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The Beginner's Opportunity Guide


THE BEGINNERS OPPORTUNITY GUIDE

The Mail Order business is not a business of itself, but is
another way of doing business. Another term coming into vogue
is "Direct Response". Mail Order is nothing more nor less than
selling a product or service via advertising and the offers you
send out by mail. Your classified ads, ads on radio and TV and
the offers you send out in the mail have to appeal to and evoke
a "response" from the recipient.

Therefore, to start and succeed in a mail order business of your
own, you need just as much, and in some cases, more business
acumen than you would need in any other mode of business.

Remember too, there are good guys in mail order, and there are
bad guys, just like in any other business. So, your best bet
for a proper start with the greatest chance for success is after
a thorough investigation of the products being offered and being
sold; an analysis of the costs involved to get a fledgling mail
order operation off the ground; and a good sixth sense of what
your potential customers will buy. You'll need a great deal of
patience, and persistence as well.

Mail order is saturated with plans, directories, sales materials
and products that have been around for ten, fifteen, twenty
years and longer. Many of these materials were not that good in
the beginning, and yet they're still being sold as quick secrets
to wealth and fame. This is part of the reason for the junk
mail reputation of mail order.

You can get very rich in Mail Order and other types of Direct
Response marketing, but... not with a lot of the "get rich
schemes" you see advertised. The "get rich schemes" are just
good ad copy written by some "ripoff artist" to get your money.
The ripoff artists take your money and run and you never hear
from them again. A better way to get rich in mail order and
direct response sales is to develop an ever-expanding customer
list and to follow-up your initial sale with additional products
or services that your customers will have the confidence to buy
from you. Small sales in the beginning can turn into large
sales on the "back end". There are too many good ways to make
money by direct response without resorting selling junk.

Just a little investigation on your part will show that the most
successful people doing business by mail are always on the
alert for new products and they quickly add these products to
their own sales inventories as they become available. This is a
must for success rule, regardless of whether you do or don't
produce your own products.

It's almost impossible to gain much success with a single
product, report, booklet, book or manual. The best way is to
search around for a number of related products, then, after
arranging for below wholesale price deals with the suppliers of
the products you want to include in your listing, along with
your own self-produced product, make up a catalog listing. It
is best if this is a single 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, printed
on both sides, listing the products or the titles of the reports
and/or books you have available, including your own, with a tear
off order coupon at the bottom.

You should also have a sales letter. The name of the game with
sales letters is to KEEP THEM SIMPLE. When "selling" by direct
mail, simplicity doesn't mean using just one ordinary piece of
paper, printed black on white, and then inserting it in a
plain, unmarked envelope. Your sales letter may contain a
number of pages. Simplicity means being able to express your
offer with such extreme clarity that there is absolutely no
doubt on the part of your prospect about what you are selling
and what action you want the prospect to take.

This search for simplicity can start by taking a long, hard look
at exactly what you want to say. The best way to find the answer
is to ask yourself the question, "What is the single most
important point I need to make in my offer?" See, even the
question is simple!

In other words, if you only had a split second to commu-nicate
your offer - and that's sometimes all the time you really have
- what do you want your prospect to know? Somewhere, in even
the largest pile of paper we mail, is the offer we want to
convey. Why cloud it with all the other things you "think" you
really need to say right now? Make the offer simple and clear.


Start the offer by avoiding the "baseball approach" to direct
mail. (This technique is where, by trying to cover all the
bases, the reader can hardly find where home plate is.) Look
at the direct mail you develop as a preassembled hobby or kit.
Your readers just don't have the time - or, in most cases,
won't take the time - to assemble the components of your offer.
Your intent shouldn't be to send prospects direct mail for a
hobby. So do the work for the prospective customer.

You will need to work hard on extreme clarity that will take
all the guesswork out of your sales letter. And clarity
typically begins with the kind of simplicity that comes from
relying on a single, basic selling proposition, a unified
theme, and a strong, cohesive message.

Now, read your sales letter. If it wouldn't excite you and
cause you to want to buy your product or service, don't expect
others to get excited about your offer either.

After preparing your sales letter and your catalog or circular,
you can take or send them to the printer of your choice, and
have copies printed in the quantity you need. The next step is
to insert these sales letters and circulars in all your
mailings.

