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Mail Order Success Secrets
Here are some tips
to help your mail order business be successful.
1. How do you develop a personal relationship with your customers?
Successful mail order firms make every effort to
personalize their mail!
2. What inspires people to buy by mail?
Convenience and saving of time it would take to
make a personal trip. Avoidance of rush hour crowds. Many find it
fun to buy through the mail.. Many prefer to buy personal items,
such as certain kinds of books, by mail. Exclusiveness of many mail
order products.
3. How do you begin with a mail order business?
Check at the post office to obtain information on
various permits and fees for bulk mailing and all the other services
which will fit in with your operations. You need very little capital
to begin. The main thing is to use impressive printed letterheads
and envelopes. Test before you splurge. Start with just a few classified
ads, then build your programs from there.
4. Why are most mail order ads losing money?
The product, the price, the media used, the timing
of the ad and the right prospect are all critical factors. Proper
items must be selected, those that will readily sell by mail. The
price must be especially attractive. Ads must be simple and easy
to understand; attention producing with strong eye-arresting leads.
They must convince customers and make it easy for them to order.
All these ingredients need to be present to get good response.
5. What moves well in mail order?
Good novelty merchandise and scarce items. Books
of interest to a large audience. Certain Multi-level marketing plans
are good planswith good, reasonably priced products as a base. However,
there are a great deal more poor, worthless, MLM programs floating
around than there are good ones so one must be very cautious in
choosing this kind of operation.
6. What make customers come back again and again?
The right product with orders handled carefully
and quickly. Satisfied customers always come back, even via mail.
7. What limits the mail order business?
There is no limit to the mailorder business if you
are willing to learn and expand. A real good hot item, even at a
high cost can be a real winner. Don't let your programs just sit
idle. Test... Test and more tests. Keep on the top of all your activities
and follow through.
8. After you have been in the business a short time
what can you use to build confidence?
You can accumulate testimonials from you customers
and use them in your ads to build customer confidence.
9. What one mistake costs the mailorder operator
a lot of money?
It is a waste of money to present established items
that people can get most anywhere.
10. What are the 13 most powerful words for your
ads?
Free, Rush, Limited, Guaranteed, Save, Sale, New,
Get, Look, Money-making, Profits, Act, Now!
11. How do you get income coming from every direction?
After you have built up your programs (Sale of merchandise,
books, publication, MLM, or whatever) and have a good customer list,
rent or sell the names. Offer big mails for SASE to build up and
expand your name list. Mail circulars of others, for a fee or commission,
with your own Big Mails.
12. What should you know about catalog deals?
Stay away from catalog deals until you can check
them out with simple tests that prove them profitable.
13. How do you realize your dreams to be a success
in the mail order business?
Keep your mind open for new ideas and don't give
up. Don't throw away your dreams because of only a few failures.
Proceed carefully; watch out for fraud and fast buck artists. Hang
in there and you can become a great success!
14. What is one of the most common questions asked
by the would-be customer of most any money-making, how-to, self-improvement,
mailorder, idea, or success publication?
What can it do for me! With the millions of books
on the market it is an difficult question, to be sure. It's certainly
much easier to expound on the advantages of one book over another
"because it has more pages" or "It has a more expensive
cover". But those are not the answers. The foundation of knowledge
is learning and the best way to learn is to simplify everything
possible. Eliminate all the useless non-essentials so the reader
is not overburdened with worthless detail and let them know through
proper advertising what your publication or book can do for them!
15. What are a person's two main alternatives for
success or failure?
As chaotic conditions increase in this mad money
world they can crawl in the corner and let the world pass them by,
or learn new methods required to format their future wealth! Waiting
for the day when they will have everything they need will never
come without know-how!
16. Whether you are in "Big Business"
or just working from your "Kitchen Table", what secrets
must you apply in order to find riches?
Wealth will not materialize until you take action
and generate the force needed to start the wealth-building process.
Most people are just not oriented to do anything about gaining new
wealth, while others believe it would take too much of their time
and money to follow through a project to completion. They don't
realize that knowledge is power and wealth favors the trained mind.
This leaves the market place wide open for those who apply the proper
ideas and methods. The ones who discover the ways to exploit the
future. You must move ahead of the times, extend your knowledge
and open up new avenues of personal growth! Expand your horizons!
17. Who to contact pertaining to any questions about
the mail service?
Your local Postmaster or the Consumer Advocate,
U.S. Postal Service, Washington DC 20260-6320, Phone (202) 245-4514.
