Mailpost Leadership

Mail-in fleece shows are a great way to market your alpacas and alpaca ranch on a budget. You enjoy the fun of showing without travel costs or stressed out alpacas.

Mail-in fleece shows only require you to spend time skirting the fleece, filling out the forms, and taking a trip to the post office. After the show you get back your fleece, scorecard with feedback, and maybe a nice ribbon. The scorecard can help you make better breeding decisions and help you stay current with the alpaca industry. This also gives your alpaca ranch more credibility.

Here are 10 tips on using shows to market your alpacas and your alpaca ranch:

When you win, take a picture of the ribbon along with the winning fleece or alpaca and upload it to your website.
Have a group photo of all your ribbons and fleeces at the end of each showing season. Not only does this make a nice marketing picture, but it will give you a sense of satisfaction for your efforts.
Display your ribbons in a visible place for ranch visitors.
Select shows carefully. Consider the level, location, and marketing potential.
Shop around for an extra friendly mail-in fleece show. Contact the show coordinator and talk to them. The show entry fee can vary, so check prices. Always double check to make sure they are taking mail-ins.
Try out different judges. They will all offer valuable input. Different shows can have the same judges, so check carefully.
The post office has large flat rate boxes which can be more cost effective. Check into various shipping options for fast and reliable delivery. I like to add delivery confirmation.
Don’t be scared to learn from mistakes. My very first fleece show was a fantastic learning experience. I skirted out too much fleece, but I received helpful feedback. Within 9 months one of our fleeces received an award for Best Prepared Fleece.
Write a news release about your show results to get the word out.

Make copies of your registration form, fleece tags, and your ARI certificate. It will save you time when showing at multiple mail-in fleece shows. Carefully read the instructions for each show as there are some variances. Good luck and have fun!

Mailpost Organisation

A lot of businesses will send sensitive documents which could be anything from a contract requiring signing in person or financial data on the company itself, this as well as the often case of the delivery being time sensitive then there are a lot of demands made by businesses in order to get their business post and parcels sent out and delivered on time.

There are a lot of options available when posting letters and parcels but in this case you may wish to shy away from traditional post as they handle millions of items each day and the opportunity for delays or parcels going missing is all too well documented in the news. A lot of companies will choose a dedicated courier service instead as they are able to offer more services and features that can suit the business requirements.

Couriers will in general have detailed tracking processes so that you can get up to the minute updates to ensure your letter or parcel arrives on time, this is extra important for businesses as you will want to know if your parcel arrived by a certain time to make sure that you have kept to your obligations to your client as well as getting the service your company will have likely paid for.

Couriers can also help alleviate the inconvenience that sending a parcel or recorded mail can have, this used to mean having to take time out of your busy day to go to the post office and risk being stuck in a queue which could be unacceptable for most businesses. As well as this it isn’t very practical for businesses that need to send many items or at different times of the day.

Couriers will be able to pick up your order from your place of business and carry it on to its final destination making it a much more convenient prospect for businesses allowing them to continue to focus on their work and not losing valuable time.

So if your business requires regular or just one off delivery services then you should seriously consider using a courier to get your delivery done quickly and safely.

Peter Kritas Mailpost

The following businesses featured in this collection are some of the best information-marketing-related mail order businesses you can easily start with very little investment. They are simple businesses that in many cases are related and fit together rather well. You can have a profitable, part-time or full-time mail order business by running as many of these mini-businesses together as you can. Take another look through the reports and see how producing and selling information, print brokering, circular mailing, producing ad sheets, co- publishing other ad sheets, big mails, mailing list rental, typesetting, rubber stamps and clip art all fit together with each other.

You can advertise your services in flyers that get mailed with other circulars and ad sheets in your big mails, which are ordered by customers whose names and addresses get added to your rental mailing list, which is ordered by other dealers who find out about your other services.

Customers who are not in the mail order business can still gain useful information from your products, use your print brokering services to get the best prices on their other printing needs, and can purchase return address rubber stamps from you. It all goes together in a cycle that will make money for you. All you need to do is be persistent and remember the following tips:

* ADVERTISE! People can’t and won’t order from you if they don’t know who you are and what you sell. Get those ads out there! You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on full page ads. Put those one-inch ads in the ad sheets you get in the mail. They are inexpensive and they’re effective.

