Do you want to know how to do this? You do?

Well, it`s quite simple: You allow the punters to tell you whether or not they want your product.

I am being deadly serious here when I tell you that the only certain way to be sure is to test your product in a suitable, email broadcast, newspaper ad or direct mail campaign.

The punters will pretty soon tell you whether or not they want to buy or not. Either you will get lots of orders, or you will just about break-even, or you will hardly get any orders at all. You just wont know until you test!

Now, do you want to know the single most powerful piece of information in the product development and/or direct marketing business? This information is worth more than everything I have previously told you, put together.

It is this: Believe the punters - not yourself.

There. I never thought I`d tell anyone not to believe in themselves... But in this particular instance, you must put all of your faith in the punters. It doesn`t matter how much of a `pet` your product is. It doesn`t matter how much your old mum and your friends tell you it`s a GREAT product. It is wholly irrelevant that you have seen scores of adverts for similar products at a higher price. - If the punters don`t respond to your advert, then you must drop that product and move straight on to the next one.

The only exception to this is if you have a modest response, and you think you made a slight mistake... (say by going in completely the wrong paper, or £5 too expensive, etc.). In this case, it might be worth testing again. If this second attempt also fails, then drop the product immediately.

Don`t try and second-guess the punters.

Don`t worry too much about how, or why the punters didn`t buy your product. You will probably never work this out... I never can!

The greatest mail-order gurus in the world often find themselves scratching their heads in disbelief at what works, and what fails. They are continually amazed that their `dead-cert` product flops completely, and their rank outsider, no-hoper product which they whacked-in for a quick test, results in bulging mail-sacks. There is often no rhyme or reason to this. Who knows why the punters will go for a product, or leave it alone? It could be one word in the copy, a `feel`, the picture, the price, their perception of your ability to deliver.... ANYTHING. You`ll never find out.

Now the big difference between a winner, and a loser is that the winner will listen to the punters no matter what he thinks. If the punters tell him that his red-hot favorite product is a lame dog, then he`ll drop it immediately. Losers will back their hunches right down the line until they go broke.

They just know that this product is a winner.... If the marketing fails, then they attribute it to the media, or the day of the week, or the price, or the delivery time. They don`t believe that the punters could ever reject such a super product. So they promote it again, and again and again until they have lost a very great deal of money. Then they believe. But even after all this, they still harbor a sneaking suspicion that if they`d just altered the coupon shape, or increased the money-back guarantee to 30 days, or........ you get the idea....

To Become A Mail-Order Winner, You MUST believe the punters. They KNOW, you only BELIEVE. This principle can be summarised in this vital concept:

MILK YOUR WINNING PRODUCTS, DROP YOUR LOSERS.

More on this in my next article.

Copyright 2005 Nick James