How many times have you found yourself thinking, "direct mail doesn’t work”, or “cold calling is a waste of time”, or “email marketing doesn’t work, I’ve tried it so many times but never get any new business out of it"?

There are a multitude of reasons why any particular marketing method might not work, but the fact is all of the methods mentioned above do work.  They have proven themselves time and again.  In the case of direct mail, it has been used successfully for decades.

In most instances the problem doesn’t lie in the method being used, the problem lies in the application of technique or lack thereof.  Attention to detail is critical and the necessity for follow-up can never be over-emphasized.

You can't expect to just throw something together, try it out for a little while and think that business is going to start pouring in.  Things don’t work that way.

You need to develop a marketing plan and stick with it.  Persistence pays off for those who have the patience.  It’s a well know fact in marketing circles that people tend to give up at just the wrong time; when an idea is getting ready to start paying off.

Let me give you an example from an article I read in Inc. Magazine several years ago.  An online marketer was in the business of selling various tech products nationwide.  The company started to encounter problems with Spam.  It got so bad their sales people found themselves wasting hours every day weeding out unwanted email.

The CEO knew he had to take action so he went to a partner who promised he had a solution.  That didn’t work.  So he turned to a large software security firm.  Their product worked but it worked so well legitimate emails were now being deleted.

Finally, the CEO recalled a company who had cold-called him almost a year earlier.  He remembered a discussion about an algorithm they used that was derived from the algorithm used in decoding the human genome sequence.

Long story short, the CEO ordered the company’s product and sure enough it worked.  This was a $15,000/yr software application and luckily for the seller the CEO had a good memory.

Given the time that had transpired since the initial contact, most marketers would have assumed the prospect wasn’t interested.  But that was not the case.  The prospect wasn’t interested when initial contact was made but now the situation had changed.

Many sellers might give up on a prospect like this and think, “cold calling doesn’t work,” when in fact it does work and this prospect was now primed and ready to make a buy decision.

The seller made a fatal error; he failed to maintain contact with this prospect.  Were it not for the buyer’s good memory a potentially happy customer could have gone elsewhere.

The point is…don’t ever give up.  Follow-up, track 'em down and maintain contact.  Just because a prospect isn’t interested today doesn’t mean he will always be disinterested.  You need to be at the forefront of his thought process when he is ready to make a buy decision.