This is not an impossible scenario to imagine. You place an ad in a specialist magazine read by a supposed 10,000 enthusiasts that could do with your product or service. The ad cost you £500 + £200 in design, totaling £700.
Out of the 10,000 readers, it is a proven statistic that if you are really lucky and your ad really connects with the reader then 7% of the readers will remember your ad. That means 700 have acknowledged the ad. Out of those 700, 5% may follow the call to action and call you. That is 35 possible enquires. Remember this is just 35 phone calls; the customer still has yet to buy your product or service.
So what have you bought here? You have bought the attention of 35 people for £700. That’s £20 per person attention. So the question then turns, how much would you pay to gain the permission of a potentially interested customer, get their email address and market to them multiple times?
The moral of this tale is that having permission to market to a customer and having their email address or following on twitter/Facebook/Bebo is of massive value and a privilege worth many thousands of marketing pounds.
