

Since 99% of all purchases we make every day are made to satisfy an emotional need, thats like showing up at a gunfight and leaving 99% of your bullets in the glove compartment.

Instead, Id want my promo going to folks who are, first and foremost, passionate about their love of country so passionate, theyd love nothing better than to express that patriotism in the jewelry they wear.

My first question would be, Where are the lists of folks who are already buying other kinds of patriotic jewelry at or around this price point? In short, Id look at direct competitors and try to rent their mailing lists.

My second question would be, Where can I find people who have purchased non-jewelry patriotic items and who have paid about $100 per purchase? Id scan for direct mail and e-lists of people whove spent $100 to buy American flags, patriotic license plates, red-white-and-blue clothing, for example.

My third question would be, Where can I find people who have such a compelling love of country that theyd probably jump at the chance to wear patriotic jewelry? Id look at magazines, websites, and mailing lists that deliver the most politically active folks out there: Members of political action committees and lobbying groups like the National Rifle Association Republican and Democrat fat cat donors members of veterans organizations and so on.

Finally, after Ive fully explored all of these media, my fourth question would be, Where can I find general-interest media thats so cheap, Ill still make money even if my response rate is miniscule? And thats where Id look at print ads in huge circulation tabloids and TV.

Then, Id sit down and do a little math:

Hmmm my patriotic lapel pin costs me $19. I sell it for $99. That gives me an $80 margin.

If my mail cost is $500 per thousand pieces mailed, Ill need to sell 6.25 pins for every thousand pieces mailed to break even.

Thats a response rate of about .63%: About six-tenths of one percent.

Doable? Maybe. But that might restrict me to using only the most qualified lists out there. Id better hedge my bets some.

For one thing, I could add a nice bump to my offer. Maybe a beautiful broach for my prospects spouse for, say, an additional $79 (gross profit: $50).

That should get my average margin per sale up to around $130. At that rate, my break-even response rate drops to .38%. Now, were talking!

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Well, this media question is a pretty big one and weve only scratched the surface. True -- its a scratch that would have gotten my butt whupped if Id left it on my Moms piano bench.

But its still only a scratch. Theres a lot more to consider but Ill have to tackle the next step another time.

Clayton Makepeace is a working direct response marketing consultant and copywriter who has helped his clients attract more than 3 million new customers quadruple their profits and rake in more than $1 billion in direct mail and internet sales. His daily e-letter, The Total Package, shares his proven response-boosting techniques with younger writers, business owners, and marketing pros. Find out more at http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com