18. If you suspect Misrepresentation, Mail Fraud
or want to stop sexually oriented mail, who do your contact?
Your local Postmaster, or Chief Postal Inspector,
U.S. Postal Service, Room 3517, Washington, DC 20260-2100, Phone
(202) 245-5445.
19. Where to get help from problems or questions
about unordered products or non-delivery?
Consumer Inquiries, Federal Trade Commission, Washington,
DC 20580, Phone (202) 523-3598.
20. From whom can you get the most general mail
order questions answered?
The local Consumer Protection Agency, or the Direct
Mail Marketing Association located at 6 East 43rd. St., New York,
NY 10017, Phone (212) 689-4977.
21. Why do a great percentage of persons fail in
mail order?
Mail order is a complex business. Every phase must
be analyzed and tested. The right products must be selected, the
correct type of ads placed in the proper media and 1,001 other details
attended to constantly. The mailorder enthusiast is led to believe
they can be an overnight success with very little work. When they
find this is not the case they drop out before giving themselves
a chance to learn the right methods.
22. What is the "Inner Circle" of mail
order?
A Mailorder House is commonly defined as "An
establishment conducting business by Mail". A Mailorder Dealer
is simply one who sells by mail. The circle of mail order relates
to the thousands of mailorder dealers operating throughout the country.
The "Inner Circle of Mail Order" refers to those successful
professionals who have "climbed to the top" in the mail
order field by long, hard work, study, knowledge and persistence.
23. How do you get in the "Inner Circle of
Mailorder"?
As you learn and progress in the many and varied
phases of mailorder business methods, you will set various goals.
You must continuously change plans and programs to attain these
goals. Unless you are one of those fortunate few who hit it "lucky"
overnight with some special program, product, or gimmick, the best
way to arrive at Ultimate success in mailorder is to "Dive"
right into the "outer fringes of the Inner Circle" and
start "climbing". When your successes overtake and offset
your failures, as you work your way up to the "Hub of the Wheel",
you will have finally reached the Ultimate height in Mailorder...
The Inner Circle!
24. Where to Start in Mailorder?
The best way to start is to work with those who
are already there. Obtain several small mailorder trade magazines.
Get one page ad sheets and various circulars. You can spend a small
amount on BIG MAILS and be flooded with magazines, adsheets, circulars,
etc. with thousands of different offers and potential opportunities.
For a dollar or two you can get listed in these various media as
wanting offers and "be assured", you will get your money's
worth!
25. What is one of the most valuable assets for
the mailorder beginner?
"Junk Mail". As you receive information
and various packets, analyze the offers and send for full information
on the ones that appeal to you. File and keep all the information
you receive by the kind of program or plan, and we don't mean to
put them in "File 13". None of this "Junk Mail"
is Junk; there is no such word in the vocabulary of mail order dealers.
It is one of their most valuable assets, if properly analyzed, filed
and used intelligently.
26. What must you do as your files accumulate, in
order to succeed?
Don't just send off for the many deals, then wait
until you accumulate a room full of files. Time is money. You can
handle only a small percent of the programs available, so right
away, jump in and "lightly" test several of the programs
that interest you. Spend only a minimum on each plan or program,
until your tests prove out, then hit the winners hard and fast!
27. Some great money-makers to include in your mailorder
business?
Printing and publishing... publish your own mailorder
books and manuals. Manufacture your own product in your garage or
basement. Purchase your product direct from factories at distributors
cost. Get involved in the sale of the thousands of How-To books
and programs available. Make up unique How-to-reports, stories,
etc., in cartoon form. Write valuable promotion deals for the millions
of merchants and retailers... put it on tape. Sell or lease your
name lists. Make up your own commission circular programs and adsheets.
Offer big mail... Mail others commission circulars with your own
mailings. i.e. Do everything possible through the mail that is legal
until you find the right programs to make your million.
28. How to stay ahead of the game?
You must constantly keep up with what other dealers
are doing! Check out the successful programs and build your own
around them. Give constant attention to your ideas. Write them down
and act on the good ones. Find new products, develop "solid"
plans around them and test them in the market place.
29. How to double your earnings in mailorder?
Begin by running one or two ads in several different
mailorder publications. When orders begin coming in take a full
50% of the profits and invest them in more advertising. You must
continue to expand your advertising in order to double your income.
30. What is another method to double your income?
Multiply the number of products or services. If
you are offering the right products and advertise in the right media
you can be greatly surprised by the results. Continuous investment
of profits for advertising and new items that generate orders are
the secret if you wish to succeed in any business and mailorder
is certainly no exception.
