I spent a couple of days at LeadsCon in Vegas this February. It was my very first LeadsCon, so it was a bit of an indoctrination – even though I've known about online lead generation for a few years and actually participate in it, on a very limited basis, with my company's Web site.  I spent much of my time absorbing the atmosphere and developing a deeper understanding of the online lead-generation industry. Clearly, the players there have many hurdles to leap, some of which they understand...

Read More "Why Daffy Duck May Be Wrong About Improving Lead Quality"

Have you heard the "commercials" littering the radio airwaves, predominantly on Sunday mornings for "HD" radio?  They're not new, stations have been airing them for the better part of 4 years. They're promoting MORE, supposedly better sounding stations.  If you buy an "HD" radio you could listen to literally 3x the number of stations you receive now.  An FM station broadcasting at 99.9 (which is really 99.90) now has entirely different programming on...

Read More "The Meaning of "

We're in the midst of gearing up what looks like a significant lead generation campaign for a client and while they've committed to a specified number of leads, they STILL want to be able to cancel with 24 hours notice if the lead quality doesn't meet their benchmarks anywhere along the way. We politely told them that we're not going to let them do that.  We explained to them that the initial test bed they've committed to is the smallest possible sample we could statistically use to determine...

Read More "Clients Who Micro Manage"

Immediately following Response Expo I took the better part of 10 days off on vacation; that includes the weekends, so it was really only 5 business days, but it seems like it was forever since I'd been back in my office!  I'm amazed at how easy it was to fall out of the natural rhythm of day to day business, and how much discipline it's taken to return to it. As I've written (quite extensively), Response Expo 2009 seemed to be teeming with positive energy.  That's not to say that everyone...

Read More "Back to the Basics"

As defined by Wikipedia, Per Inquiry advertising is:

Per-inquiry advertising (PI) - also known variously as cost per lead (CPL), pay per lead (PPL) or cost per action (CPA) - is a form of direct response marketing in which the advertiser receives free ad time and space while paying only for results. In return, the advertiser gives up control of where and when the ads will run.

Agencies that offer PI have relationships with media outlets - radio, television, print, Internet sites, interactive TV and mobile media platforms, and movie screens - and access to their unsold inventory of ad time and space. The agency acquires the rights to the unsold time and/or space and places the ads as it becomes available.

The advertisers pay only for qualified responses. What constitutes a response is negotiated between client and PI advertising agency. Packages can be structured for a variety of results: per inquiry (any response), per lead (name and contact information) - even per sale.

For PI to work, the responses must be trackable. Some PI advertising firms also provide exclusive toll-free numbers and Web addresses for potential customers to respond. A few go so far as to field responses and arrange fulfillment on behalf of their clients.

PI appeals to clients who care about how well their advertising works, not necessarily when or where it runs. It allows companies to boost business without the usual risks associated with advertising and establish stable, predictable CPL within their business plans, assuring a positive return on investment (ROI).

That's the long explanation, courtesy of HPM; yes, we wrote the Wikipedia definition of Per Inquiry advertising.

To make a long story very short, Per Inquiry advertising is performace-based communication.  The media gets paid for each lead they generate when they run a client's advertisement in their unsold time or space.

That's what we do at HPM; while we aren't the first Per Inquiry advertising agency out there, we are among the biggest and fastest growing.  The 5 Top Reasons We're Among the Biggest and Fastest Growing:

1. We give our clients and our media partners honest appraisals of everything we do.
2. We don't lie.
3. We do what we say we're going to do.
4. We're always researching ways to help deliver a better Return On Investment for both our media partners and our clients... we want everyone to win!
5. We implement better working, inspired ideas, with today's cutting edge technology.

Sound like we're really patting ourselves on the back, huh?

Not really.  Every success we have comes from letting go of our egos and letting ourselves be guided by our Higher Power.  And every failure we experience... and yes, we have our fair share of them, is an opportunity to accept responsibility and grow from, so that we don't have to keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

We give credit where credit is due... and accept responsibility where it belongs; I guess people really connect with that!

-Peter

I have two dogs, Lewis and Clark; they were into everything as pups, so the names fit... and they still do.  So this morning, I'm sitting Indian style on a carpet square in the kitchen during my quiet time, while the boys' food is rehydrating (don't ask) when Clark Nudges me.  He'd been outside and had trotted back in to see how breakfast was coming along.  He, and his brother, both" know" when the 10 minutes it takes for their food to rehydrate is up.

