Many of today's well established companies, such as Sears, L.L. Bean, Spencer Gifts, and Victoria's Secret started out as small mail order businesses, utilizing catalogs, magazines, and newspapers as their primary means of advertising. If these same merchants were starting their businesses today they may have found selling on the internet to be frustrating and complicated.
Consumers that shop online overwhelmingly use a search engine, such as Google, to find the items they are looking for. Just to be considered by a potential buyer searching for a product on the internet, your company's website address listing must rank high, at least within the first few pages, in the search engine results. To get your website listed on the top of the search results, your business must pay a premium for pay-per-click advertising, or attempt to optimize your website to post high in the free or "natural" listing of the results.
The cost of pay-per-click advertising is based on a bidding process, whereas the website owner bids on specific key words and phrases that relate to the products their website is selling. Competition for popular key words and phrases can be fierce, driving bids to high levels, requiring a substantial advertising budget. Alternatively, optimizing a website, which in part, is modifying the site's design and structure to improve search results in the "natural" free listing, can be a daunting task to even the most skilled webmaster because search engine ranking standards are constantly changing.
A Simpler Solution
In recent years, as a result of intense competition from the internet, the publication industry has been offering sharply lower advertising rates. This trend has created a great opportunity for the small mail order business seeking an alternative to costly internet marketing.
I am not suggesting that you take a full-page display ad in Good Housekeeping Magazine. I do recommend, however, that you start out with testing ads in the classified section of magazines and other periodicals. This is an excellent way to get into the mail order business.
Where and How to Advertise
Where to advertise will be contingent on the product you select to sell for your business. The first thing you want to do is obtain a copy of Standard Rate & Data Service (SRDS) catalog, which is a listing of circulation data and advertising rates for thousands of publications. Many public libraries have SRDS either online or in print. Review the "Consumer Magazine Media" section of SRDS and write to every magazine listed in it with a circulation of about 50,000. Give yourself a company name, and request from each magazine a sample copy and a "rate card."
Look through the classified sections of each magazine you receive, and make notes about the types of products and ads that are marketed in it. I suggest you choose a currently successful product and ad and emulate it. Note that I said "emulate it" and not copy it. Then do a test run of an ad. If it is a winner place ads in other magazines. If it is not a winner, do additional testing. If you test consistently and take your time you will eventually be successful!
Keep Your Business Organized
To keep your mail order business well organized, and to keep track of your orders, back-orders and advertising results, it is essential to have a good order and inventory management computer program or software. The price of mail order management software can range from several thousand dollars to being free. Since you are just starting out in business, and unless you have the funds to purchase one of those expensive software programs, I suggest you use a good free mail order software program such as OrderAce Free Edition by TruVes Software ( www.orderace.com ).
John Keidel recommends an easy-to-use free mail order software to manage your orders and inventory, such as OrderAce Free Edition by TruVes Software. You can download OrderAce from www.truvessoftware.com/orderace