HOW TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS WITH YOUR OWN MONEY-MAKING NEWSLETTER
Writing and publishing a successful newsletter is
perhaps the most competitive of all the different
areas of mail order and direct marketing. It's also
interesting to note that for every new one that's
started, some disappear just as quickly as they
are started - lack of operating capital and
marketing know how being the principal causes of
failure.
To be successful with a newsletter, you have to
specialise. Your best bet will be with new
information on a subject not already covered by
an established newsletter. Regardless of the
frustrations involved in launching your own
newsletter, never forget this truth: There are
people from all walks of life, in all parts of
the country, many of them with no writing ability
whatsoever, who are making incredible profits
with simple two, four or six page newsletters.
Your first step should be to subscribe to as many
different newsletters and mail order publications
as you can afford. Analyse and study how the
others are doing it. Attend as many workshops
and seminars on your subject as possible. Learn
from the pros. Learn how the successful
newsletter publishers are doing it, and why they
are making money. Adapt their success methods to
your own newsletter, but determine to recognise
where they are weak, and to make yours better in
every way.
Plan your newsletter before launching it. Know
the basic premise for its being, your editorial
position, the layout, art work, type styles,
subscription price, distribution methods, and
every other detail necessary to make it look,
sound and feel like the end result you have
envisioned.Lay out your start up needs; detail
the length of time it's going to take to become
established, and what will be involved in
becoming established. Set a date as a milestone
of accomplishment for each phase of your
development. A date for breaking even, a date
for attaining a certain paid subscription figure,
and a monetary goal for each of your first five
years in business. And all this must be done
before publishing your first issue.
Most newsletter publishers do all the work
themselves, and are impatient to get that first
issue into print. As a result, they neglect to
devote the proper amount of time to market
research and distribution. Don't start your
newsletter without first having accomplished this
task! Market research is simply determining who
the people are who will be interested in buying
and reading your newsletter, and the kind of
information these people want to see in your
newsletter as a reason for continuing to buy it.
You have to determine what it is they want from
your newsletter.
Your market research must give you unbiased
answers about your newsletter's capabilities of
fulfilling your prospective buyer's need for
information; how much he's willing to pay for it,
and an overall profile of his status in life.
The questions of why he needs your information,
and how he'll use it, should be answered. Make
sure you have the answers to these questions,
publish your newsletter as a vehicle of fulfil-
ment to these needs, and you're on your way!
You're going to be in trouble unless your
newsletter has a real point of difference that
can easily be perceived by your prospective
buyer. The design and graphics of your
newsletter, plus what you say and how you say it,
will help in giving your newsletter this vital
difference. Be sure your newsletter works with
the personality you're trying to build for it.
Make sure it reflects the wants of your
subscribers. Include your advertising promise
within the heading, on the title page, and in the
same words your advertising uses. And above all
else, don't skimp on design or graphics.
The name of your newsletter should also help to
set it apart from similar newsletters, and spell
out its advertising promise. A good name
reinforces your advertising. Choose a name that
defines the direction and scope of your
newsletter. Opportunity Knocking, Money Making
Magic, Extra Income Tip Sheet, and Mail Order Up
Date are prime examples of this type of
philosophy - as opposed to the Johnson Report,
The Association Newsletter, or Club House
Confidential.
Try to make your newsletter's name memorable -
one that flows automatically. Don't pick a name
that's so vague it could apply to almost
anything. The name should identify your
newsletter and its subject quickly and
positively.
Pricing your newsletter should be consistent with
the image you're trying to build. If you're
starting a "Me too" newsletter, never price it
above the competition. In most instances, the
consumer associates higher prices with quality,
so if you give your readers better quality
information in an expensive looking package,
don't hesitate to ask for a premium price.
However, if your information is gathered from
most of the other newsletters on the subject, you
will do well to keep your prices in line with
theirs.
One of the best selling points of a newsletter is
in the degree of audience involvement - for
instance, how much it talks about, and uses the
names of its readers. People like to see things
written about themselves. They resort to all
kinds of things to get their names in print, and
they pay big money to read what's been written
about them. You should understand this facet of
human nature, and decide if and how you want to
capitalise on it - then plan your newsletter
accordingly.
Almost as important as names in your newsletters
are pictures. The readers will generally accept
a newsletter faster if the publisher's picture is
presented or included as part of the newsletter.
Whether you use pictures of the people, events,
locations or products you write about is a policy
decision; but the use of pictures will set your
publication apart from the others and give it an
individual image, which is precisely what you
want.
The decision as to whether to carry paid
advertising, and if so, how much, is another
policy decision that should be made while your
newsletter is still in the planning stages. Some
purists feel that advertising corrupts the image
of the newsletter and may influence editorial
policy. Most people accept advertising as a part
of everyday life, and don't care one way or the
other.