So I feel this wet nose on my upper arm, The Nudge... telling me "it's time".  So I look up at the clock and sure enough, once again he's nailed the time, to the minute.  It's uncanny.  As I looked him in the eyes just after he nudged me I knew that this would be my topic for today's entry.

Do I think my boys can tell time?  No.  Do I think they've got a sense of the passing of time and have a sense of an internal "clock"?  Absolutely.  Which got me to thinking, wondering how they come by that innate sense of the passing of time... and how they connect that with an action they know will get my attention and cause me to move?

God.  It's the only answer I can come up with.  He/She/It gives all beings and creatures some of His/Her/Its essence so that we may draw breath, be expressive and otherwise do His/Her/Its will on a daily basis.  And I guess included in that is the simplest of expressions, "It's time", communicated by the simplest of gestures, The Nudge.

I'm pretty sure I receive many "nudges" during the course of every day.   I used to flat out ignore them, pretending they didn't exist.  Then I became even more arrogant, running roughshod over them, exerting my will over them, especially when they got in my way, or were not to my liking, or I thought that attending to the "nudges" would have created inconveniences for me if I paid attention to them.  Then a funny thing happened.  I decided to allow the "nudges" to reach me, and to guide me... and I became willing to acknowledge them, to embrace them, to do as they inspired me.

Today, and each day, I work deliberately to feel the "nudges" that come to me, no matter the source, because I know that the truly great things I've created (and there are some real joys I've made) have come from the inspiration of a "nudge".  They are gifts from my Higher Power, I call God.

The next time you feel a 'nudge'... the simplest gesture, that communicates the simplest of expressions... stop for the second it takes to notice it.  See what it inspires you to do!

And then tell me!

-Peter, aka The Nudge

This has been a remarkably full week; it's already Wednesday, yet it's "only" Wednesday!

I've literally had a bazillion emails, voicemails, Facebook and Twitter updates... and that's just the online world.  In the real world, I've been living large too!

The watchword for everything this week, from my quiet time to my business time, to how I respond to people on personal and business stuff has been "Patience".  For decades I used to think that if I didn't receive a reply from whomever about whatever then life as I knew it was going to stop.  Slowly, over the past 10 years I've come to realize that more actually gets done for me, and for my benefit when I let the (far more powerful) Universe do its thing.  When I'm patient.

When I'm patient business comes to me that is meant to come to me... and often on better terms than if I tried to pry it free whatever shackles I imagined were holding it hostage.

When I'm patient I'm kinder to people and they're kinder to me... not because we're any nicer, but because the REAL us is given the opportunity to come out.

When I'm patient everyone around me and everyone who comes in contact with me is changed... feeding off my "frenzy" of patience.

I've had this entry on my mind since Sunday; patience told me to wait until I could write it down with the inspiration needed to communicate just how powerful patience is.

I'm glad I was patient.

-Peter

I was deep in conversation with a prospect this morning when our talk turned to the real nuts and bolts of the program; he asked me a question only two other prospects/clients had asked me in the past nearly 10-years, "Would media outlets prefer to receive a higher bounty for a sale or a lower payout on a lead?"  What an absolutely brilliant question!  And I told him so!

Take a guess, which do you think the media would prefer?  Unsure?  Okay, how about if I changed the question to this:  Would media outlets prefer to receive a higher bounty on a fewer number of sales, or a lower payout on a higher number of leads?"  Does that change in language give you an insight?

The answer is:  The media always prefers to be compensated on leads, or better yet, on a per call basis.  For the most part the media doesn't like being paid on a per sale basis.  Any ideas as to why that might be?

Among the several reasons, this one stands out as #1: The media doesn't like being held responsible for a call center or web page's ability to actually close a sale.  They're perfectly fine with being held accountable for number of calls or leads; they despise advertisers who want to pay them per sale.

When we approach our media partner with a Per ________ (call, lead or sale), they know that they are going to be paid $XX Per whatever it is we've told them... either Per Call, Per Lead or Per Sale.  So whatever that "Per" is, the media's ONLY concern is how many of those "Pers" are they going to get.  So while clients think it's the coolest thing since sliced bread to pay a media outlet $100 Per Sale, the media is quietly thinking, "I'm probably not going to see much out of this, so I'm not going to give them very many runs".  And when the client reports back to us the following Monday that they only made 2 sales, and we in turn report that to our media partners, they tell us outright (no longer so quietly), "Yeah, that offer was lame, we're not going to run it any more."  Now multiply that scenario times 100 media outlets and you can see how quickly a Per Sale program can fail.  Here's the big picture so you can see the dynamic in ful flow: 

