Today’s topic has been kindly submitted by John Bogenschutz.

Imagine this scenario:

A reader reads one of your comics, finds it hilarious, and thinks it would make a great poster. You email her back and let her know that it will be in the store in about 2 weeks and that they can check back on your website for updates on the poster’s status. You get nineteen similar emails and you reply the same way each time.

How many, of those 20 people, are going to eventually end up buying the poster when it goes on sale? If you guessed 100% you are probably wrong. In fact, I can tell you very confidently that you are definitely wrong.

Now imagine this scenario:

A reader reads one of your comics, finds it hilarious, thinks it would make a great poster, sees an ad right next to the comic to buy the poster, and buys the poster. Nineteen more people do the exact same thing.

How many of the 20 people who just bought your poster just bought the poster?

Okay, that’s obviously a dumb question.

However, I have come to find that the impulse buy is one of my most useful tools to maximizing sales. It is more rare, than common, for people to come back and buy a poster that they originally wanted two weeks. By that time they have already moved on and started dating another poster.
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