SDI/IMH produced training and information for real estate entrepreneurs. The company offered everything from free events to the $49 “Cash-Flow Generator” (see below) to generate new leads. The back-end sales ranged from $297 courses to $9,995 “Boot Camps,” a name the company coined that has since become standard in the industry for many intensive multi-day seminars. To generate new customers to fuel 1500% growth, Emerson Brantley grew SDI’s marketing from a few small mailings in 1993 to thousands of direct marketing campaigns by 1996. He creatively used multiple approaches to deliver the same message again and again.
Emerson successfully utilized every available media, writing and producing profitable mail, email, print, short- and long-form radio, as well as short- and long-form Television campaigns. It is rare for long-form radio to be profitable, but even these shows were extremely successful, airing in as many as 120 radio markets across the country for two years. He also spearheaded the development of the company’s first online marketing in 1993, produced their first website in 1996 (832 pages!), and saw Internet sales grow to produce tens of thousands of dollars each month.
How To Raise Prices While Increasing Sales
More often than not, companies charge too little for their products and services. In the face of conventional wisdom, undercharging and discounting usually costs sales. In the early 1990’s the average price of a three-day seminar was $995, virtually unchanged for over a decade. Through systematic and highly-creative marketing efforts, these “Boot Camps” (a term coined by SDI) events were increased in price from $995 in 1993 to $4,995 by 1997 — a price increase of 500% — while steadily increasing attendance and number of events.
His full-page Newspaper Advertorial sold a $3,495 version of one Boot Camp, and was a variation on Emerson’s earlier Boot Camp letter. After it appeared in print, he ordered tens of thousands of tearsheets which he used in direct mailings with a hand-written post-it note to increase response. Alternating mailings such as this with sales letters, postcards, email and other methods, kept the marketing fresh and kept the 1500% growth curve going for over three years.
Variations of his Workshop Sales Letter were used continuously from 1994-2003, reproduced in a variety of forms including as a brochure and magalog. The offer changed over the years (testing various prices or free, different bonuses, etc.) but the basic 8-page letter remained the same. In this version, the “Cash Flow Generator” Kit is the incentive gift attendees received, as well as a “Free 13-page real estate business website of your very own!”
Over ten million letters were sent out to thousands of mailing lists, with constant tracking and tweaking. Workshops like this were held in every major city in America, and were one more way Emerson “filled the funnel” with new prospects. Consistently attended by tens of thousands new prospects each year, millions of dollars in room sales resulted.
The Cash Flow Generator
Emerson’s most famous campaign for SDI/IMH was Cash Flow Generator, a “Special Report” he first wrote in 1993 (also known as “America’s Perfect Home Based Business), a sales piece that was never beaten as a control. This Report is actually a carefully-crafted sales letter, containing some actual “how-to” material, but leading the reader to a compelling sale of the company’s keystone course. Featured in FOUR national infomercials, in its first three years alone the “CFG” generated over $2.4 million in direct front end sales… AND an incredible $1952 in average back end purchases for each and every CFG purchaser! Because it broke the rule and actually made money on every lead it generated (an average earnings ratio of $1.28 for every $1 of media purchased), the CFG infomercial was acquired in 2003 by Russ Whitney’s Tigrent, Inc. (originally Whitney International Network; RUSS.PK). Increasing the show’s media buy, WIN generated $9.5 million in front-end sales in the first seven months from the CFG alone.
“The World’s Smallest Twins” hosted the Cash Flow Generator Infomercial
This was significant enough to be reported as a separate item in their annual reports and other SEC filings. This 8K from November 2003 verifies that they had already realized $6.8 million in new revenue and 60,000 new registrants in the first 5 months alone (since June). Remember, this show had already run for 7 years! The company projected 120,000 new customers from the show for the following year, based on these results, and continued to use the incredibly effective CFG for five more years, making it the longest-running profitable lead-generating infomercial in history.
View the Rice Brothers’ Intro to the Cash Flow Generator Infomercial
(aka the “Home Business Journal” show) (5.7 meg)
