“I keep having vivid dreams of success. Then it’s time to sleep.”

We love this quote from UFC legend, Connor McGregor. This man is an inspiration to us all. With unquestionable belief McGregor has excelled now making up to $80 Million per fight. His business interests such as Proper Twelve whiskey add to his fortune.

In business we need to have vivid dreams of success.

Don’t rely on an advertising revenue model for your web site, but do use an Internet advertising program for a much greater purpose: to develop that all-important initial relationship with the customer.

Here’s how:
The real goal of advertising should not be to focus on a one-time impulse buy. As we know, most people will not buy until the fifth or seventh contact. Along the way, two of those messages will be totally ignored. Repetition is essential, but repetition with their permission and with their real enjoyment at hearing from you will develop the initial relationship that can lead to sales.

When you take out an ad, don’t just aim to send visitors to your sales page and hope they will buy at that moment. Give them a reason — and a place — to leave their email address.

Then send them follow-up emails, which is very, very simple. Write three to four messages, and use an autoresponder service provider to send them out.

This is how you can effectively develop sales using advertising. In fact, you can increase or even double your response this way.

Remember: you are trying to build a relationship with someone who is bombarded with commercial messaging.

The best way to build a relationship is to not only get their email address but to deliver especially the first few times enormous value. This is really building a relationship! You actually deliver what you promise. You make it very personal. And you make yourself very accessible, which is no more than giving your normal email and phone contact.

This approach has also proven to be very effective because it centers on the key ingredient to building a good relationship with a customer: make it happen within the first two weeks. If you don’t send them an email for thirty days after they contact you, they have forgotten you. In fact, if you don’t send it within three days, they’ll forget you.

Here is my formula: Your first response should be immediate. It’s very important to give an immediate initial benefit. Then I like to email them again three days after the first contact. Statistically 85% of emails are opened within 48 hours. So by the third day after first contact the second email goes out and that is where we start saying, “Just checking back with you. We wanted to make sure you got your free report and here is some more information and a reason to go back to our Web site.”

Then the third email is sent seven days after initial contact. Emails 4 and 5 go out fourteen and twenty-one days after initial contact.

So the first week the prospects are getting three emails. Then we send emails on a weekly basis. In this way we really build a relationship where people remember our name and our brand and who we are.

Finally, after twenty-one days don’t bug them any more. Don’t waste their time. If a person responds to at least one of the five of the emails (which 80% of the people I work with do), then I’ll remove the other 20% and they never hear from me again. Use this process before putting someone on your mailing list, and it’s unlikely you’ll get spam complaints.

So, advertising yes! And there are some great deals available these days. But, use it to kick off the relationship process described above, and watch your sales soar.

Declan Dunn is CEO of ADNet International, a marketing services provider, driving the next generation of Internet advertising and promotion powered by results.

Since 1996 ADNet has developed strategies, promotional campaigns, and full business development for major clients like American Express, Travelocity, and MyPoints, as well as powering startups like eStara.com from idea to fully functioning business models that work on the Internet.