Each of your ads and mailings must have a definite, targeted purpose. And each ad must be measured to see that it, in fact, does accomplish that purpose. We’ll talk more about this in a later section.

But for now, here’s a simple 4-step system you can set up to measure the results of each and every advertising or promotion campaign you run:

1. Put together an “Advertising and Promotion Results Analysis” book. A simple 3-ring binder works well for this.

2. On the inside of the binder, insert a few clear plastic “page protectors.”

3. Print up some copies of the “Advertising and Promotion Results Analysis” forms found on the next page, and insert one in each of the page protectors facing the back of the binder.

Every time you run an ad or promotion, put a copy of that ad or promotion in one of the page protectors facing the opposite direction of the Analysis form.

If you do this every time you run an advertisement, a promotion or a direct mail campaign…and you carefully analyze the results, you’ll quickly see which promotions are working, which ones need a little tweaking to improve them, and which ones you should discontinue as soon as possible. As your binder grows, make two additional binders.

In one binder place all your “A” ads and sales letters. That is, the ads that pulled the best. In another binder, place the ads and letters that produced marginal results, or at least broke even. And in the third binder, put all the “losers.” The ads and letters that absolutely bombed.

Then, when you get ready to do another promotion or mailing, you’ll know which ads or letters you can depend on, or at least which ones you can model your next promotion after.

Now, regarding the third binder… well, stay away from the ads in that binder. Those ads have already proven that you won’t want to run them again.

But, the second binder… the one with the marginal or break even ads and letters. That’s one that you may want to experiment with. Look over the ads and see what may have gone wrong.