It was the fall of 1987. Steve Leveen had just been fired from his software design firm. His wife Lori Granger Leveen was pregnant. Steve read about halogen light bulbs in the International Design Yearbook and he saw a huge potential in the market for halogen lamps. He and his wife decided to start selling the halogen lamps.
Then the real troubles began…The Leveens soon found out that it wasn’t that easy to sell the halogen lamps. And without much money to spend on advertisements, it was even harder. They placed a few classified ads in magazines promoting how good the halogen lamps looked. But the results weren’t good. They received only about 5 responses to their first ad. Not sales, but responses. The results were quite dis-heartening.
They were about to give in to fate when “light bulbs” went on in their brains. The Leveens realized that they could go after the market with a different bait. They realized that the appeal for the halogen lamps was not only its good looks, but its effectiveness too.
On October 12, 1987, they placed a 1-inch ad in The New Yorker. And with that ad, their destinies changed. They started getting loads of responses. They started converting those responses into sales. And their profits soared. Today they both are millionaires!
The ad?
“Serious Lighting for serious readers”
Action summary:
° Selling to a target market brings in a better response then trying to sell to everyone.
° Focusing on a different attribute of the product can bring in better results too. The Leveens focused on the effectiveness of the halogen lamps while every one else was focusing on their good looks.