* REINVEST! Don’t expect to build a full-time business by putting a few ads in ad sheets, then never advertising again. If you want to succeed, you MUST put at least 50% of your profits back into advertising. Expand the amount of advertising you do until you saturate the market. That’s the way to be a success. Start your business part-time, and keep your full-time job, so you don’t need to dip into your profits for spending money. If you put your profits into advertising at the beginning, it will take less time for your part-time business to become self-supporting and full-time.

* KEEP IMPROVING! Read and save all the mail-order related mail you get. Your files will prove to be a valuable source of information and ideas for future products, ads and services.

* WORK WITH PROS! You will find that the competition in this business can also be your friend. When co-publishing and mailing other dealers’ circulars, you will be helping them. They will help you in return. Be honest, trustworthy, and deliver on all your promises, and the other entrepreneurs you work with will do the same.

* DON’T GIVE UP! If you think you can get rich overnight in mail order, you need to rethink things. Sure, some people have gotten lucky, but the majority of mail order businesses start slow and build slowly. You can’t give up after the first month. Be like the little engine that could, and keep pushing along. It will take time, but the time you take will be worth it.

* BE PRUDENT! Keep in mind the old adage: If you see an offer in the mail that is far too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t fall for the get rich quick junk, and don’t try to sell the stuff, either. Customers don’t stay very loyal after they get burned.

* KEEP THE CUSTOMER INFORMED! Customer service is of the utmost importance in mail order. Give a good guarantee on your products. If they are good and deliver on your advertised promises, you won’t have to worry about many customer returns. If a customer has a complaint, make sure you answer them quickly and kindly. Sometimes, the best repeat customers are the ones who have had problems that you’ve corrected. They see that you have their interests in mind, and respect you for that.

* STUFF THAT ENVELOPE FULL! Return business is the key to making money in mail order. That first order covers your costs; the return business is profit. Always give your customers a lot of products and services to choose from.

If you follow these rules and use the information provided in this collection of reports and business ideas, you should find yourself on the way to an exciting part-time or full-time mail order business that you can operate out of your own home!

Mailpost

Let’s face it — none of us like to be ignored. But sending an e-mail to a colleague that commits even ONE of these four cardinal sins can mean the difference between a speedy reply … and that big e-mail receptacle bin in the sky. :-/

Here are four common reasons why YOUR mail could be going “the way of the spam”, and how to reverse them to get your messages answered — and answered *fast*:

1. “Can you hear me now? Durn! Can you hear me now? Frick! Can you hear me now? Cripes! Can you…?”

Follow-up e-mails are okay, and quite necessary during these times of overzealous spam filtering. But for the love of all things good and holy … please give your recipient a reasonable amount of time to answer the FIRST message FIRST!

If you haven’t waited *at least* 24 hours — particularly on a first contact — you haven’t waited long enough. People do have to take care of lives, and spouses, and hunger pangs, and bathing, and… (well okay, maybe not those last two if we’re in a REAL pinch ).

2. Please, God … *NO* HTML!

It still boggles my mind how many people ignore this rule.

HTML mail comes to about *twice the size* of plain text mail with equal content. If your recipient can set their mail to skip downloading messages over a certain size, and that size is set low, your e-mail will be cut off in mid-message.

This means the recipient then has to make an extra effort to retrieve YOUR message from the server.

(Annoyance #1.)

And people who send HTML mail seem to always choose a bright blue(??!) hyperlink-colored font that’s WAY too tiny for the average eye to read. Umm…

WHY?!

Just about anything other than Courier New is GUARANTEED to be hard to read in some e-mail programs — and it’s usually blind luck that your recipient will HAVE one of those with this problem.

(Annoyance #2.)

And don’t even get me started on the odd “glow” blue text has when plopped on a white background … please?

3. “NO, Mommy! I don’t WANNA read an ezine!”

It’s inconsiderate to send ezine length e-mails to business people — period.

You’re almost guaranteeing that your mail won’t be fully read, or that you’ll get a half-a**ed reply, because the reader didn’t feel like wading through your verbosity to get to the goods.

“Ezine length” is generally about 9 kilobytes (9k) and above. You can usually tell how large an e-mail is before sending by checking its size in your mail program’s outbox. If not, for your reference, 9k is about 650 words. (Yeesh!)

Unless the recipient is *expecting* a long reply from you, 3k (200 words) is a good stopping point for a first contact.