1. We give the Per Sale offer to 100 media outlets, paying $100.00 per sale.
2. They run the offer, sparingly because they don't think the client's call center can close many sales, and they (the media) don't think they (the media) should be responsible for making sales... but they run the offer a little bit.
3. We get our sales report from the call center on Monday and it shows that there were only 5 sales; 1 sale from 5 different media outlets.
4. We now have 5 media outlets who managed to eek out some revenue, while 95 get goose-eggs... zero, zip, nada, zilch.
5. Immediately upon reporting out our results, 80 of the outlets cancel the client's runs, leaving us with 20 outlets to run the offer.
6. The next week the same thing happens, only this time, there are only 3 sales.
7. When we report out the results, 17 of the remaining outlets cancel, leaving us with only 3 outlets running the offer, so we cancel.
8. We give the client back their unused deposit, and everyone walks away a loser... the client spent a bucket-load of money on its sales systems, call center scripting, dubs for the media.  We expended our time and effort trying to get the media to do something they weren't that thrilled with to begin with and the media only participated half-heartedy. 
9. We've made a withdrawal from our trust deposit with the media and, while life goes on, it's not as happy a day.

Fortunately we take very few per sale offers...they have to be well-tested and have extremely high conversion rates to qualify... because otherwise we DON'T do them... we avoid the scenario you see above by going through an exahuastive pre-qualifying process!

By contrast, when we do a Per Call or Per Lead program the dynamic is nearly 180° different.

1. We give 100 media outlets a Per Call program that pays them $15 per call.
2. The media companies know that they're going to receive $15 for every answered call... that's easy...
3. The media decides to run a lot of commercials because they figure it'll be easy to make the phone ring and get paid.
4. We get our call report the following Monday morning and see that we generated 600 calls!!
5. 92 of the 100 media outlets made money, and they're pumped up about running it even more this coming week.
6. We can tell the 8 who didn't get any calls that if they give the commercial a few more runs they'll make money too, so they say they will.
7. We have 100% participation for a second week and then our second week's numbers come out.
8. This time we've generated over 1,100 calls, and every single media oulet made money!
9. Here's the kicker.. since the client's call center answered so many calls, they got really good at answering caller objections and closing sales, so their closing ratio went up by 2% which made the client many more sales than they were expecting.
10. Since the client made more money, they gave us another $1 per call to pay to the media... which allowed us to pay more to our current outlets, and also attract new, bigger outlets...
11. You guessed it, the following week we nearly doubled our numbers and the campaign goes on for 7+ years like that... everyone, and I mean everyone made a lot of money!

Sound far-fetched.  Fact:  This is a true scenario- and it's the kind of thing we use to build our business and more importantly our clients' and media partners' buisnesses.

We've come to appreciate the difference between Per Call, Per Lead and Per Sale.  If you're a business looking to do a performance based program, don't be so quick to fall into the Per Sale trap...it can be a no win situation... talk with someone who knows what they're doing and can guide you through the benefits and pitfalls, so you don't end up making a business-ending series of mistakes.  If you're a media outlet, you already know what I'm talking about... and perhaps, if you aren't an HPM Media Partner, you may wish to consider becoming one.

-Peter Feinstein

How do you handle uncommunicate clients?  I get asked that question a lot.  It's nearly unthinkable to not reply to an email or return a call from someone I know, whether it's personal or business.  But that's me.  I'm guessing there are as many different perspectives on this as there are human beings...kind of what makes the world go 'round.

So just how do I handle the unresponsive.  I assume the best and go from there, really.  Okay, I didn't always come from a place of peace, but ever since I began putting my faith in the Universe to handle the things over which I have no control (seems like a good idea, huh?), stuff just seems to turn out okay.  Sorry, I got off on a tangent.  I assume the best and go from there... I usually place a call to them at a reasonable time of the day; if I reach them I make sure I let them know that I was feeling concern for them, that not hearing back from them is so unusual I was just calling to make sure everything was okay.  99.99% of the time, everything was okay, they'd just deleted my original voice mail or email and, while they meant to reach out to me, they'd forgotten.  We all do it, we're human.  To pretend otherwise is just sillyness.

What's most interesting is when i put the other person's well-being first, making my call all about them, and the concern I feel for them, it lightens the load of the call... no matter whether it's a collection call, or you're introducing a new line of products/services you believe will benefit them... it all becomes easier because instead of putting my selfish wants first, I've put them first.  And when done geniunely, it's as transparent and easy to see as looking through a freshly cleaned picture window!  And it is a picture window... to your soul, to your belief system.

