Fritz: All Fritz/All Fritz.zip/All Fritz/FILES/BUSITION/MAILORDR.LZH/MAILCH8.DOC

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                                     CHAPTER 8





                           AGRESSIVE MARKETING - PART II





                  One of the most important opportunities for promotion
             are the Gift Shows and Home Shows.  It's not exactly Mail
             Order, but you can collect a considerable amount of research
             data and add to your mailing list as well as sell your
             product.

                  One of the lines you can usually pick up at trade shows
             is the specialty advertising item.  These come in dozens of
             different styles, sizes and ideas.  What they do is to help
             you promote your business, and they come in the form of
             coffee mugs with your name and logo, or key rings, memo
             pads, baseball caps, ball pens, toothpick holders, business
             card holders, lapel badges - you name it, someone will sell
             it to you.

                  I have exhibited in several Gift shows across the
             country and never once failed to turn a satisfactory profit.
             These are the shows to which the public is invited, as
             against the Trade Shows, to which only members of that
             particular trade are allowed to enter.

                  Trade Shows are an excellent location for discovering
             new products.  I remember a few years ago, someone was
             exhibiting a foam rubber crocodile on a length of wire.  I
             had an opportunity to contract for an exclusive, nationwide
             distributorship.   I hesitated and decided to take a look at
             the rest of the show first.  When I came back to the manu-
             facturer I was too late.  I still think of it as one of my
             biggest lost opportunities.  Every time I go to a Fair I see
             dozens of foam crocodiles skittering across the ground at
             the end of wires.

                  Methods of promoting and advertising your product are
             limited only by your imagination and the way you look at the
             Mail Order business.  Sam Levin, an entrepreneur who has
             several good items selling steadily, signed up with a manu-
             facturer of a pocket sized fire extinguisher.  He agreed to
             handle as many as the manufacturer could produce for a
             twelve month trial.







                  The manufacturer was in a small way of business with
             perhaps half a dozen workers.  The output of fire extin-
             guishers was relatively small and Sam arranged to buy on a
             monthly basis.

                  After he had thought about it for a few days, Sam
             decided to take a different approach.   He advertised for
             people interested in adding a new item to their mail order
             business.  Within the year, the small fire estinguisher
             manufacturing business had grown to forty workers, and all
             Sam was doing was repackaging the fire extinguishers and
             sending them on to his own customers.  Although they were
             sold by Mail Order, Sam never had to run another advertise-
             ment.

                  Tom Sullivan was a man I had known since school days.
             We run across each other occasionally and exchanged hello's.
             He worked as a lathe operator in a business which employed
             about fifty people, manufacturing by sub-contract, small
             parts of a gyroscope for a well known defense contractor.

                  The defense budget was cut drastically and overnight
             Tom found himself unemployed.  For a while he sat at home
             feeling lost.  What started out as a worry and inconvenience
             and a draw on his savings, gradually grew to be a serious
             situation.  He eventually faced the prospect of losing his
             home.

                  There seemed to be no answer.  Try as he would, there
             were simply no jobs available.  It was then, when he had his
             back firmly against the wall, that inspiration struck.

                  It was while he was glancing through a fishing maga-
             zine, and I should mention that his all absorbing passion
             was Bass fishing, that an advertisement for a new type of
             fishing reel caught his eye.  With his engineering back-
             ground, he appreciated some of the advanced features of this
             new reel.  It went though his mind that if someone could
             devise a different kind of fishing reel, why couldn't he
             devise something else that fishing enthusiasts would buy.

                  It wasn't long before he figured out an entirely dif-
             ferent type of metal and plastic lure, one that could be
             easily changed from a glistening, fast moving  twister to a
             dull and limping  sick fish.

                  He made a prototype in his basement workshop and tried
             it out the following weekend.  On the banks of the lake he
             was given the names and addresses of four other fishermen
             who said they would like to buy one if he ever got round to
             manufacturing them.

                  His next step was to run a small display advertisement
             in the fishing magazine that had inspired his thinking.
             This was before he had even made any for sale. Almost before






             he had the first lure made and packaged, he had received
             orders and money for 322 more.  Within two years he had
             taken a lease on the building from which he had been laid-
             off and had since become vacant, was employing ten workers
             and his range of Mail Order products had grown to include
             reel attachments, sling-shot casters, collapsible landing
             nets, stainless steel telescoping fishing rods, hook remov-
             ers and camping stools.

                  His marketing didn't stop at just advertising.  He went
             to fishing clubs and demonstrated his product.  He didn't
             sell at the time although he did take orders.  His main
             purpose was to hand out flyers giving information about all
             of his products.  Not only did his mailing list grow by
             leaps and bounds, it was a very specific mailing list.

                  Tom also attended fishing tournaments and gave his
             products as part of the prizes offered.  He took photographs
             of the competitors holding their catch and with a cash
             incentive, persuaded several of the champion anglers to
             endorse his products.

                  Still not satisfied, he approached the fishing, hunting
             and sports magazines and purchased their mailing lists.
             Then he started on the overseas markets.

                  This is Aggressive Marketing.

                   For her birthday last year Tom bought his wife a fur
             coat. "When I was laid-off," he told me, "my wife thought it
             was the end of the world. Now she can't understand why I
             didn't get into Mail Order years ago."

                  Lyall Riggins had taken exclusive distributorship of a
             bread maker manufactured in Switzerland.  He had been con-
             ducting a modest mail order business for several years and
             had great expectations of the bread maker.  After two mail-
             ings from his mailing list he had received only one order
             and was beginning to be concerned. In order to qualify for
             the exclusive distributorship he had bought two hundred
             machines and he could visualize them gathering dust in his
             small warehouse.