NOTE: YES, this goes for personal e-mails too. Being “friends” with someone isn’t license to consistently disrespect their time with mammoth e-mails unless they send the same to you — consistently.

So, no saying the same thing 8 killion different ways, or using “flowery” language and “pretty” mental pictures to get your point across.

Just say it, say something else and for Heaven’s sake … KEEP IT MOVING.

4. Umm, seriously … is it really THAT important?

Ugh. Do I really need to explain this one? People who mark ALL of their messages High Priority remind me of the little dude who cried wolf, if you know what I mean.

When I consistently see these from the same people all the time, I start ignoring the priority and answering them LAST in a mail check, just to spite ‘em.

Granted, not everyone is as crazy as me and will do this. But at the very least, you’re still hurting your chances of getting a reply to *seriously* urgent messages quickly, by abusing priority markers.

Mailpost Peter Kritas

We have all heard of companies like the Geek Squad, they will come to your home and fix your computers or they will come to your office and help you set up your network because you are too stupid to know and do it yourself. If in doubt call the geeks, because they know how to do things that we can’t do. We know it and they know it.

The question then is how do these types of computer repair services advertise and market their business? Well, one great method of advertising for a computer repair service would be direct mail marketing advertising like you see in those little coupon packages that come in the mail. The computer repair service can send out these coupons to zip codes that are within a 20-mile radius of their shop and get plenty of business.

How often should these direct mail marketing pieces for the computer repair services be sent out? I believe it makes sense to send them out once per month or every other month, because it does not cost that much and it is a much-needed service. You just never know when someone is get have a problem with their computer. Let’s face it sooner or later we will all need computer repair services and we need to know how to get a hold of these folks. I hope you will please consider all this in 2006.

Mailpost direct marketing

Mobile auto detailers and mobile car washes should consider doing some advertising to promote their business and build their routes. The stronger the route and the more customers clustered close together mean more money and efficiency; this obviously equates to more profits.

May I suggest using direct-mail marketing advertising and those little discount packages with coupons? By specifically targeting a ZIP code in an area in which you believe needs more business you can indeed cluster your customers closer together and help build your route. How often should you send out direct-mail marketing coupons in those coupon packages?

I recommend sending them out to a specific ZIP code only every three months with a slightly different offer. One offer might be a discount on a wash and wax, but not a complete detail. Once the customer sees your work they may request that you do more to the car and therefore you will get your full detail price anyway.

Another offer that works very well is to give them two free washes if they sign up for weekly service and one detail every month. Another offer or discount coupon might be for interior detailing only.

If you use these methods you will find that direct-mail marketing coupons work very well for promoting your business and they are an excellent form of advertising. Please consider this in 2006.

Mailpost opportunities

It was not too long ago that many people had no internet, much less an e-mail address. But the internet brought in a new era that is full of unlimited information. The internet gave birth to electronic mail, more popularly known as e-mail. E-mail opened new avenues to the world of communication. In the beginning e-mail was only used as another means of communicating with other people for personal or business related matters.

Now people of every age group have an e-mail address. But, since the past few years have gone by, its potential for marketing has been exploited to its maximum both in good and bad ways. At the same time, who can disregard the services of direct mail which have been operating for nearly two centuries? It is still the preferred method of communication for many people.

E-mail is the cheapest method of communicating in mass quantities available as of this date. The advantage with email is that you can send email to many people at the same time just with the click of a mouse, where as in the case of direct mails one has to go through putting letters in envelopes for each and every person, make different address labels, mail it and also have to bear the cost of mailing. Time is money and e-mail marketing saves a lot of time.

While e-mail marketing might look easy, if you compare the net result, the story is totally different. When you are marketing through e-mail you want to make sure that you are e-mailing the right person, otherwise the e-mail would end up going to a junk folder. Also you got to be careful that you don’t miss the subject or the body of the e-mail, otherwise the net result would be same. In this age of spamming, spammers use a variety of subjects.

Studies show that direct mail is more efficient and has better success than e-mail. First, it is not as easy to block direct mail as junk e-mail and secondly the process of blocking mails itself is not automated like e-mail. The other reason why people hate e-mail marketing is due to constant bombarding of e-mails from spammers and illegal marketers from Nigerian money scams to porn to online prescription drugs to stock quotes to what not. In addition to that, you also get promotional offers from big companies and who can ignore phishing these days.

