I've started thinking about developing new advertising the same way pharmaceutical companies develop new drugs.
You don't invent something in the laboratory on Monday... And prescribe it to millions of people on Tuesday.
First, you run clinical trials.
You expose a small number of people to it, observe what happens, and move forward only when the evidence justifies it.
We take the same approach with advertising.
Stage one is the hundred-dollar test.
Can we create a book, report, catalog, video, or offer that gets an invisible prospect to raise their hand?
Not buy anything yet. Just identify themselves.
If we can't generate leads with $100, we don't need a bigger budget.
We need another experiment.
Stage two is the first 100 leads.
Now we watch what those people do during their first 100 hours.
Do they open the emails?
Click the links?
Watch the video?
Reply?
We're looking for 50–70% of them to show some sign of engagement.
That tells us we haven't merely attracted names…we've identified viable prospects.
Stage three is the first 100 days.
Now we might spend $25 a day and monitor whether the cost per lead remains stable.
More importantly, we watch what happens from day one to day 100.
Do those leads continue engaging?
Can we educate and motivate them?
Do the five-star prospects eventually convert?
Stage four is scale.
Only after the campaign has passed all three clinical trials do we treat it as a scale-ready algorithm.
Now we're not gambling. We're expanding something that has already demonstrated what it can do.
That's the beauty of direct response advertising.
You never have to wonder whether your advertising is working. The market will tell you.
And if you listen carefully…starting with a small, controlled test…you can limit the cost of your failures while giving your winners all the room they need to grow.
Don't ask, “How much can we spend?”
Ask, “What has this campaign earned the right to spend next?”