I am often asked this question and usually my answer is at least 2 or 3 times if it works the first time. I will explain why in a moment.

 

Here are some specific results that I think illustrate the impact of multiple impressions of the same advertisement to a single list.

 

Dick Larkin, The Yellow Pages Commando (If you haven’t subscribed to his newsletter, you’re missing a gem.), and I did a teleseminar in April. We both sent invitations to our respective readers. We received a total of 226 registrations.

 

The first invitation went out 2 weeks before the teleseminar. From this first round we received 31 registrations, which turned out to be only 13% of the registrations. We waited a week and then did a daily invitation for 4 days. The last invitation being sent on the day of the teleseminar.

 

Here’s what happened. The second invitation created 23% of the registrations, the third created 43.8%, the fourth brought in 12.3% and the 5th brought in 5.3%.

 

So what do we learn from this?

  1. If you only send a mailing out once you are only getting a fraction of what’s possible.
  2. Repeated mailings generate a classic bell curve of responses.
  3. Mailings that arrive fast and furiously don’t negatively affect customer relationships and in fact increase your business.

So if you do direct mail, e-mail marketing or any other kind of direct response, don’t sell yourself short by only sending out one round of advertising.