Sometimes the only thing worse than failure is success – just cos you don’t know what to do next – a new problem. Dan Kennedy talks about when you come across a successful product or promotion you leverage it for all it is worth – to do otherwise angers the gods.
There is an old saying in speaking that “it is easier to find a new audience than it is to write a new speech.”
With that in mind when you’ve got a winning promotion it is time to really do the most with it that you can.
Once you have a winning promotion, there are three critical factors for success.
Get the promotion in front of MORE people.
You should be getting the damn thing in front of as many people as possible – who are likely to respond. Part of this should involve customising the promotion for various niches and sub-cultures found within the broader market. That way you’ll truly maximise response from all of your potential market.
This is the simple and effective first step.
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Take the promotion and re-purpose it across media.
Simple and effective if your online sales letter works. It should also work as a real sales letter, as a webinar, as a speech, in print ads. Everywhere. So start translating the thing into as many media as possible.
Despite popular mythology, (okay well just beliefs to the contrary,) not everybody in your market responds to every single media. For a start some people prefer to learn through listen, others through reading, others through an immersive experience. Repurposing your winning promotion across a number of media makes an awful lot of sense if you want to actually get the most out of it.
Start trying to beat your control.
The Philosopher, Homer Simpson once said that “everything lasts forever.” If you are of that school of thought, one day you will be disappointed. There are evergreen promotions that work for years unchanged and you should be looking to create these pieces of work.
That said there is an inherent danger to resting on your laurels – one day unexpectedly you will discover that what used to work no longer works, be it media or copy. Look at how the Yellow Pages has shrunk over the last decade and how Sensis has turned into a ‘digital ad agency.’ When I first started my own business, if you could afford to advertise your business in the yellow pages you were set.
Now, the Yellow Pages is not as effective – it is still a good media for certain markets, don’t get me wrong. But it is not what it once was. Sales copy eventually fatigues like this as well. Your market will stop finding it new; when it does you’ll sure want to have a replacement handy.