31. How do you get set up as a Co-publisher?
You place your ad in a trade magazine or adsheet
that is "Co-Publishable". Send your ad and remittance
to the Co-Publisher who will forward the same, along with 50% of
your payment to the Prime Publisher. Your ad will appear in the
next issue and the publisher will send you full details on becoming
a Co-Publisher.
32. What are the usual benefits of Co-publishing?
As a Co-Publisher, you generally get your future
ads placed at one-half the published rates; 50% on commission ads
you obtain; 50% for subscriptions received; 50% on products advertised
in the publications which are to be ordered through you, the Co-Publishers,
and receive 20 to 100 or so publications for your own mailings.
You simply stamp your name and address as Co-Publisher and mail
them out! If the ads don't pull, you may still come out ahead from
orders which come to you as the Co-Publisher. When you receive orders,
retain 50% (or whatever amount is the agreed commission) and forward
the balance with the order, to the Prime Publisher... He will take
it from there... It's that simple. Your own ads, of course, get
full circulation based on the total published and distributed.
33. How you can control the number of orders you
get as a Co-Publisher?
The number of orders you receive will depend on
who you mail them to. If you mail to other Co-publishers, orders
obtained will usually be for small one inch ads. They will reserve
expenditures for large ads, until they become Co-Publishers of the
publication themselves, thus getting their advertising at one-half
rates! If your mailings are directed to mailorder beginners, opportunity
seekers, or direct to the consumer, orders you receive will probably
be for books or products offered under "Order From Co-Publisher"
ads.
34. What must you do to get started economically
and efficiently as a "top" commission mailer?
Order a good rubber stamp... Send for some free
commission circulars, pay only the postage for these. They are available
from prime source mailorder firms... Send for some free names who
want Big Mail... Buy a supply of envelopes and stamps... Address
the envelopes to the names wanting big mail... When you receive
your circulars. stamp your name and address in the blank space provided,
put one of each type of circular in each envelope, filling to the
maximum weight for each level of postage rate; mail them. When you
receive orders, take out your commission and forward everything
else to the Prime source... And you are in business!
35. How do you make $50,000 a year by working from
your kitchen table 4 hours a week?
There is money in the mailorder business but not
as some advertise it. Don't believe it. You won't make $50,000 a
year by working 4 hours a week. NO! It doesn't work that way! If
you will follow instructions, be happy with from $100 to $400 a
week spending a few hours every night, five nights a week, then
you too can make money in mail order.
36. What is one of the biggest mistakes you can
make as a commission mailer?
It is good policy to never get your circulars, and
your mailing list, from the same dealer.
37. How do you get started with your own adsheet?
Adsheets are sometimes started by the publisher
cutting others ads from various adsheets or magazines and pasting
these on their own adsheet without cost to the advertiser. This
adsheet is then mailed to these various dealers with an offer to
re-run the ads at the published rate. This is not the best method.
It is better to find publishers who will send you partial page,
or full page ads that pay from 50% to 100% commission. You run these
ads over your name in the first few editions of your adsheet. As
paid ads come in you simply replace these free commission ads with
the paid ads. Until you get paid ads for your publication, you have
a chance to make money whether you have paid advertisers or not.
Moreover, some companies will give you substantial discounts on
their various mailorder programs if you will run their ad in the
first edition. Thus you can make money off of their ads and also
get professionally designed mailorder programs at very little cost.
38. How do you keep your Co-publishing costs to
Zero?
The discounts for your own ads are generally 50%
with most of the mailorder publications. In return for the discount
you are expected to mail a few copies. "Piggy-back" the
copies in orders you fill and in your big mails, or advertise offering
them free for payment of postage. Using these methods your postage
cost to mail your copies can be Zero!
39. What colors are the most appealing to women,
in order of preference?
Red, Violet, Blue, Green, Orange, White, Yellow.
40. What colors are the most appealing to men in
order of preference?
Blue, Red. Violet, Green, Orange, White, Yellow.
Copyright 2004 by DeAnna Spencer
Note to editors:
To show my appreciation to the editors that use my articles, I offer
a free solo
ad. Simply send an email to me by using the form on the contact
me page on my
website to tell me the url the article was used on or send me a
copy of the ezine
it was used in.
Are you content with your advertising budget?
Schedule a coaching session with Frugal Solutions Expert, DeAnna
Spencer.
She will design an affordable online advertising plan for you.
Contact her by sending an email to deanna.spencer(at)gmail.com
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