Site Title Graphic

Create Your Own Mailorder Products!

Pick up almost any book or folio on Mailorder Selling and invariably you will find the same advice. When you select a mailorder product, select one which:

Most mailorder writers will also tell you to try to acquire exclusive selling rights to your product. And most writers will agree that a dealer has a better chance of succeeding in the mailorder business if he has created the product himself.

All of this is certainly good advice. The trouble with it is that it does not go far enough. It does not tell you HOW to create a product that is exclusively you own. In what follows, I would like to show you, step by step, HOW to create your own mailorder product.

I would like to begin by making a very revolutionary statement:

THE FIRST STEP ON THE ROAD TO MAIL ORDER SUCCESS IS NOT THE SELECTION OF A PRODUCT!

That may sound like a very strange statement, but there are three things you must do (if you want to be successful) before you ever select a product to sell by mail!

ditzel

FIRST, you must ANALYZE YOURSELF.

You will only succeed in selling a product, or a line of mailorder products if you really enjoy selling them, if you can be honestly enthusiastic about them, and if they are products you yourself would honestly want to buy.

SECOND, you must SELECT YOUR MARKET.

Once you have analyzed yourself, you will want to sell to people who have interests similar to your own. Only then will you be comfortable in your mailorder business.

THIRD, you must thoroughly ANALYZE YOUR MARKET.

Before you ever select a product, you should KNOW what your market is buying, what it would like to buy, if available, and what it will buy from you, in the very near future.

ditzel

Once you have analyzed yourself, selected your market, and then thoroughly analyzed your market, you will have no trouble selecting or creating a product to sell by mail. It will almost select you! Now, let's go back and study these three steps, one by one.

ditzel

Analyze Yourself

To help you understand yourself, sit down and, as honestly as possible, write out your answers to the following questions:

Once you have HONESTLY answered all these questions, you will see an amazing pattern emerging. When you have finished, pay a visit to your local library. Go to the Reference Desk and ask to see the latest edition of the WRITER'S MARKET. Sit down and study the Table of Contents, which lists all the main categories of magazines currently being printed. Decide which CATEGORY interests you beyond all others. It is in that mailorder market that you will be most at home . . . and it is there that you will be most successful

Now go back to the Reference Desk and ask for two other publications. Either one will provide you with the information you need. They are:

I, of course, have no idea what your interests really are, but let us, for the sake of illustration, say that you have a compelling interest in Astrology. With a little search in the Standard Periodical Directory, you will find the name and address of at least a dozen or so Astrology magazines. In Ulrich's> you will find even more, since it lists magazines published in foreign countries as well.

Jot down the names and address of each and every publication. Write to each of them, on your letterhead if possible. If you don't have a letterhead, you will still hear from most of them. Tell them you are starting a mailorder business, specializing in Astrological products, and ask them for a sample copy of their publications, along with their ADVERTISING RATES.

When you start receiving your sample copies, save them . . . and save the advertising rate cards. They will be invaluable to you in the future.

While you are waiting for these to arrive, go to the nearest second-and magazine store and buy a few dozen old astrology magazines. (The cost? Probably a dime apiece!) Get as many different magazine titles as possible and be sure to get copies with MAIL ORDER ADS in them. Issues that are ten or fifteen years old will be valuable to you, but also try to obtain some of the more current issues. You are now ready to start . . .

ditzel

Analyzing Your Market

Start a notebook. Pick up one of the magazines which you have purchased at the second-hand magazine store. Read the first ad . . . every line of it. Read it slowly and carefully. When you have finished reading it, see if you can describe what is being sold in five words or less. If you can't, go back and read it again. If you can, record your description under one of three headings in your notebook:

All mailorder offerings come under one of the three headings listed above. If the ad was for an Aquarian Necklace, it should be listed under Merchandise. If it was for a treatise on Flying Saucers, it should be listed under Information. If it was an offer to chart your horoscope, it should be listed under Service.

