BRU advertisement??

[Fred Fish]

Since EST does not get or receive netnews, I am posting the following
message at the request of Jeff Groves.  Note that as a major stock holder
in the company, and the author of the product in question, I have some
interest in this "marketing fiasco", but all questions and comments should
be directed to Jeff.  He does get email at estinc!jeff.

-Fred

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday, 21 March 1991

Greetings,

Please direct all flames regarding the "fake" Denver Computer
Journal article to me.  If you're curious about what caused this
brouhaha, I will send you a copy of the infamous mailing piece. 
Call 602-820-0042 or uucp me at estinc!jeff

The letter received by Gray Watson was part of a very small
direct marketing test.  Only 250 letters were mailed.  I selected
names from various Unix mailing lists.  The test was a dud -- no
good leads (or sales) were generated.

Here's what happened:

I was looking for a new way to promote our Unix Backup and
Restore Utility called BRU.  We've been selling it for over six
years (mostly through ads in Unix World and Unix Review). I
wanted to send out a copy of our review from the December 1990
issue of Unix World magazine (which was very positive).

Copyright restrictions prevented me from making copies of the
Unix World article.   They prefer to sell us reprints at 40 cents
per copy, which is too expensive for a mass mailing.

So I wrote my own "article" and created my own publication, the
"Denver Computer Journal."  Obviously, I could not use the name
of an existing publication, that would be illegal.  Everything I
wrote in my article was accurate.  Of course, I made our product
sound good.  An ad for BRU was also on the same page.

A few handwritten notes were written on the page in blue ink
(they were actually printed, but they looked handwritten).  They
said "CALL THESE GUYS, THIS IS A GREAT PRODUCT -- JEFF" and a
line pointed to the ad.  I also added the following at the bottom
of the page, "P.S. HAVING A GREAT TIME IN COLORADO, SEE YOU
SOON!"

I got this idea from several direct mail promotions that I have
received.  Usually, they consisted of a "fake" article printed on
newsprint, along with a handwritten note signed by John or Bob or
somebody.

This method has worked very successfully for other products,
notably for promoting seminars.  I think that Chase Revel (who
started Entreprenuer magazine) came up with the idea, or maybe he
stole it from someone else.

In direct marketing, you have to test to see if it works.  So my
secretary and I spent several hours hand-addressing and stamping
about 250 envelopes.  This promotional method may have worked for
others ... but it was a real dud for our product.

When sending direct mail letters, the goal is to first get the
attention of the reader, and then try to make a sale (or generate
a lead).  I seemed to accomplish the first goal, but I failed on
the second.  I got only one inquiry and two complaints -- not the
kind of results I like.

I mailed the letters from Colorado because I was planning a trip
there.  The trip was postponed, so I mailed a big envelope full
of stamped letters to the Boulder postmaster with instructions to
postmark them in Boulder.  I used a Boulder P.O. Box as the
return address in order to get any bad address returns (usually
about 5% to 10% for most mailing lists).  The box belonged to a
friend of mine name Jeff Fergus -- so the letter was actually
mailed by a guy named Jeff (which is also my name).

My "brilliant" marketing idea did not work.  Like most direct
marketing test mailings, it failed.  I think I underestimated the
intelligence of my readers and made them mad ... which is not a
good way to sell.  So now it's back to the drawing board for the
next marketing idea.

I am sorry to anyone who was offended by this mailing.  If you
have any additional questions, complaints or comments, please
direct them to me.

Sincerely,



Jeff Groves
Director of Marketing (ex-Marketing Genius?)
Enhanced Software Technologies


-- 
# Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284,  USA
# 1-602-491-0048               asuvax!mcdphx!fishpond!fnf