I used to be less trusting than I am today; years ago I mistrusted most, trusted very, very few... and I acted accordingly... and was treated accordingly.  But then I chose to shift my belief system...seeing the inherent flaws in distrusting people... so I began acting as if I trusted everyone... and amazingly, trust began to sprout like May flowers after April showers!  Trust was everywhere!

If someone's being uncommunicative, don't assume the worst - assume the best, and go from there.  Trust that putting their well-being ahead of your own self-centered 'needs' will yield a calmer, more open communication... and you might even find yourself letting them take their time in getting back to you as their schedule dictates.

Patience and trust... working together to bring you a more peaceful day!

Peter

Another gorgeous Spring Saturday in Phoenix; the breeze is blowing, creating a stirring melody through our chime garden.  The tunes are punctuated by an errant chirp of a bird, or more commonly the 'chirp' of one of our two mini schnauzers, Lewis and Clark.  Three guesses as to why we named 'em... the first two don't count!

I got to thinking about my business, and one of the more inspired (IMHO) thoughts raced through my mind is that my business reflects my life... mostly peaceful, with a little bump here and there, but nothing that isn't resolvable if I get out of the way and let God do for me that which I cannot do for myself.  Yeah, I know you may be thinking, "Why does he have to bring God in to it, why can't he leave religion out of day to day life and/or business?"  A fair question, so let's leave religion out of it, but I try to never leave God out of it.

Let me explain.  My belief in God is of a spiritual, decidedly non-religious nature.  I am not opposed to organized religion for those who wish to benignly participate in it; I am certain it helps them acquire and maintain the connection to a Higher Power, but it is not for me.  And while I 'religiously' practice my form of spirituality each day, I have no congregation, no pastoral 'leader' to speak to God for me, or to lead me in prayer.  I talk to God as plainly as I'm writing here, and He speaks back to me in pretty much the same way.  Yes, I hear God - Do you?

This Saturday morning, I write asking you to listen for God, and then listen TO God.  Lose the fear of doing what you know is right, lose the fear of letting go of required outcomes, lose the fear of letting him do stuff for you that you couldn't possibly do on your own.  Listen for God, he's in every kind word, every chirp of bird, every breeze that blows by, and in your heart.

He's also in the mean-spirited thoughts, words and deeds that invade our minds and lives.  It's true.  God is in everything, so he cannot be excluded from those things... but here's the caveat that explains how he's involved in the demons; God plants the seed of love in each of us... it is His Gift of free will that allows many to wander from God's inspiration, polluting His Will with mere mortal thoughts of selfishness, greed, pride, and so on. 

So when you feel an inspiration, something that goes beyond any experience you've ever had, stay with it, write it down, see what it says to you, but don't pretend that it's yours and yours alone... that's the mistake that leads to the negativity we each see (in our own ways).  Give God, or whatever you call your HIgher Power, his/her/its due!

My God told me: "You have the seeds of greatness within you.  Not for the power you can exert over people, but for the love you can extend to them.

-Happy Saturday,

Peter

Here's a note we received today from the fine people at Target+Response:

It is with great sadness that Target + Response Inc. announces the passing of our founder and dear friend, Laurence Levis, after a courageous 16-month battle with cancer.  Larry passed away peacefully at home yesterday, surrounded by his beloved family.  He will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues in the industry.
 
Larry’s roots were as a skilled salesman and sales manager in the radio industry.  He worked his entire career in Chicago, but he loved to build relationships nationally with a variety of marketers, broadcasters and other highly targeted media – media that were not historically viable to direct response advertisers.
 
Larry founded Target + Response in 1987, and applied a fresh approach to an old concept called Per-Inquiry (P.I.) advertising. With integrity and fairness to both media and advertisers, he created a platform that generated a new form of non-traditional advertising for the media, and a cost effective channel of sales leads for quality direct marketers.
 
From the very start, Larry established a legacy and culture that influenced and enriched the careers and lives of many people, and the success of many clients and businesses.  During his illness, Larry released himself from management duties of the business, but was comforted to know that Target + Response is well positioned for the future. 
 
Moving forward we will maintain the tenets that Larry fostered for the past 21 years. 
 
It’s been a privilege working with Larry for all these years, and he will be missed very much.  He is survived by his wife Debra, his four children and many family members.
 
