Here’s a funny (and common) scenerio:

Someone wants to promote you (whether you have to pay for it (advertising) or not (publicity, or a goodwill mention).

Perhaps it’s a website that is selling ad space.  Or a Newspaper with tons of readers.  Or a radio station or host with hundreds of thousands of listeners.  Or ______ (you get the point).

Their pitch includes “we have such a big reach that everyone will know about you!”  For me, with an actionable thing (DVD, signup, etc.) I start to DO THE MATH (you can use whatever numbers you want in parenthesis).

Let’s see, you have a reach of 100,000 people.

Let’s assume that only (ten) percent are interested and actually go to your website.  That’s 10,000 new visitors!

Let’s assume that (five) percent of those visitors actually purchase (or signup or whatever).  That’s 500 new customers, purchases, signups, etc.

For me, that means I’ll sell 500 DVDs at $50/each, so this reach of 100,000 turns into $25,000 of sales, right?

WRONG!

WRONG!

WRONG!

I have done radio, TV, newspaper, magazine, newsletter, etc.

I have done advertising and gotten word-of-mouth buzz and PR.

I have done stuff, or had mentions, in places with a reach into the six figures, and other places with a reach into the seven or eight figures.

I have never gotten 500 DVD sales from any of those (I confess, I have gotten over 500 signups on JibberJobber from some of these).

But let me just burst a little bit of your entrepreneurial bubble… just because you find something with a huge reach doesn’t mean you can count on a certain percentage in conversions.

It takes more than a mention (even a full page article).

If you “do the math” I think you are in for a huge disappointment…