Many people have developed a negative perception about e-mail marketing and they simply delete or spam the e-mail if they do not identify it as their regular e-mail. In contrast direct mail is seen with respect and people pick their mail as a daily routine and open them with a priority.

Direct mail has a personal feel attached to it, one of the reasons why people prefer mail greetings over an electronic greeting. It takes time to personalize a direct mail where as an e-mail is instant and the fate of e-mail is also instant i.e. immediate deletion. Researchers are constantly puzzled by the mystery surrounding why people are so enthusiastic about direct mail.

But no worries, this is only good news for the marketers that they have something in their tool kit that works. So marketers have the mailing list of potential customers handy and send some nicely composed letters to them about your company and its products.

Snail mail has a potential of going through the hands of gatekeepers and administrative assistants before actually going to their boss which can end up being thrown in trash. The survival chances are rare unless its subject is business oriented and has some important information. But e-mail wins in this regard, as it reaches directly the person to which it is intended to go, after that its fate is left to the person whether to read or send it to spam folder.

A more scientific explanation of why direct mail is dearer to people than e-mail is the sensory perception of people. A direct mail uses three of the four senses of a person i.e. visual, verbal, listening and touching where as e-mail does not use sense of listening and touching. But this can be achieved by adding appealing graphics, text reading ability and streaming audio to the e-mail.

The statistics show that direct mail has not died and in fact the volume has grown by leaps and bounds in past few decades. A typical example is the fact that we receive more magazines, journals, mails from universities, DVDs etc. than we used to receive few years ago. This leaves the marketers with a dilemma about which method to use. The answer is simple, use email to contact only those people who you know and use direct mail for the people who don’t know you.

Mailpost Franchise

There are times when we need not to understand completely ‘how things work’ we just need to know the tasks they do. Like email delivery assurance system, it is not that necessary for you to fully understand how it works as long as you are aware that it can help in the online business you have. I’m afraid that still most email marketers fail to see the entire picture of online marketing. Though online promotion requires little time, several considerations should be taken into account in order to optimize this type of marketing strategy. It’s not enough to just send a newsletter or a promotion to your clients and prospects. Neither is it enough to just place anything you would want your readers to see whenever they open your email. You have to make sure that your emails are reaching the inbox and that readers are getting what they have opted in.

An email delivery assurance system suggests an improved email delivery. Well, your emails encounter a lot of obstacles which you might not be aware of. Due to heightened unsolicited commercial emails, commonly known as spam (spam are emails that have salacious contents or those that suggest violence), mail administrators and major ISP’s adopt several metrics to minimize if not totally eradicate the negative effect of spam. These ISP’s and mail administrators procure several blacklists and spam filters. Blacklists are list of known spammers and maintained by people who take effort to compile spam reports. Unfortunately not all spam reports are genuine; some users tend to report emails as spam because of the cluttering messages on their inbox or they just forgot that they have signed up for newsletters/updates. You need to know that when your domain gets on blacklists your emails get block.

The problem doesn’t end here. Another thing that hampers email delivery is spam/content filters. You might have a clean reputation, in that your domain is not on the blacklists, but still experiencing blocked email (the primary indicator of blocked emails is low-response rate from your clients). This problem is likely due to the fact that your message doesn’t land on inbox but on bulk/trash folders. Spam filters do vary in detecting spam but generally they check on the subject line, header and content of the message for words that are spammy. Once sufficient spammy words are generated your message will be flagged as spam. In addition, bear in mind that spam filters can be configured by the users. They can increase the security level, alter the whitelist and blacklist databases and a lot more.

You might be feeling discouraged because of the low ROI you are experiencing or you keep wondering if your emails are reaching your prospects’ inbox. I believe it’s time to drop those discouragements and wonderings and replace them with certainty. You can get assured of email delivery through an email delivery assurance system. I suggest you to have one.

Mailpost Business Franchise Opportunities

A BIG MAIL SHOULD CONTAIN:

At least three to four Mail order Magazines Circulars containing offers or interest to new mail order dealers. Circulars which the Big Mail Dealer has been to mail.

Do you enjoy reading Mail Dealer magazines? Do you enjoy ordering and receiving “Big Mail?” Do you enjoy working with new Mail Order dealers and opportunity seekers? If your answer is “YES” to all of these questions, then it would probably be profitable and pleasurable for you to start a “Big Mail” service.

