I've just finished going over the books for the radio/marketing/mailing biz for the month of April...but there were no numbers to crunch!
Total earnings for April = 0. Zilch. Nada.
Not too good, considering that probably 750 pieces were mailed.
The last time I had a month this bad was back in June of 2003. Ecvery month since that time, I've had at least a small bit of money to come in. The best month was in May of 2005, when
I made some major sales. I won't print the number, but if I earned this amount all the time, we
wouldn't be in debt much longer.
As for the current situation, I did come to some conclusions and make some discoveries.
1. I did have one successful mailing project.
The EasyLife Marketing/UDM Direct Mail project has earned substantially more than anything
else I've ever mailed. Had I not had the other two "dud" (at least as of today) mailing projects, I
believe we would be in better shape. The expense of the two non-earners was more than EasyLife could sustain by itself.
2. The EasyLife mailing program is a winner.
This program has earned money EVERY time out. I could probably do better by mailing only this program and cutting loose of everything else. This is the program that helped earn money back in 2004 and 2005. The company discontinued its mailing program for a while but resumed a similar one in late 2006.
3. It's time to take the Internet station to the professional level.
Due to the amount of time involved, and the recent price increases, we've decided its time to make some major upgrades to the webcast. These upgrades including turning pro, in order to be able to earn some money with it; increasing the bitrate to an FM quality level; digitizing more songs for the playlist; and running in LIVE mode most of the time. I'm going to need a couple of "anchor" sponsors to do this. It's going to take until September to have everything ready, including the funds to pay for the increased costs of being pro. It may be that the same programming will be simulcast over Musicbox 1610. Right now they remain different although a lot of country is being added to 1610 now. I'd love for the weekday 1-3 pm show to be simulcast.
4. I don't have a passion for copywriting.
Originally, I thought it would be simple to churn out a lot of letters for various companies. I have found it quite difficult to become known, and no one ever seems to return calls. My increasing frustration with this field is causing me to re-think whether I even want to pursue certain types of writing any more. I like the catalog copywriting, although with no experience, I've not landed anything worthwhile. Either I'm not as good a writer as I thought, or I just don't know how to market myself properly. In any event, my excitement from initially jumping in has just about disappeared. I used to spend hours applying for gigs..joined Sologig and a couple of other places, but never landed a gig through them.
And the conclusions?
My three primary activities are and will be:
1. Taking care of the boys and home-schooling them;
2.)Creating a booming Internet station with a local simulcast, if possible;
3.)Working the EasyLife mailing program more intensively.
That will be my plan for at least ONE YEAR. After that I'll re-evaluate things and run through this process again.
I'm praying that May will be better. April has come and gone, leaving a goose-egg in its place.
