Transforming a Marketing Blunder into $1 Million: My Journey to Success

Have you ever made a mistake in business that you wish didn't happen? The truth is that every business owner must face failure at some point, but problems don't have to be pointless. In fact, some mistakes lead to incredible success! Take the Post-it, for example. Dr. Spencer Silver at 3M produced a super weak adhesive while trying to create a strong bonding agent, leading to incredible wealth and success.

What if you took your mistake and turned it into gold, too? That's exactly what I did last year. My mistake in 2024 went under my radar, and I didn't even notice it until I started doing some digging.

You see, I have always had a strict internal rule that our postcard promotion must go out every week without fail. When I started PostcardMania, we sent out 1,000 postcards a week — then 2,500. It was working, but to increase that to 5,000, I had to cut my own pay ... so I did!

It really paid off, and over time, we continued to increase that number up to 205,000 in 2023. However, in October of last year, I noticed our top-line revenue from new clients wasn't growing as fast as it had in previous years. When I consulted my Vice President of Sales, she suggested, "How about we mail more postcards?"

Upon reviewing our reports, we discovered our weekly cards had dropped from 205,000 to 195,000. We immediately pushed it back up, and within a month, our growth was back on track. We just increased it to 260,000 postcards per week, and I'm excited to see what happens in 2025. This year, we are over $1 million up from last year in revenue from brand-new clients.

Here are three takeaways I learned from my 2024 mistake:

Never forget the tried-and-true marketing tactics that worked in the past
I've built my business on the concept that direct mail works, and thousands of small business owners I've helped know this truth too. But I still lost sight of my best marketing tactic, leading to a 5% cut in postcard quantity, which cost my business revenue. If we increase our postcard mailings, we increase our top line without fail.

Look at your top line to figure out where your new customers are coming from
While there is value in looking at your bottom line, I actually look at the top line first to see what is bringing in the most revenue. New customers show you exactly where the new money is coming from, allowing you to expand on your biggest growth drivers.

Be willing to invest more in your marketing to grow your business
You need to market like crazy to grow. When you want to grow, you must be willing to spend more. I decided to increase our marketing spend because our revenue numbers were not on track to hit their targets. We added about $100,000 to the last six weeks of the year, primarily directed to direct mail, aiming for another million.

So, learn from your mistakes like me. Write them down on a Post-it to remind yourself! Turn those "failures" into gold.