This is what you need for a money-making start in this business:
a sales letter, a full page circular advertising your product,
plus another full page circular listing products or titles
related to your primary offering. If you are also selling
products that you are buying below wholesale (maybe even getting
the vendor to dropship for you) it is advisable to have another
full page circular for this purpose. In other words, one
adver-tising your product, and another advertising a list of
related products or titles available to your customer.

Once you start receiving orders from this mailing, you must
immediately acknowledge receipt of the orders and follow up with
other offers. The follow-up offer is where most beginners fail.
Either they don't have follow-up materials to send or they just
don't send out these follow-up offers. To follow-up after
receiving orders from customers, simply write a short note,
thanking your customer for his patronage, and advising him when
to expect to receive his order, and then include a follow-up
offer, such as the book catalog, in that mailing. And that's
how you will build your business, and attain success in mail
order.

But, let's get back to the beginning and help you to learn what
else it takes to succeed in mail order. Don't believe those ads
that tell you it doesn't take any money. First off, you are
going to need envelopes: #10 mailing envelopes with your name
and return address imprinted in the upper left corner. You'll
also need a return reply envelope with your name and return
address on the face of the envelope with each #10 envelope you
send out. These can be either #6 or #9 return envelopes. Ask
your printer or office supply store to let you inspect samples.

To realize profits of any consequence, you'll need to send out
at least a thousand, preferably five thousand letters per
mailing. And to back this up, you'll need a supply of envelopes
for your acknowledgment and follow-up offers. You can purchase
imprinted mailing and return reply envelopes from your local
quick print shop; but for better prices, and with the thought in
mind of keeping your costs in line, it's best to shop around for
the best prices. Generally speaking, you'll find the lowest
prices offered by those printers who do business by mail. Look
for "printing by mail" advertisements in all the mail order
publications you come across. Write to them for a price list
and a sampling of their work.

Here are some of the materials and services you might think
about starting to shop for:

Envelopes- large envelopes and order-mailing envelopes.

Shipping labels.

Letterhead paper.

Circular printing.

Typesetting & graphic layout/design.

Copyrighting assistance.

Booklet printing

Hardback printing.

Business cards.

Posters.

As you can see, the mail order business is very closely tied in
with the printing business. Unless you have your own printing
plant, always shop around for the best prices and keep your
production costs in line.

Once you've gotten your envelopes ready, and your circu-lars
made up, you'll need a potential customer list. Again, don't
believe the advertisements and free advice which states that all
you have to do is send your materials out to a fresh opportunity
seekers list. We have found that the best prospects are those
people who have purchased similar or related items.

Identify your most-likely buyers, contact a reputable mailing
list broker (one source is the Standard Rate and Data Services
Directory at the public library) - tell the mailing list broker
about your offer and ask for his help in choosing a mail-ing
list that will be profitable for you. Renting a mailing list
from any source other than a reputable mailing list broker is
not only foolish, it's a short-cut to the poor-house! By
matching your "buyer-profile" to the mailing list broker's most
responsive list, if your ad copy is worth anything, you'll make
money - lots of money - every time. Anything less is just an
exercise in futility. (Go back and refer to "How To" report
#401.)

When selecting a supplier to work with in the mail order
business, always be sure they are quick to fill your orders.
Customer complaints are the last thing you want, and poor
service leads to dissatisfied and lost customers. Always be
sure your suppliers protect your customer list, and always make
sure they go that extra mile to work with you, and not just for
their own profits. This is the kind of service they want
therefore it isn't unreasonable for them to expect you to want
the same.

Finally, a little more on classified advertising... in addition
to direct mail, you should consider advertising the different
offerings you have for sale in the classifieds. We suggest that
you start small with a few experimental ads in your local paper
or shopping news. This is an inexpensive way to check out your
ad copy. Then, once you come up with an ad you like that pulls,
you can move on to the bigger publications such as GRIT, CAPPERS
WEEKLY, BUDGET ADS, FAMILY TRAVEL LOG, INSIDERS, AMERICAN
BUSINESS, SPARE TIME, MONEYSWORTH, etc.

 
To the best of our knowledge, the text on this page may be freely reproduced and distributed.
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