Marketing Studies

We already pondered some possible reasons why the partnership contest really failed, but that was naturally just speculation, so I turned to the "source", our marketing partners.

Using SurveyMonkey we created a short multiple-choice poll and e-mailed them to please respond.

Here's what we asked them and what options they had:

1. Why didn't you participate in the Enlightened Salesperson contest?

a] I actually did participate

b] What contest are you talking about? I didn't know about it ...

c] The inscentives (70% commissions, 300 USD cash prize) were not tempting enough

d] I was not satisfied with the sales materials you provided

e] I actually don't like the Enlightened Salesperson e-book enough to actively promote it

f] It seemed to difficult to participate

g] I thought I had no chance of winning the 300 USD prize

h] The timing was all wrong (no sheduled mailings; too many other things to do; etc.)

i] You didn't communicate the contest well enough

j] You didn't give me enough time

k] I actually haven't actively promoted the Enlightened Salesperson at all yet

l] I really don't like your marketing partnership program

m] Other (please specify)

2. What would we have to change in order for you to happily participate in such a contest?

Out of 181 people 12 responded, which is not terribly good, so we probably should start working more on improving our relationship with the marketing partners.

Here are their responses ...

1. Why didn't you participate in the Enlightened Salesperson contest?

a] I actually did participate: 25% (3)

b] What contest are you talking about? I didn't know about it ...

c] The inscentives (70% commissions, 300 USD cash prize) were not tempting enough: 8,3% (1)

d] I was not satisfied with the sales materials you provided

e] I actually don't like the Enlightened Salesperson e-book enough to actively promote it

f] It seemed to difficult to participate

g] I thought I had no chance of winning the 300 USD prize: 16,7% (2)

h] The timing was all wrong (no sheduled mailings; too many other things to do; etc.): 25% (3)

i] You didn't communicate the contest well enough

j] You didn't give me enough time

k] I actually haven't actively promoted the Enlightened Salesperson at all yet: 25% (3)

l] I really don't like your marketing partnership program

m] Other (please specify):
/ I don't understand your program.
/ I don't have a mailing list at this time.
/ Not fond of contests.
/ The e-book presentation value needs work.
/ Haven't finished reading it yet.

2. What would we have to change in order for you to happily participate in such a contest?

/ Nothing. The change needs to happen at my end.

/ I need more information to make a decision to participate.

/ I would need to build a mailing list to send the promotions to.

/ Absolutely nothing. Just didn't have the time to push it. Probably enjoyed it too much myself to share.

/ Have a separate program for the major e-zine participants who have thousands and some tens of thousands of subscribers.

/ Maybe give us more time. I promoted the ebook but for some unknown reason the people haven't responded.

/ Don't know at this time.

Based on the responses, it seems that our greatest mistakes were:

a] Not giving our marketing partners enough time to participate and promote the e-book during the contest period --> a too short period.

b] Create more powerful inscentives for people to participate and different types of inscentives as well, so that people without large mailing lists can still participate and win something.

c] Better explain the program and make it easier to quickly understand.

d] Make it easy for people without mailing lists to participate as well (we actually did this, but it seems we need to work more on this in the future)

A lesson learned:)