All You Need is a Good Idea!: How to Create Marketing Messages that Actually Get Results

Chapter 20. HOW DID YOU DO?

Lawyers never ask a witness on the stand a question unless they are confident that they already know the answer. So it is sort of reckless of me to ask, "How'd you do?" since one possible response to the question posed in this chapter is, "Hey, I did what you told me and it didn't work."

Though I hope that is not your response, allow me to become defensive. Maybe yours was a bad idea. Did you strategize, agonize, create, polish, shine, and develop your good idea? Okay, I believe, you. It was a good idea. But did your mailing consist of sending out just one postcard one time? Handing out just one flier? Did you run your ad once in only one publication? If that is the case, it is the equivalent of making just one new business-prospecting phone call with no follow-up. Even a truly good idea benefits from a little repetition to get noticed and acted upon. Granted, the point of a good idea is to make the initial communication as strong and noticeable as possible, but even then it usually takes more than one shot to hit your target.

Then again, perhaps you were successful. And when you put your good ideas to use, they did all that you (and I) hoped for. Realistically, how do you know how much of your success was due to your good idea anyway?

At the end of the nineteenth century, John Wanamaker, owner of the department store Wanamaker's, stated that he knew half the money he spent on advertising was wasted. He just didn't know which half.

Sometimes you just can't ...