A
mail-order business is a great business to start, either part-time or
full-time. It's exciting, because it's always changing,
and it can be very profitable, if run correctly. One important thing to
remember, though, is that mail-order businesses are easy to start, but take
work to maintain.
Don't
believe the hype you hear about making millions overnight in mail-order. It's happened to a few lucky fools, but
that's about it. You have to use your
head in mail-order, if you want to survive.
There are five extremely crucial rules to remember when running a
mail-order business. You still won't be
guaranteed success, but it will be a whole lot easier, if you follow these
rules.
1) EXPLORE FREE AND LOW COST MARKETING
OPPORTUNITIES.
Too many people jump into a mail-order
business with an expensive, flashy full-page ad in a big magazine. That's great IF it's successful, but what do
you do when your ad only pulls enough orders to cover it's cost, and you have
no marketing budget left for new ads?
Lick your wounds, and close
down your business. The smart thing to
do at the start (and throughout your mail-order career) is to take advantage of
all the free and low cost marketing options at your fingertips. You say you don't know about any? Well, here are some ideas. Send a sample of your
product along with a press release to the products reviewers at the magazines
your customers read. Also, write a short
article about a subject or issue that
will interest your potential customers and that has a connection to the product
you sell, and submit it to those same magazines. For example, if you sell bass fishing lures,
write an article on the best times of the day for bass fishing. Offer to talk about the subject on radio or
TV talk shows regarding this subject. Cable TV, in particular, has plenty of
talk shows with specific audiences that are desperately in need of guests.
In all of these instances, include a shot
paragraph with information on
how to contact you and a general
description of the products or services
you sell. Offer your articles or expertise
for free, in return for this
paragraph either appearing at the end of
your article, or being read
after the interview.
Marketing yourself as an expert in your
business will get you far more
publicity than placing an expensive ad, and
it's virtually free, except
for your time, a few stamps and a few phone
calls. It works for me,
and I know it can work for you.
2) PYRAMID YOUR PROFITS.
What does this mean? It means that you should take at least half of
your profits and reinvest it in more
advertising. When you make your
first batch of sales, don't take your
profits and throw a party.
It might seem like a good idea now, but
you'll regret it later. A good
way to grow your sales is by expanding your
advertising.
If you can only afford one or two small ads
in the beginning, that's
fine.
If those ads are successful, make sure you take the profits from
the sales they generate and reinvest them
in four or five of the same ads
in different magazines. Then, reinvest the profits from those ads
into
seven or eight ads, and so on. Don't be concerned about making immediate
money.
You'll make a larger profit LATER if you reinvest in your business NOW.
3) TRACK YOUR ADS. Suppose you have ten or fifteen different ads
running
in different publications. All of a sudden, you get a whole load of
orders.
Of course, you want to continue running the ad that pulled in
the orders, in the same publication and in
ones you haven't advertised
in before.
This will bring in more loads of orders, right? But, when
you look at the orders, you have no idea
which of your ads was the one
that clicked. When you're done crying, resolve that, from
now on, you
will KEY and TRACK your ads.
Keying and tracking ads is so simple that
many people miss it.
Here's all you have to do. On each ad, preferably on the address, add
a letter or number code that will indicate
to you where the order came
from.
For example, if you're advertising in the August issue of Popular
Mudbogging, and your business name is Joe's
Knobby Tires, put your name
in the ad as Joe's Knobby Tires-PM8. PM stands for the issue name, the
8 is for August. Then, you can look at the envelope and you'll
know
instantly where the order came from. Make a table on a piece of paper
with columns for date, item ordered, amount
paid, and date the order was
shipped.
At the top of the page, tape a copy of the ad, and write the
ad key next to it. Then, when you receive orders, record the
information
on the proper page.
4) DO SMALL SCALE TESTS BEFORE LARGE SCALE
ADVERTISING. Before you sink
hundreds or thousands of dollars into a
large ad or mailing, test the waters. Place a smaller ad with the same message
in the magazine for two or three issues, and see if it pulls. Or, if you're renting a mailing list, do a
smaller mailing to a small percentage of the list, instead of just rolling the
whole thing out. Testing is important in
this business. There are two
possibilities that can come out of a test.
Either the ad/mailing works, or it doesn't. Now, it's up to you to figure out WHY it
didn't work. Either the ad/mailing copy isn't effective, or you're reaching the
wrong audience. Review the whole
picture, find out what needs to be changed, make the changes, then retest. When you hit on the right combination, THEN
take the big plunge.
5) DON'T BE AFRAID TO ADMIT YOUR MISTAKES OR
FAILURES.
Let's face it. You won't hit a home run in this business
every time
your up at bat. In fact, just like in baseball, you may
strike out more
times than not. But, the times that you're either lucky, and
get to
first base on a walk, or you get a hit will
make up for your strikeouts.
You need to keep a stiff upper lip, admit
that you didn't get a hit, and
move on.
Mail-order success comes not from overnight millions, but from
steady trickles. Put another way, mail-order is really a
"get-rich-slow"
business. If you keep plugging away, keep
learning from mistakes, and
keep trying new things as you find them,
you'll at least be headed for
success road, if not on it from the start.
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