One of the purposes of this site is to promote, attract people to, and educate people in this new form of marketing that I am calling “direct response content marketing.”
In order to do that, I will be periodically sharing key principles of direct response content marketing (DRCM).
Here’s the post in this series of DRCM principles:
DRCM Principle #1: Only a Small Amount of People Are Ready to Buy Today
Now for today’s post…
DRCM PRINCIPLE #2: Many More People Will Buy in the Next 3 – 12 Months Than Will Buy Today
Jim Obermayer is the principal in Sales Leakage Consulting, Inc. and he has come up with an interesting rule that reveals the basis behind my DRCM Principle #2.
Jim came up with a rule that he calls “The Rule of 45″, which says that 45% of all inquiries (not just qualified sales leads) will eventually buy from someone.
And get this…
This time-frame for this purchase is usually (but not always) within 12 months.
Did you catch that? 45% of the people who make inquiries to your business will purchase what you offer from someone within the next year!
But wait, there’s more…
The “Rule of 45” by the Numbers
Jim says that the percent that buy in three months is usually between 10%-15%, and the percent that buys in the next six months is 26%.
(The remaining 4%-9% will buy within the next 12 months.)
That means that somewhere 36%-41% of the people who contact you will buy WHAT YOU ARE SELLING within the next 3-6 months!
But don’t miss this important fact… They AREN’T ready to buy TODAY.
That means that there’s a fatal flaw that many marketers and companies are making.
The Fatal Flaw of Focusing Only on People Who Want to Buy Today
The first DRCM principle states that only approximately 3% of your market is ready to buy at any given time, the rest is not.
In other words, only three out of every one hundred in your market is ready to buy right NOW, today.
But what are most companies and marketers mainly focusing all of their marketing and effort on? They are focused only on those who are ready to buy TODAY.
That means that for every 100 prospects that come their way, these marketers and companies are missing out on 45 of the potential sales that they could be making!
Do you see why I say that focusing ONLY ON people who want to buy today is the fatal flaw that most businesses are making?
Two Things That Direct Response Content Marketers Focus On
This again points to the reason why direct response content marketers to focus on two things:
- Building lists
- Building an audience
We focus on building lists and on building an audience because both of these things are focused on the 40-odd people that most companies/marketers overlook and therefore miss.
The people who will eventually purchase what you’re offering from someone.
The other thing I want you to notice about the two above things is that they each come from the main focus on direct response marketing (lists) and content marketing (audience).
As direct response content marketers, we realize that BOTH of these things are important and we don’t sacrifice one in favor of the other.
