ANSWERS from a best selling author.

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by donsonic

Gordon,


1. You are recommending to go slow and steady with lots of testing, planning and oversight to optimize the marketing dollars for targeting best qualified buyers and prospects. 2. There are several ways to reach the markets we are targeting. Start with
whatever you can afford and go from there. 3. Use guerilla marketing techniques and be conscious of timing, competition and budget.


donsonic

donsonic,

I recommend everyone enter the game at their level of experience, knowledge and pocketbook.

Some come in at the million dollar level. Others at 100 grand. They have the means to BUY experience and expertise...and can afford to test Direct Mail or Full Page Space Ads. They expect a higher return on investment...and often want to be "absentee owners"...SO they outsource their business...in effect.

I think, based on my experience for a person with less than 10 grand to get involved in renting lists and testing direct mail pieces, is not a good idea, unless they are under the very watchful eye of an experienced direct marketer.

I'm from the bootstraps school. Spend NOTHING...and if you can't do that then spend as little as possible testing things. I'm OLD school, from a group of people who started by running small classified ads in the back of Popular Science, guys like Joe Karbo, Jerry Buchannan, Bud Weckesser, Jim Straw, Dean DuVall and many others of their day.

They started small and built their business from their profits and when they had a winner (promotion or ad) they milked it for every penny it was worth and this funded many "tests" which often as not failed. Ben Suarez has ample research under his built to state that it takes 7 attempts to find a winner, but one winner will pay for many times that in testing.

That doesn't mean the other six all lose, they may break even, but if you can hit one in 7 out of the park, you're a superstar. And it could be you fail on the first 13 before you get two in a row.

So what I recommend to everyone, is study, learn, test, and act. I've tested a number of things (still got a lot of sh..uh, flack, for some of the tests, but you have to know if your identified market is going to buy what you have to offer.

BUT, I also recommend that people today study ALL the options, not only product development or product acquistion, but become familar with the "secret" side to marketing...like Finder's Fees and TOLL positions, where you get paid for years for controlling a product that someone else markets. I'll be meeting with a man soon, hopefully, who has made several million dollars in the last few years with nothing more than a signature on an agreement. He doesn't manufacture the product, or sell them. He collects a royalty on each piece sold. To the tune of millions of dollars.

It is an area that I am actively pursuing, and one that requires none of the risk of direct marketing or financing.

Deal making is the most lucrative activity in the world.

But in the marketing of a product, a book or even an ebook, enter the game at your risk comfort level. And PLAN out what you want to achieve, then backward chain the events from the finish to the start to see what path and what activities you have to do to get there. Simple? Yes. Easy? NO. It requires hard MENTAL work followed by purposeful activity and a knowing that failure only takes you closer to success, if you can handle it.


Start at the top if you can. That's what I recommend.

Gordon Jay Alexander

PS. I think you have a pretty good plan, write it out, study it, find the markets, know what they buy, then create/acquire your product and launch ASAP.