After you have analyzed the first ad, go on and study the next ad. Continue until you have thoroughly analyzed every single ad in the magazine, including the classifieds. When you are through, you will have three lists:

As you read, watch for:

Can you create a product that readers will want as a result of reading those articles? You will be amazed at what you will discover when you read magazines from the viewpoint of a mailorder man!

ditzel

Mailorder Principles Are The Same For Every Market!

While researching this manuscript, I analyzed three totally different magazines from the viewpoint of a mailorder man. I would like to share some of my findings with you. Don't worry if the fields are different from those which interest you.

The first magazine which I analyzed was ASTROLOGY - YOUR DAILY HOROSCOPE, December 1975. I would like to begin with the Merchandise Offerings.

ditzel

ASTROLOGY (MERCHANDISE)

The first ad is for personalized stationary. Any mailorder man knows you can sell personalized stationary to any market. But this dealer took a commonplace product and adapted it to the Astrological market. Next to the name and address which he prints on the stationary, he prints the Astrological sun sign and he calls it ZODIAC STATIONARY.

The next ad is for another very commonplace product -- soap! You can buy soap in any grocery store. But this soap is special. It has YOUR ZODIAC SIGN imprinted in it, and it lasts as long as the soap lasts. Here is another good example of adapting a commonplace product to the special interests and desires of your prospective customers.

If you are now selling a product by mail and you would like to increase your sales, make a list of the kinds of people you would like to sell it to. (For example, doctors, waitresses, farmers, gun collectors, etc.) Then go back and ask yourself what you could do to your product to make it appeal to each individual group. You'll be amazed at how you can turn commonplace items into red hot mailorder sellers just by taking the time to put yourself in your customer's shoes for a while.

The next merchandise offering is for "SEASHELLS FOR VIRGOS AND SCORPIOS". Brother, this is a fantastic idea. Had this advertiser offered plain old seashells in an astrology magazine, his mailbox would probably have been empty. Had he advertised "Seashells for Astrologers", he MIGHT have gotten a few orders. But he made his seashells special, exclusive, and very, very desirable, because they are only for Virgos and Scorpios. He is catching the attention of one reader out of every six and I would bet that ad was a mailorder success! Here is an idea worth remembering. Try to apply it to YOUR product!

Another merchandise offering was a "Hand Bio-Rhythm Computer". For the past few years, Astrology magazines have been running article after article on the Bio-Rhythm Theory (i.e. every male and female person has emotional, intellectual and physical cycles, which can be predicted in advance). The Astrology magazines, in effect, have been creating a mailorder market for this kind of new product. The ad promises, "it reveals your emotional, intellectual and physical state . . . EVEN BEFORE THE DAY BEGINS!" This dealer was clever enough to do something about this new interest. If he had not studied his market, he could never have discovered the NEED for a Bio-Rhythm computer!

ditzel

ASTROLOGY (INFORMATION)

People who read Astrology magazines are very interested in Love, Money, Success, Power, Miracles, Prayer, etc. One enterprising dealer has written six "personal guidance" manuals, and runs full page ads in Astrology magazines, selling them from $2.00 to $11.00 each! His ads have been running successfully for years. Back in 1960, when I first became interested in selling by mail, this dealer was running small ads in mail dealer magazines, selling mailorder manuals!

Here are some of the other information manuals which dealers have written and are selling by mail:

Can you create a WORTHWHILE manual for this market? (I predict that the first dealer who writes a good manual on Bio-Rhythm will make a fortune!) If you need ideas for manuals, study the subjects being offered in the Astrology magazines. Remember -- the readers are interested in those subjects! In the issue of ASTROLOGY - YOUR PERSONAL HOROSCOPE which I read, the following information articles appeared. (This is only a partial list.)

