Fax Marketing Results - what can you expect
The fast answer is, of course, no one can say! Hardly the answer you were looking for but to be entirely honest you can't predict a result with no data. I can talk about results of the past and very common patterns that develop though - these do appear to be predictable in the world of Fax Marketing.
Common Patterns with Bulk Faxing
Simply put - an early surge, drops off and looks like it is fading away - then it slowly comes back and settles around 70% to 80% of the initial surge. It can stay there for ages to - like many years. Weird I know but I've seen it in a number of different areas - Mobile Phones, Debt Recovery, Printed T-Shirts or selling Businesses all follow a similar pattern - though there are seasonal fluctuations the above is broadly true. It also applies to Email Marketing - not surprisingly.
A complete stop crashes the response and can take 6 weeks or more to recover from! It amazes me that you can fax 30,000 a day for 6 months and be getting 20 to 25 leads a day, then you stop for Christmas - after all the bulk of businesses are closed for a week or more - and the Leads stop dead. Of course they do you say - they have closed. Ok. Then things don't pick up again till mid February early March - typical you say - businesses waking up - slow start, we all see that happening. Well no - not all...
One year - a particularly "greedy" customer didn't stop for Christmas (shame! Shame!) - just slowed down & missed the Bank Holidays (not THAT greedy then) but otherwise rolled through. The leads did drop off considerably - however the most interesting thing was the wake up. By mid January the lead volume was back to the norm - not 6 to 8 weeks to recover - just two. So that gave us a good datum - never stop - only slow down. When you stop the whole momentum goes out and it takes huge effort and excessive time to get the monster going again.
There is no doubt having, first, a large list of appropriate fax numbers and second a clear and legible message are important. Nice clip art can attract interest and star someone reading but the message then has to bite or the marketing cycle ends there. If they can't read it (writing too small, too fancy) or the message is clumsy or unclear then the pretty graphic won't help will it.
Fax Marketing Etiquette
Finally - don't make the fax too black - not only does this cost more to send - it annoys recipients - you are using more of their ink! Most will tolerate some usage but when they come in clearly using half the ink cartridge to look good you will get the wrong type of reaction. They must have a legible remove number - that is just an expected thing, legal requirement and making it very small just seems pushy or being awkward - and what's the point of that? If they want your goods or service they'll call - if not today then tomorrow. There is no need to get frantic. The golden rule of fax is volume and persistence. If this isn't working then something else is wrong. Do they really need or want your product? Is someone else doing it better and or cheaper? There would have to be a real reason why any marketing isn't working for you and until you get it working you just haven't found the right reason.
To finally answer the common results from Fax Marketing with a decent offer on a decent fax the number of faxes to a lead runs from 500 to 1500. Very rule of thumb that - but it gives an idea.