                  Almost in desperation, he rented a booth at the State
             Fair and set up his bread maker demonstration stand. He
             didn't sell enough to cover the high cost of the booth, or
             the parking fees, the booth construction costs and the wages
             of two shift working assistants.

                  Following his usual line of thinking, he had put up a
             sign offering one of his machines as a prize in a drawing to
             be held on the last day of the Fair.  His objective was to
             refurbish his mailing list.

                  A week after the Fair had ended, he entered the names






             and addresses obtained from the drawing into his computer and
             was surprised to discover that many of the visitors to the
             Fair were from out of state.  Several of them were from
             European countries.  The discovery which pleased him most
             was that of the several hundred names he had collected, only
             a few were already on his mailing list.

                  He printed a fresh, illustrated brochure and did a full
             mailing.  The response was overwhelming.  He cleared the
             supplies in his warehouse and placed two further orders in
             quick succession. There seemed to be a synergistic effect.
             Sales of other products in his line increased in volume.

                  He tried to find out why the first mailing was so
             unsuccessful compared with this new mailing.  The brochure
             wasn't all that different, the sales pitch was almost iden-
             tical.

                  His computer supplied part of the answer. Ninety per-
             cent of the people who bought his bread maker came from the
             listing compiled from the Fair drawing.  He came to the
             conclusion that people at the Fair were interested in the
             bread maker, but not to the extent of going to the trouble
             of carrying it around the Fairgrounds with them.  He also
             decided that visitors to the Fair were too impatient to
             stand in front of the booth and listen to his selling pitch.
             His mailed brochure which they could read at leisure was far
             more persuasive.

                  He is still selling the bread maker by mail order and
             it is still one of his best selling items.

                  I mention these three anecdotes to give you further
             ideas on buying and selling.  Success doesn't always come
             immediately.  It takes thought and perseverance to reach
             your goals.

                  Add a supplement to your original marketing plan.
             Write your goals down on another piece of paper and put it
             where you'll see it every day, - on the bathroom mirror, the
             refrigerator door, beside your computer screen.  The paper
             should state your goals fully.

                  Let it say something like;-
                  In one year I will give up conducting my business from
             my kitchen table and open an office.  In two years I will
             own a brand new car.  It will be red in color, a four door
             family car and I will pay cash.  In four years there will be
             a swimming pool in my backyard.  The swimming pool will be
             kidney shaped and surrounded by rock gardens.

                  Be very specific.  Not just a car, but a red car - or
             whichever color you prefer. Not just a swimming pool but a
             kidney shaped swimming pool.  The more specific you are
             about your targets, the more clearly you can see them in






             your mind's eye, the sooner you will have them.

                  Finally, to close this chapter on aggressive marketing,
             here are a few suggestions worth adding to your repertoire
             of marketing techniques.


                  1.  Go to your local Public Library and study the
             latest magazines slanted towards your potential customers.
             In particular, study the advertising.  Make notes of those
             whose products are similar to yours. Make notes of those
             advertisements which would persuade you to buy.  Study their
             style, their headings, their length.  Estimate the costs of
             the advertisements.

                  Next, request back dated copies of those magazines.
             Ask for copies one, two and three years old for the same
             month.  Look for those particular advertisements.  You'll
             find that the truly successful advertisements change very
             little over the years.  Advertisements or products which
             have proved unsuccessful will have been dropped from recent
             issues.

                  Try to determine why some advertisements are success-
             ful, others less so.

                  2. If your product lends itself to personal advertis-
             ing, include a photograph of yourself in your brochures.
             People tend to trust a firm when the boss has his picture on
             display for everyone to see.  Even the big people resort to
             this type of personalized advertising.  National products
             which immediately come to mind with company presidents or
             well known personalities appearing on television are Lee
             Iacocca with Chrysler Motor Corporation, Wendy Hamburgers,
             Jenny Craig and Publisher's Clearing House.

                  Local Real estate offices, car dealerships and Fitness
             Centers also display faces in their brochures or television
             advertising for you to recognize, (and trust).

                  3.  Put the name of your business or the name of your
             product, right at the front of your advertising.

                  The American Express Card - Don't go anywhere without
             it.

                  Post Bran Flakes - Your Natural Choice.

                  Skippy Soup In A Cup - Lunch or Snack, School or Work.

                  Triaminic Makes It Easy - Choose The Right Cough Medi-
             cine.

                  Post Honey-Comb - Nutritious Corn & Oat Cereal.







                  Yoplait - Yogurt Goodness, Great Yoplait Taste.

                  Right Guard Sport Stick - Anti-Perspirant & Deodorant.


                  4.  Don't chop and change your advertising.  Let it run
             for several weeks before even thinking of changing it. The
             longer you can leave it, the more effective it becomes.
                  I've seen small display ads in magazines that have run
             unchanged for ten years or more.  Month after month - "You
             Can Become A Locksmith". "I Can Teach You To Draw". "We're
             Looking For People Who Love To Write".

                    Quite often, people don't 'see' an ad unless it's
             been in front of them for some time.  When you finally
             decide that your ad is not pulling as it should, don't
             change it immediately.  Try running another ad with a dif-
             ferent key in another part of the newspaper to see if your
             new layout is an improvement.

                  Sometimes switching to a different section of the same
             newspaper can make a difference.  Going from Sports Section
             to the Entertainment Section places your advertisement
             before an entirely different section of the community.

                  You may be surprised to discover that as soon as you
             switch, your advertisement will start pulling like mad.

                  With all this knowledge behind you, there will be times
             when things don't seem to be moving as fast as you'd like. A
             sluggish national economy may be slowing trade, making
             people afraid to spend. Perhaps the season is wrong for
             certain of your products. Whatever the reason, the following
             chapter may stimulate your ideas.