Goodbye 04-06-05

Can you guess who is going to reach their goal, the city of Marietta?

It is NOT those super-efficient guys. They are in the wrong river. And no matter how efficient they travel on the Mississippi River, they cannot get to Marietta, Ohio. Simply because Marietta is not located on the Mississippi River. That is an illustration of...

Efficiency Without Effectiveness!

On the other hand, those two poor souls paddling up the Ohio River with their shoes and hands will eventually (in spite of their total absence of efficiency) reach their goal of Marietta. Why? Because...

They May Not Be Efficient...

But... They Are Effective!

They are, at least, traveling on the right river in the right direction.

Let's relate all this to the Internet.

A very good friend of mine was making an enormous amount of money on the Internet soliciting leads he sold to real estate brokers. He would send approximately 25 million e-mails a day. From these 25 million e-mails, he would get about 2,500 leads. This was enough for him to make about $30,000 a day.

That meant he was getting approximately 1 lead for every 10,000 sales message he was e-mailing. He was able to make a huge profit because, at that time, spam was legal. It also cost so little to send out those 25 million messages. Yes, he was able to make money... in spite of the fact... he was using the least effective advertising medium on the entire planet.

Let me put this in perspective:

At approximately the same time my friend was doing that, I was using direct mail to solicit leads. For approximately every 1,000 pieces of mail I sent, I received 70 leads. That meant I was getting a 7% response rate.