Print & Mail Advertising – The Alternative Method!! (written February, 2001)

I hope this business is bringing you much deserved fun and the excitement of spending time with your family. It has for me. I have been very fortunate to be able to be self-sufficient for many years now! Being able to spend time with my family on a daily basis has been the greatest blessing in disguise for me. If you have not succeeded in your home-based business yet, keep plugging away because when you do, the rewards, the disappointments, the frustration and all the time you put into your business will be well worth it and deserved. Let’s start today off right with some important information regarding print and mail advertising services.

Before we begin, let me emphasize that this article only applies to the many legitimate print and mail dealers out there. The surest way to make sure you are not ripped off by anyone is to contact them by telephone or to contact them by mail and to ask for a few samples of their mailings. Then when you get their samples, you can contact their advertisers and you can also analyze the quality of what they are doing right before your eyes. There should be no guess work involved! Someone trying to rip you off probably will not be able to provide you with sample mailings and many of them do not have a phone number to begin with. So save yourself a little aggravation and ask for samples and their telephone number. This will save you from being ripped off from the non-legitimate print and mail advertisers that we see popping up each day. There are not many of them, but to me, one is way too many in my mind and if we all take a little precaution, we can avoid the mishap of being ripped off.

One of the dilemmas facing legitimate print and mail dealers is that not only are the few rip off artists out there impossible to compete with, but a more pressing issue – the false expectations people have regarding their advertising order. These expectations are usually given to distributors by the uplines trying to get them involved in what they are doing in the first place. Print and mail advertising is an alternative way than doing it yourself. You can lump in this stack – publications and card decks also.  When you place an ad for print and mail advertising (or a card deck or a publication), you are telling yourself that you don’t mind letting someone else handle all the costs for one discounted rate and all the effort to put together a mailing, but you are also acknowledging the fact you will get a response rate probably less than you would normally get yourself with your own mailings. The false expectation many an unscrupulous upline may tell potential new distributors is that you will get a 2% response, which may be true when you mail out a flyer by itself without any other offers, but common sense tells us that if you mail your flyer with 10 other offers, you will not get that same 2% response. This should be common sense. Then why is it when many people order from legitimate print & mail advertisers and get a less than an expected response, they would even compare it to mailing it by itself? False expectations created by “air” – that is a shame. Many times, being a print and mail advertiser & publisher myself, I find myself scratching my head in disbelief and total frustration because so many good people trying to make some extra money to help pay their bills have such a false hope of what a business opportunity is all about and what a print & mail advertiser and a publisher are all about.

Before you get involved with any opportunity, understand you will have to make choices about the promotions you do based on how much time you have and how much money you have. The more you advertise, the better chance you have of success. Did you notice that I said, “chance?”  If you advertise, that does not mean you will succeed, but if you don’t advertise, you certainly will fail. That’s a fact my friends. Print & mail advertising, publishing and card decks are the alternative to doing it yourself and all legitimate print and mail advertisers and publishers want you to succeed just as much a syou do. That’s another fact my friends.

Which way is best? Doing it yourself or using the alternative method? This depends on many factors, but here is a quick test you can try to see which is better for you. Spend between $100 and $200 with a print and mail advertiser. Then spend the same amount of money, and mail out as much as you can for your own single piece mailings. So if you spend $200 with a print and mail advertiser, spend another $200 and mail out as many as you can by itself on your own. Do this for three consecutive months. Tally up your results. Whichever pulled in the most response is the way you should go for that opportunity. This is how you compare “apples vs. apples”. Some people will find print & mail is the way to go and some people will find that doing the mailing themselves is the way to go. Testing should be fun, so run with it and have a great time! Talk to you soon!

The author of this article is Larry Costello, President of All-American Print & Mail, 2200 Wilson Blvd #102-57, Arlington, VA 22201.