Mail Order - Part II

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* The best customer is a satisfied previous buyer, because people like to do business with those they know and trust.

* Additional sales to previous customers are often easier to make and more profitable than the initial sale. A relationship of trust has been built, provided the customer is satisfied with his/her purchase and with the service received. Furthermore, there is no cost involved in acquiring the name because it's already on your mailing list.

* It's more profitable to sell, not just one, but several (even dozens) of related products/services. Unfortunately, in the real world, there are relatively few products that will bring you sufficient income by themselves. Unless you stumble across one of those rare products, you will need to offer a line of related products to make any real money.

* A selection of related products/services means greater variety. In turn, greater variety means:
# More prospects will become buyers, because prospects are more likely to find something they want;
# Buyers will tend to spend more per order;
# More buyers are likely to buy from you again.

* Your Per-Item Marketing Expenses Are Reduced As Each New Offer Is Added To Your Line.

While it's true that a catalog costs more to print and mail than, say, an 8 1/2 X 11 flyer, a catalog reduces marketing expenses by reducing your per-item marketing costs. Here's what I mean. Suppose your cost to have an 8 1/2 X 11" flyer printed on one side, offering one product, was three cents each. Let's say you add to that the expense of a cover envelope and a return envelope, along with a first class stamp, which brings your in-the-mail marketing cost to offer one item, (not counting any other possible costs, such as envelope stuffing) to a total of fifty-cents each.

Now let's consider another scenario. You prepare the same exact mailing, except you have your flyer printed on both sides this time, each side promoting a different (but related) product, which costs you a total of five cents each. While your cost for the mailing increases just two cents, you are now offering two products, at an in-the-mail marketing cost for each product of twenty-six cents each, compared to the original mailing offering just one product at fifty-cents.

Then if you added three more flyers to the mailing (each offering a different product on each side of the sheet) at a cost of five cents each, your total mailing cost increases to sixty-seven cents, but you are now offering eight products, which reduces your marketing expense for each item to just over eight cents each. When you sell more than one item per page, such as in a catalog, the reduction in marketing expense per offer is even more dramatic. And this doesn't take into account the likelihood of prospects buying, and buying more per order, when you offer them several things to choose from, instead of just one.

This, no doubt, is one of the reasons Julian Simon wrote in his well-known book, How To Start And Operate A Mail Order Business, "In truth, operating without a catalog of offerings is likely to be impossible for most mail-order ventures." If you're serious about mail order success, a catalog is the way to go.

* You can test the sales potential of new products as you continue to make money from all previously profitable ones.

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