An open memorial service for Larry will be held on Thursday, April 23rd at 4pm at Congregation Solel, 1301 Clavey Road, Highland Park, Illinois.  Target + Response will be closed on Thursday in Larry’s honor.
 
Condolences may be sent to LarryLevisCondolences@target-response.com or mailed to:
Target + Response Inc.
Attn: Debra Levis
420 North Wabash Avenue, Suite 201
Chicago, Illinois 60611-3569
 
Donations may be made to either:
The American Brain Tumor Association, 2720 River Road, Des Plaines, IL 60018, or
Alternatives, Inc., Attn: Judy Gall, 4730 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60640.
 
Gary Kretchmer
President
Target + Response Inc.

We echo Mr. Kretchmer's sentiments and express our deepest, personal condolences on Larry Levis' passing.

Peter Feinstein, CEO, HPM

Did you ever have one of those clients where you think you've covered every possible question, every possible outcome?  I'll admit it, I have.  And I'm here to tell you that assumption is a real joy-killer!  So how do you avoid 'assumption'?  It's not as easy as you might think... we base much of our everyday life on assumptions. One of the things I do is make check-lists... for darn near everything we do in all our processes.  I know, it sounds kind of boring, but setting...

Read More "Cover everthing, don't assume"

I read a fun article over the weekend extolling the virtues of DR radio, at the expense of PI radio.  I skimmed the article once, then reread it more carefully and found it full of holes.  Don't get me wrong, DR radio has its place; we always counsel clients to combine paid media with PI because PI (like DR radio) isn't a panacea.  It's just one piece to the puzzle; admitting that means that both have their worth.  The holes in the article to which I'm referring however, from my point of view, aren't so subtle. 

The author actually said "with PI there is no negotiation".  I tend to doubt he has any experience in PI; were he to have actually discussed the matter with some of the PI shops he works with, he'd know that negotiation is an everyday thing.  It's a function of life.  Everything is a negotiation, period.  Don't get me wrong, he makes a very strong case for how adept he's become at circling the waters, just waiting for Friday morning when he can attack the media and 'negotiate' rates at up to 80% less than rate card.  That's called media buying 101.

He also, with an omniscience granted so few on this planet, 'knows' that the unsold inventory that PI receives is the inventory no one wants to buy.  That's pretty funny; according to several of the networks we do business with, they have HPM PI as a revenue income line, expecting us to deliver revenue for them on a daily basis.  When I asked them how they account for that, they shared (pretty universally) that they actually hold back some of their inventory for PI so they can make up some of the revenue that they know they're going to lose to: Cancellations, missed copy from clients, shark-like media buying services.

What I found most instructive was the author's apparent lack of understanding about the leverage PI carries.  When we approach a network with whom we've been doing PI for years (it'll be 10 years in June), and tell them we'd like to buy some time, we're put to the front of the line, with access to all the remnant inventory, at rates that are half again as low as quoted in the article.  The bargain rate mentioned in the article (roughly 20 cents on the dollar) is really nothing more than TWICE what we pay for the same inventory.  A DR shop that tells you they can buy time more cheaply than a well-connected PI shop really doesn't understand the nature of our relationship with the media.  The DR agency is at odds with the media, always looking for the lowest possible rate.  The PI agency is always balancing the client's needs with the media's needs... since we're always bringing our media partners money for inventory that would otherwise go to waste (read $0.00 revenue), we're really more like their heroes!  The typical DR Radio Cost Per Thousand (CPM) the last I'd heard was somewhere over $3.00.  Our CPM's are typically in the $0.50 to $0.80 range, which will always convert into a win-win situation for the station, the client and HPM.

Not everything the author had to say was as amusing as the elements I've worked to set straight here; all things being equal I might choose paid DR too (if I was him).  But, all things are not equal, and most clients we talk to (and I know they have a predisposition to be performance oriented since they're PI clients; I'm not an idiot) prefer the PI model, knowing that they can rely on a stable cost per lead/acquisition, rather than suffering the consequences of spending their personal fortunes, or company coffers, on paid advertising with no guarantee of an ROI.  Sometimes paid DR works.  PI always works, and if for some reason our PI's don't perform to our client's expectations, we give them their money back.  It's happened about 7 times in nearly 10 years.  How about that...when was the last time a DR agency ever cut a client a refund check?

Which would you prefer: to put your eggs in the buying spots basket with no promise of an ROI, or a system that maximizes your spend while guaranteeing an ROI?