In the pages to follow I will show you how to set up a Big Mail Service. I’ll show you how to advertise your service and I’ll also show you how to use the Big Mails that you receive in your mail to your own advantage. I’ll show you how to use commission circulars (how to get a lot of them free!) and I’ll also show you how to keep track of them.

We’ll talk about co-publishing and we’ll discuss circular mailing (you’ll learn how to get people to pay you cash to mail their circulars for them!).I’ll show a simple trick that will get you a lot of free advertising and I’ll show you where to get a free mailing list that will create a lot of new customers for you, if you are willing to put in a little work to get them.

But…before we get into this…I would like to give you a word of caution. Big Mail selling looks easy and it sounds easy IT IS NOT! Selling Big Mails is a lot of work,HARD WORK. And it is NOT a way to get rich quick.

You will probably not make any money at all for a least a few months. In fact, you will have to invest more than you take in. If you are willing to invest a little of your money, and a lot of your time, then you will gain invaluable experience selling Big Mails, and then you will make money. You will gain experience that you could gain nowhere else in the whole world. And if you are alert, creative, and AMBITIOUS, you can eventually turn your mail order business into a very lucrative enterprise.

If you are still interested…and I hope you are..read on!

The first thing you should od is to sit down with the latest issue of MAIL SALE ADVERTISER or POPULAR ADVERTISER and order a least twelve Big Mails. After that, get into the habit of ordering a least one Big Mail EVERYDAY!

Then devote a portion of EACH DAY to STUDYING them. And I do mean STUDY!

Feed your mind and your imagination with all kinds of ideas. The Mail Order Business is a very creative and imaginative one. The more you feed feed you imagination, the more it will do for you!

Set up a personal notebook. I would suggest you divide into four sections:

* Commission Circulars Sources
* Sources of low-cost printing
* Prospective Mailing Customers (Save the circulars that other dealers have been paid to mail. I’ll show you why later on .)
* Good ideas.

You can set your personal notebook up any way you like, but I use a loose-leaf notebook and scotch-tape the ads, circulars etc.

Read and re-read every circular and mail order magazine that you can get you hands on. SAVE ANY IDEA THAT APPEALS TO YOU! Start ordering SMALL supplies of “commission circulars” that APPEAL to you. (never try to sell anything merely because it pays BIG commission.)

When you are satisfied that you really want to start selling Big Mails, there are two very practical things you must do.

1. Order a name and address rubber stamp. Be sure it is SMALL enough to use on commission circulars.

2. Open a PERSONAL CHECKING ACCOUNT. Open it in YOUR OWN NAME. When you start to advertise, use your own name. If you do that, there will be no problem when you go to the bank to deposit checks that your customers will send you.

Your next step is to place an ad in a least SIX mail order magazines or ad sheets. In the beginning you will have to use publications that will accept handwritten copy, since you do not yet have “camera ready” ads. Your ad should read something like this:

BIG MAIL-25 cents Commission circulars mailed FREE! (your name and address)

A simple ad like this will pull better than one with a lot of words in it.

You probably already know which magazines and ad sheets you want to advertise in. That is fine! But I would suggest you start off by advertising in at least one or two of the following:

Mail Sale Advertiser
Popular Advertiser
Mail Order Bulletin
Timely Tips

All of these are letter press publications, which means they will set your ad up for you. They appear regularly EVERY MONTH ON TIME, and almost everyone interested in mail order reads them!

Because these publications are CO-PUBLISHABLE, the publishers of each publication will send you 50-100 copies to include in your Big Mails. Your name will appear on your copies as the CO-PUBLISHER. You will get to keep around 50% as your commission on any ads or subscriptions you sell. If you are faithful mailing your copies, you can often make enough profit on ads and subscriptions to pay for all your ads. This way your ads actually cost you nothing.

Each advertiser is also mailing his copies to his customers or mailing list, and every last copy mailed has YOUR ad in it… The printer is also mailing a copy to every person on his subscription list…so, usually within about ten days after your address appears in print, you will start receiving letters with quarters in them asking for Big Mail. Some advertisers, for one reason or another are quite slow in mailing their copies, but this can work to your advantage. You will often get orders two or three months after your ad appears!

COMMISSION CIRCULARS

Long before you start receiving orders for your Big Mail, you should have acquired a starting supply of “commission circulars.” You will want to include them in every one of your Big Mails.

