How to make your clucking marketing work

Imagine this: You own a chicken shack, and you need to sell more of your ten piece buckets. You decide to come up with a flyer and so you wonder, "Who should I target? Should I use the same piece for everybody or should I create different versions? Should I test them out somehow first? Is there even a way to find out which one works best before I spend a bucket load of my hard-earned profits?"

These are some great questions, and some very important questions. You're thinking like a marketer, Mr. Chicken Shack owner, and the answer to all of your questions is "YES!" You should try different flyers. You should send different flyers to different people. It does make a difference. Now stop clucking around and get testing!

Now, maybe you don't own a chicken shack, maybe you do. That part doesn't matter because what makes the chicken shack example so powerful is the fact that it involves sending the right marketing piece to the right population so that they'll get off their butts and run to buy chicken. In other words, the same questions apply whether you're selling fried chicken or high-end retail. The difference is the answers to those questions, and that difference has the power to make or break your campaign and your bank account.

If you're with me so far then you're the kind of person who asks: "What can I change about my marketing piece, packaging, headlines, envelope color, you name it, that will bring more people to my door - that will make my phone ring?"

Congratulations! You're the kind of person (you know, the intelligent type) who appreciates the science of marketing and who understands that the science part of marketing is the number one thing that separates you from your competition who just ships out a crate load of direct response mail and hopes that the stars align at just the right angle so that a miniscule percentage of recipients respond to it.

The science part of marketing involves serious strategy not intended for the faint of heart. It involves the basic formula: X (piece variables) x Y (population) = Z (results). The different sets of these variables sent out are called waves. The more waves you send out, the fewer the changes you make between waves, which means that you can control for more differences and come to a more clean understanding of what is causing different results between waves.

After testing, you are able to arrive at a point where you can boldly say "this flyer, with this specific headline, sent to this group of people = this much more chicken purchases than all the rest, and so guess what Chicken Shack team? We're sending out quadruple of this amount of these tomorrow!"

What I am talking about is a very strategic approach to marketing, one of the many strategic components that should be part of your total marketing plan. Is it? If you're not ready for strategy, then I'd advise you to cross your fingers, spin around three times, stay away from black cats, and keep watching those weather forecasts for that next full moon. If you are, the science of marketing is waiting with a confident smile.