Postcards from The Marketing Pathway

Marketing Best Practices Blog: The Power of a Penny - and Response Rates: "The other day I was reading an article in the DMNEWs about the power of a penny. Tad Clarke, the editor tells the story of how Columbia House increased the response rate to its advertisements and direct mail offers by simply repositioning their offer.
Columbia House had a great offer. For only $1 plus 86 cents shipping and handling you could get 10 or so CD's. That was a great offer that did extremely well.
Well, the smart folks at Columbia House repositioned the offer so that you could get 12 CD's for only 1 penny plus $1.85 shipping and handling.
That one small change increased response rates by 20 - 30 percent.
It's interesting because the respondents were still paying the exact same amount, $1.86, but because of its repositioning to a 1 penny offer, the company increased its revenues by over 20%.
It just goes to show you that Dan Kennedy is right - - marketing is only two things, 1) human behavior, and 2) numbers."

This is a great post showing the power of testing your offers! It reminds me of the story of the Cabela brothers (of mail Cabela's order hunting and fishing supplies fame).

They started with a small ad in "Field & Stream" that said:

"Hand tied trout flies 10 for $5.00. Free shipping!" and got near 0 response. Then they changed their ad to this:

"Free Flies. Get 10 hand tied trout flies for free. ($5.00 shipping and handling.)"

Same net cost to thier customers but response rates went through the roof and launched an empire.

Almost a year ago I got an email from my friend Patric Chan saying he was taking an all-expense-paid trip to Australia to meet with a new potential client. He sounded *REALLY* excited about this guy.

You see, Patric is not only a sharp guy, but he is a committed student of personal performance and wealth creation. He not only learns the stuff, but he actually does it and has created a very nice life for himself in Malaysia. This time he got to learn wealth creation tactics from one of those true "millionaire next door" people. Not the flashy, big talking money guru, but someone who has actually done it and developed a way to teach other people the specific tactics and strategies that work.

The guy he was meeting with was Paul Counsel.

Then, last week, I got another email from Patric. He and Paul have put together a free teleseminar that anyone interested in improving their lot in life and their relationship with money should absolutely attend. I know I'll be there. Visit this page to learn more and sign up for the teleseminar...

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I Interviewed Habiba Abubakar, a JV expert from ProfitDiva.com about some of the benefits of Joint Venture marketing and what might be holding small businesses back and keeping them from benefiting fromt this lucrative strategy.

Wow, did she deliver a lot of information! Habiba came loaded with 10 limiting beliefs that cause small businesses to loose profit by avoiding joint ventures.

You can listen or download below.

To get Habiba's new JV course, go here...