A study of OLD Astrology magazines will provide you with a wealth of subjects for New Mailorder Manuals (or folios).

ditzel

ASTROLOGY (SERVICE)

If there is one thing people who read Astrology magazines love, it is this . . . They LOVE TO BE ANALYZED AND COUNSELLED BY PROFESSIONALS. Do you have specialized training in the art of Horoscope Reading? If so, you can sell your services by mail. Here are some of the headlines form ads offering such services:

Other services being offered in this magazine include:

Are you trained to offer such services through the mail? Or are you interested in receiving such training? (You will find many such offers to train you in a newstand magazine called FATE.) If you answer is Yes . . . this is where you should begin your mailorder career.

ditzel

The next magazine I analyzed was the November 1975 issue of FIELD AND STREAM>. Since this magazine is aimed at two mailorder markets, hunters and fishermen, I analyzed only those ads pertaining to Hunters.

ditzel

HUNTERS (MERCHANDISE)

Men who hunt for wild game spend a lot of money on their hobby. They buy top quality hunting clothes. (Who wants to go hunting in a CHEAP pair of jungle boots?) They spend a lot of money on their guns, their hunting knives, and on top quality binoculars. There are several dozen well-established mail order companies selling this kind of merchandise to hunters. If you are planning to establish a one man mail order operation, you would be well advised not to try to compete with these companies. Instead, look for something unique that a hunter can USE, and begin you mailorder business there.

Here are a few merchandise offerings being made by enterprising dealers:

Also offered:

ditzel

HUNTING (INFORMATION)

Frankly, I was amazed at the amount of Information Folios being sold to Hunters. Here are some examples:

Can you write an information manual for hunters? Can you tell him how to shoot ducks? Or how to hunt buffalo? . . . Or what to do for snake bites? . . . Or how to sign up for a Big Game Safari in the wilds of Africa? If you can, write a good manual (or put it on tape!) and sell it by mail!

ditzel

HUNTING (SERVICE)

Unlike the readers of Astrology magazines, Game Hunters don't give a damn about being analyzed or counselled! But if you can teach his hunting dog how to chase a bear up a tree, then he will probably pay you for your services. Can you repair his gun? Or can you stuff and mount his catches? If so, you can build a mailorder business offering such services.

ditzel

The final publication analyzed was the WRITER'S DIGEST of November, 1975.

ditzel

WRITING (MERCHANDISE)

If you are interested in the craft of writing (or if you have done well in creative writing classes) you might decide to build a mail order business catering to the needs of hundreds of thousands of persons who dream of becoming professional writers. here are some of the merchandise offerings being made to writers:

If you can produce an information manual showing writers how to write better, or how to sell their manuscripts, then write it and sell it by mail. You will have CREATED a new mailorder product! (To get ideas for subjects of interest to writers, study the articles in such publications as the Writers Digest, The Writer, Saturday Review, etc.)

ditzel

WRITERS -- (SERVICE)

Some of the largest mailorder business in the world sell correspondence courses teaching people how to write for a living. There are also a dozen or more large printing companies (called "Vanity Publishers" in the trade) whose sole business is printing books for authors, whose works have been rejected by the regular publishing houses.

If you are a serious literary person, with a gift for writing, you could very possibly establish a business offering your services to writers. Here are some of the services which were being offered in the November 1975 issue of Writer's Digest:

Are you qualified to offer any of these services by mail? If you are, you have found a service to sell by mail! If you are not now qualified, why not acquire professional training . . . and then offer your services by mail?

ditzel

In Conclusion

I realize that I have just touched the surface of three different mail order markets. There are hundreds of other mail order markets for you to explore! Analyze yourself and then select the market that is best for you.

Study your market thoroughly . . . AND NEVER STOP STUDYING IT. Most successful mailorder people read dozens of magazines every month. They KNOW what their customers are thinking about, what they need, and what they will buy.

Successful mailorder people are interested in the NEEDS and WANTS of their customers FIRST. They understand that if they concentrate on those, profits will flow naturally. Those who think only of profits soon pass by the wayside.

In the beginning of this manual, I asked you to write to every magazine in your chosen field. Subscribe to as many as possible. When you have created your first product, then start advertising in those magazines (which is why I said to keep their rate cards.) Never run an ad unless you can run it in three consecutive issues. Then CONTINUE running it for as long as it continues to produce new customers for you. Slowly add new (but related) items to your line. Whenever possible, expand your business by inserting your ads in new publications.

Remember these simple guidelines:

Return to Mail Order Home