Commission circulars are usually 3×6″ or 81/2×11″ circulars offering such things as: Rubber Stamps Name-address Labels Folios Magazine Samples Mailing Lists Envelopes Printed Stationary Business Directories Catalogue Samples Drop-ship Samples Printed Circulars Formulas Books Mail Order Plans Magazine Subscriptions Name Listing Services Pen Pal Clubs, etc, etc.

Wholesale firms supply commission circulars to mail order dealers, usually at cost. The dealer stamps his name in the blank space under “Order Form” and mails them to prospective customers. When he receives orders (and he will if he mails them regularly), he keeps his commission, which is usually about 50%. He then sends the balance, along with his shipping label, to the wholesaler, who drop-ships the order directly to the customer under the dealer’s shipping label.

Commission circulars can be profitable for you, as a Big Mail Dealer, if you are very careful to select only those circulars which appear to MAIL ORDER BEGINNERS. You will soon learn that gift items and general merchandise rarely appeal to people who are ordering Big Mails, unless you are offering them on wholesale basis. (Safari boots, transistor radios, hunting knives, automatic can-openers, $15.95 necklaces are nice, and they can be sold by mail…but not to mail order beginners!)

If you work at it, you can make a lot of extra money by including good commission circulars in your mails. Test a few hundred copies of each commission circular. If it evokes no interest, discontinue it. But if it produces and order or two,then include one in every piece of mail you send. When you have found a circular that “pulls,”try to have them printed with your name and address on them. (printed circulars will often pull FIVE times better than stamped ones.)

Don’t mail poorly printed circulars. They tend to make your entire mailing look sloppy> You will also find that 6×9″ and 8 1/2×11″ circulars pull better than 3×6″, although some 3×6’s pull surprisingly well.

Once your ad appears ( starting COMMISSION CIRCULARS MAILED FREE) you will start receiving commission circulars. Test every circular that is given to you. Push the winners, discontinue the duds. You will eventually develop a list of real money makers to include in your Big Mails.

Most of the suppliers of commission circulars are honest people. They offer items of real worth. But occasionally you will find circulars that you should not mail. They will get you in TROUBLE! * Adult Offers (pornography). Even if you do not object to this, some of the customers will…and some of your customers may be minors.

* “Stuff and Address Envelopes at Home..Send a $1.00 for your Starting Kit,” These offers are illegal. People have been convicted in court for selling them. Beside, the plans are worthless.

* Chain letters–These are also illegal. Beware of any circular that says you will receive $20,000 in sixty days if you will mail a dollar and “follow the instructions, etc.”

There is one more thing I would caution you about. There are about 40-50 standard folios that have been around the Mail Order Business for the last twenty years. They are EXCELLENT folios, well written, well printed, and the advice in them is absolutely valid. But it is a waste of time trying to sell them to mail order beginners. Most of them already know where to get them at wholesale prices! If you receive FREE commission circulars offering these folios, by all means, mail them. You may get an order or two. But if you are going to buy expensive circulars, be sure you are offering something NEW something which EVERY mail order dealer has not already seen at least one hundred times!

FACTS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS!

As a Big Mail Dealer, you will be selling many things. So that you can fill each order accurately and promptly, I suggest that you start another looseleaf notebook Divide it into three sections:

1 Commission Circular Information
2 Co-Publishing Information
3 Advertising Schedule

1. Commission Circular Information—Every time you receive a new supply of commission circulars, sit down and examine them. (Sometimes you will receive two or three varieties in one envelope.) Tape one sample of each circular in your notebook. Underneath it write:

* Name and Address of the Drop-shipper
* Amount to forward to the Drop-shipper
* How to obtain additional circulars. (Are they available with
your name and address imprinted on them?)

2. Co-publishing Information–Most publishers of mail order magazines will send a “Fact Sheet.” If they do, simply scotch-tape the sheet in your notebook. If not, record these facts yourself:

*Name and Address of Printer *How much to forward on new advertising, subscriptions, etc

3. Advertising Schedule–To keep your ads running CONTINUOUSLY, you will have to keep track of “closing dates” (the last date on which a publisher will accept advertising for his next issue.) Here is a very simple method to use:

Take a page of common notebook paper. At the top of the page, write the name of the month. Then number down the page from 1 to 31. (Use one line for each day of the month.)

The closing date for Mail Sale Advertiser is the 15th of the month, but you will want to mail your ad on the 5th of the month (always mail your ads in TEN DAYS EARLY.) So next to the number 5, write down the code letters “MSA.” If you check this sheet religiously every day, you will never forget a closing date.