Many newsletter publishers, faced with rising
production costs, and viewing advertising as a
means of offsetting those costs, welcome paid
advertising. Generally, the advertisers see the
newsletter as a vehicle to a captive audience,
and well worth the cost. The only problem with
accepting advertising in your newsletter would
appear to be that as your circulation grows, so
will your number of advertisers, until you'll
have to increase the size of your newsletter to
accommodate the advertisers. At this point, the
basic premise or philosophy of the newsletter
often changes from news and practical information
to one of an advertiser's showcase.
Promoting your newsletter, finding prospective
buyers and converting these prospects into loyal
subscribers, will be the most difficult task of
your entire undertaking. It takes detailed
planning, persistence and patience. You'll need a
sales letter. Check the sales letters you
receive in the mail: analyse how these are
written and pattern yours along the same lines.
You'll find all of them - all those worthy of
being called sales letters - following the same
formula: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action
on the part of the reader- AIDA.
Jump right in at the beginning and tell the
reader how he's going to benefit from your
newsletter, and then keep emphasising right on
through your "PS", the many and different
benefits he'll gain from subscribing to your
newsletter. Elaborate on your listing of
benefits with examples of what you have, or you
intend to include, in your newsletter.
Follow these examples with endorsements or
testimonials from reviewers and satisfied
subscribers. Make the recipient of your sales
letter feen that you're offering him the answer
to all his problems on the subject of your
newsletter. You have to make your prospect feel
that "this is the insider's secret" to the
success he wants. Present it to him as his own
personal key to success, and then tell him how
far behind his contemporaries he is going to be
if he doesn't act upon your offer immediately.
Always include a "PS" in your sales letter. This
should quickly restate to the reader that he can
start enjoying the benefits of your newsletter by
acting immediately, and very subtly suggesting
that he might not get another chance to get the
kind of "success help" you're offering him with
this sales letter. Don't worry about the length
of your sales letter - most are four page or
more; however, it must flow logically and
smoothly. Use short sentences, short paragraphs,
indented paragraphs, and lots of sub headings for
the people who will be scanning through your
sales letter.
In addition to the sales letter, your promotion
package should include a return reply order card
or coupon. This can either be a self addressed
business reply envelope, or a separate coupon.
In every mailing piece you send out, always
include one or the other: either a self-addressed
business reply postcard or a self addressed
return reply envelope for the recipient to use to
send your order form and his remittance back to
you.
Your best response will come from a business
reply postcard on which you request your prospect
to charge the subscription to his credit card,
request that you bill him, or send his payment
with the subscription order form. For make up of
this subscription order card or coupon, simply
start saving all the order cards and coupons you
receive during the next month or so. Choose the
one you like best, modify according to your
needs, and have it typeset, pasted up and border
fit. Next, you'll need a Subscription Order
Acknowledgement card or letter. This is simply a
short note thanking your new subscriber for his
order, and promising to keep him up to date with
everything relating to the subject of your
newsletter. So far, you've prepared the layout
and copy for your newsletter. Go ahead and have a
hundred copies printed, undated. You've written
a sales letter and prepared a return reply
subscription card or coupon, go ahead and have a
hundred of these printed also, undated of course.
You'll need envelopes, and don't forget business
reply envelopes if you are using coupons instead
of postcards. Have a thousand mailing envelopes
printed. You also need subscription order
acknowledgement cards or notes; have a hundred of
these printed, and of course, don't forget the
imprinted reply envelopes if you're going along
with the idea of using a note instead of a
postcard. This will be a basic supply for
"testing" your materials so far.
Now you're ready for the big move - the
Advertising Campaign. Start by placing a small
classified ad in one of your local newspapers.
You should place your ad in a weekend or Sunday
paper that will reach as many people as possible,
and of course, do everything you can to keep your
costs as low as possible. However, do not skimp
on your advertising budget. To be successful -
to make as much money as is possible with your
idea-you'll have to reach as many people as you
can afford, and as often as you can. Over the
years we have launched several hundred
advertising campaigns. We always ran new ads for
a minimum of three issues, and kept close tabs on
the returns. So long as the returns kept coming
in, we continued running that ad in that
publication, while adding a new publication to
test for results. To our way of thinking, this
is the best way to go, regardless of the product,
to successfully multiplying your customer list.
Move slowly. Start with a local, far-reaching
and widely read paper, and with the profits or
returns from that ad, go to the regional
magazines, or one of the smaller national
magazines, and continue ploughing your returns
into more advertising in different publications.
By taking your time, and building your acceptance
in this manner, you won't lose too much if one of
your ads should prove to be a dud. Stay with the
advertising. Do not abandon it in favor of
direct mail. We would not recommend direct mail
until you are well established, and your national
classified advertising program is bringing in a
healthy profit for you.
