Careful What You Wish For. It May Come True

Promotions are always good for generating sales and many businesses carefully research the costs of a campaign before it goes live. However, this research tends to focus on "how much will this campaign cost me if it bombs"!

Nothing wrong with this attitude, even if your glass is always 'half-full'.

However, what happens if your promotion bombs the other way?

In other words, it bombs to stratospheric proportions and brings in more business you can cope with?

This happened recently to a business I know.

They run a successful small business and they have a nice website. On this website they offer you the chance to subscribe to their newsletter, and as an added incentive you get a FREE WIDGET (related to the products they sell) in return for your name, email, and address.

So far so good. This offer ran indefinitely (you'll get why I have highlighted this word in a bit), and they had a steady and manageable stream of registrants.

Cost per FREE WIDGET was circa 60p - a worthwhile investment, in return for a contact they could nurture a 'permission based' relationship with.

Now the bad news....

An innocent little post on a popular internet forum informed its members of the FREE WIDGET and suggested they took a look. 5 looked, 5 ordered and posted on their positive experience. Then 25 booked.

Then it went viral....

Two weeks pass, 5,000 registrants. A month 10,000. Two months, 40,000.

Suddenly, the dream turns into a bit of a nightmare. This firm now had a valuable mailing list, but at a cost - £24,000!

Remember, they had not received 40,000 orders, they have 40,000 names and addresses. Valuable long-term? Absolutely. Short-term? You may as well swap your Audi A4 for a phone book.

Luckily, this is a strong business, and they could cope with the impact £25k had to their cash-flow.

What though, if you couldn't? Upturning the company mattress for £25,000 could send you to the wall.

Underlying lesson here is to plan for the upside as well as the downside. Yes, budget for your campaign not doing well, but also plan for it doing better than you expect.

A good way round for the firm in question could have been:

Sign today for your FREE NEWSLETTER.
The Next 100 Applicants will enjoy a FREE WIDGET!

See what this does? It manages the upside of your campaign (and even creates a second 'call to action').

This method would give you the opportunity to catch your breath. After all, you can always extend your campaign if it goes well.