Before you mail your ad, turn to the page for the following month and make a notation of that month’s closing date. If you will use this system ( or your own variation), you will remember every deadline, whether you are advertising in five magazines of five hundred!

CIRCULAR MAILING

Once your Big Mail ads are appearing regularly, you will start to receive orders for them regularly. As soon as you are averaging five a day, you can advertise yourself as a CIRCULAR MAILER. It’s easy to get started. Each time you renew your Big Mail Ad, send in another ad like this. (As co-publisher, your ads cost half the advertised price!)

100 250 500

3×6 .50 1.25 2.25
6×9 .60 2.50 2.50
9×12 1.00 2.00 4.00

These prices are given only as examples. The postal rates and other costs change and you should check the ads currently running Circular Mailers and charge about the same rates. Cut-rate prices will NOT get you more orders.

A circular mailing ad will almost ALWAYS pay for itself immediately. ( Incidentally, many dealers have tried to run a combination Big Mail and Circular Mailing ads. They do work half as well as TWO SEPARATE ADS!)

As soon as you receive a circular mailing order, send your customers a sample mailing. Be sure it is neat and be sure it includes the LATEST issues of several mail order magazines.

Then include ONE of his circulars in every Big Mail until you have finished mailing them. If you have not received any more circulars to mail, send him a friendly thank you not and let him know that you have finished mailing his circulars. Tell him you hope he receives some orders from your mailing. Include some new circulars from new advertisers and a NEW magazine. If he has any more circulars to mail, he will likely send them to YOU!

Remember, circular mailing depends on REPEAT customers. Never exaggerate mailing capacity ( either in personal letters or ads.) If you really try to get orders for your customers, they will be back for more!

HOW TO GET FREE ADS

There are many editors of mail order magazines and ad sheets who will print your ads free if you will mail 100 to 200 copies of their publication. Here is a very effective way to get them to run YOUR ads:

Take a sheet of white typing paper. Type the following words on it.

PRINTERS PUBLISHERS: If you will print any of these ads in your publication, I will mail 100 copies for you FREE! (With co-publishing rights, I’ll mail 200 copies!) Note that all of these ads are camera ready for your convenience.

Then use a rubber-cement to paste copies of ALL YOUR DIFFERENT ADS on the sheet! (If your ads have been printed on colored paper, bleach them before you paste them up. Pour a little clorox over them, until the color disappears. Rinse them in water, and dry them on a piece of flat cardboard.)

Once your circular is pasted up (camera-ready), take it to your local instant photo offset printer and have 500 or 1000 copies printed on WHITE paper. (Be sure its on white paper.) Enclose one of these circulars in every mailing. You’ll be amazed at the results!

WHERE TO GET GOOD MAILING LISTS FREE

If you advertise regularly, you will get a lot of response to your ads. But if you will do a little specialized direct mailing, you can double your business almost immediately. Here’s how:

Imagine that you have just received your mailing copies of TIMELY TIPS from the printer. If you look at your self, you discover that you still have 14 of lasts month’s issue left to mail. Sit down and make up 14 SPECIALIZED mailings. In each mailing, enclosed:

1. One copy of last month’s TIMELY TIPS
2. One copy of each circular you have been paid to mail.
3. One copy of your new FREE MAILING FOR FREE ADVERTISING
circular.

To whom do you mail them? COMPILE YOUR MAILING LIST FROM THOSE BIG MAILS YOU HAVE BEEN ORDERING EVERY DAY! Mail them too:

* CIRCULAR MAILING PROSPECTS–Each time you receive Big Mail, examine all the circulars. Who has paid the dealer to mail circulars for them? If they have paid him, THEY WILL ALSO PAY YOU…if you will take the time to send them a sample mailing!

* NEW AD-SHEETS AND MAIL ORDER MAGAZINES–Whenever you see the announcement of a new publication, send a sample mailing and be sure to enclose your Free Mailing for Free Advertising circular. You’ll get many, many free ads, if you work at it.

* NEW MAIL ORDER ADVERTISERS–Save the names of new advertisers in the mail order magazines or ad-sheets. You’ll be amazed at how responsive they will be to your mailings!

Every time you receive new mailing copies, mail out the remaining copies of last month’s issues to the categories listed above and your mail order business will grow faster than you ever dreamed it could. You’ll be surprised at the new business you will be able to generate using this method.