Do not become overly ambitious and go out on a
limb with expensive full page advertising until
you're very well established. When you do buy
full page advertising, start with the smaller
publications, and build from those results. Have
patience: keep close tabs on your costs per
subscriber, and build from the profits on your
advertising. Always test the advertising medium
you want to use with a classified ad, and if it
pulls well for you, go on to a larger display
type ad.
Classified advertising is the least expensive way
to go, so long as you use the "inquiry method".
You can easily and quickly build your subscriber
list with this type of advertisement. We would
not recommend any attempts to sell subscriptions,
or any product from classified ads, or even from
small display ads. There just isn't enough space
to describe the product adequately, and seeing
the cost of your item, many possible subscribers
will not bother to inquire for the full story.
When you do expand your efforts into direct mail,
go straight to a national list broker. You can
find their names and addresses in the yellow
pages. Show the list broker your product, and
your mailing piece, and explain what type of
people you want to reach, and allow them to help
you. Once you've decided on a list to use, go
slowly. Start with a sampling of 5,000 names. If
the returns are favorable, go for 10,000 names,
and then 15,000 and so on through the entire
list. Never rent the entire list based upon the
results from your first couple of samplings. The
variables are just too many, and too complicated,
and too conducive to your losing your shirt when
you "roll out an entire list" based upon returns
from a controlled sampling. There are a number of
other methods for finding new subscribers, which
we'll explore for you here, dealing with the good
and the bad as we have researched them.
One method is that of contracting with what is
know as telesales agencies. These are soliciting
agencies, who hire people to sell via the phone,
or sometimes door to door, almost always using a
high pressure sales approach. The publisher
usually makes about 5% from each subscription
sold by one of these agencies. That speaks for
itself.
Then, there are several major catalogue sales
companies that sell subscriptions to school
libraries, government agencies and large
corporations. These people usually buy through
these catalogue sales companies rather than
direct from the publisher. The publisher makes
about 10% on each subscription sold for him by
one of these agencies.
Co-Op Mailings are generally piggy back mailings
of your subscription offer along with numerous
other business offers in the same envelope.
Smaller mail order entrepreneurs do this under
the name of Big Mail Offers. Coming into vogue
now are the Postcard mailers. You submit your
offer on a business reply postcard; the packager
then prints and mails your postcard in a package
with 40 or 50 similar postcards via the post, to
a mailing list that could number 100,000 or more.
You pay a premium price for this type of mailing,
but the returns are very good usually, and you
keep all the incoming money.
Another form of co-op mailing is that where you
supply a charge card company or department store
with your subscription offer as a "statement
mailing stuffer". Your offer goes out with the
monthly statements; new subscriptions are
returned to the mailer and billed to the
customer's charge card. The publisher usually
makes about 50% on each subscription. This is
one of the most lucrative, but expensive methods
of bringing in new customers.
Most newspapers will carry small, lightweight
brochures or reply cards as inserts in their
Sunday papers. The publisher supplies the total
number of inserts, pays the newspaper about $40
per thousand for the number of newspapers he
wants his order form carried in, and then retains
all the money generated. But the high costs of
printing the inserts, plus the $40 per thousand
for distribution, make this an extremely costly
method of obtaining new subscribers. Attempting
to sell subscriptions via radio or TV is very
expensive and works better in generating sales at
the newsagents than new subscriptions. Newsletter
publishers often run exchange publicity
endorsements with non competing publishers.
Generally, these endorsements invite the reader
of newsletter "A" to send for a sample copy of
newsletter "B" for a look at what somebody else
is doing that might be of special help, etc. This
can be a very good source of new subscriptions,
and certainly the east expensive.
Running ads in the mail order ad sheets is not
very productive, either in terms of inquiries or
sales. About the best thing that can be said of
most of these ad sheets (and there seems to be
hundreds of them), is that your ad in several of
them will let other people know what you are
doing. Last, but not least, is the enlistment of
your own subscribers to send you names of people
they think might be interested in receiving a
sample copy Of your publication. Some publishers
ask their readers to pass along these names out
of loyalty, while others offer a monetary
incentive or a special bonus for names of people
sent in who become subscribers. By studying and
understanding the information in this report, you
should encounter fewer serious problems in
launching your own specialised newsletter that
will be the source of ongoing monetary rewards
for you. However, there is an important point to
remember about doing business by mail -
particularly within the confines of selling
information by mail - that is, Mail Order is ONLY
another way of doing business. You have to learn
all there is to know about this way of doing
business, and then on learning, changing,
observing and adapting to stay on top.
The best way of learning about and keeping up
with this field of endeavour is by buying and
reading books by the people who have succeeded in
making money via the mails; by subscribing to
several of the better periodic journals and aids
to people in mail order, and by joining some of
the mail order associations for a free exchange
of ideas, advice and help.
