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.

    Five years ago, there were 1500 different newsletters in this
    country.  Today there are well over 10,000, with new ones being
    started every day.  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 specialize. 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 this country, many of them with no
    writing ability whatsoever, who are making incredible profits with
    simple two-, four-, and six-page newsletters!

    Your first step should be to subscribe to as many different
    newsletters and mail order publications as you can afford. Analyze
    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 recognize 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 with out 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 fulfillment 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 be easily 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 skim on design or graphics!

    The name of your newsletter should also help to set it apart from
    similar news letters, 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 primate 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
    capitalize upon it - then plan your newsletter accordingly.

    Almost as important as names in your newsletter are pictures. The
    readers will generally accept a newsletter faster if the publisher's
    picture is presented or included as a 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; analyze 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 emphasizing 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 feel 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 may 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
    pages or more; however, it must flow logically and smoothly. Use
    short sentences, short paragraphs, indented paragraphs, and lots of
    sub-heads 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 be either a
    self-addressed business reply post card, or a separate coupon, in
    which case you'll have to include a self-addressed return reply
    envelope.  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 allow your prospect to charge the subscription to his credit
    card, request that you bill him, or send his payment with the
    subscription start order.

    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 Acknowledgment 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.

    An acknowledgment letter, in an envelope, will cost more postage to
    mail than a simple postcard; however, when you send the letter you
    have to opportunity to enclose additional material.  A circular
    listing other items available through you will produce additional
    orders.

    Thus 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 order card
    or coupon; go ahead and have a hundred of these printed, also
    undated, of course.  You'll need letterhead mailing envelopes, and
    don't forget the return reply envelopes if you choose to use the
    coupons instead of the business reply postcard.  Go ahead and have a
    thousand mailing envelopes printed. You also need subscription order
    acknowledgment 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. How ever,
    do not skimp on your advertising budget.  To be successful -to make
    as much money as possible with your idea - you'll need to reach as
    many people as you can afford, and as often as you can.

    Over the years, you'll launch several hundred advertising campaigns.
    Always run new ads for a minimum of three issues and keep close tabs
    on the returns.  So long as the returns keep coming in, continue
    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 multiply 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
    plowing 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 of 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 section of your local telephone directory. Show the
    list broker your product and your mailing piece, and explain what
    type 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 returns 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, detailing the good and the bad as
    we have researched them.

    One method is that of contracting with what is known as a
    "cash-field" agency.  These are soliciting agencies who hire people
    to sell door-to-door and via the phone, almost always using a high
    pressure sales approach.  The publisher usually makes only about 5%
    from each subscription sold by one of these agencies. That speaks
    for itself.

    Then, there are several major catalog sales companies that sell
    subscriptions to school libraries, government agencies and large
    corporations.  These people usually buy through these catalog 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 third class mail to a mailing list that
    could number 100,000 or more.  You pay a premium price for this type
    of mailing - usually $1000 to $1500 per mailing, but the returns are
    very good and you keep all the incoming money.

    Another form of co-op mailing is where you supply a charge card
    company or department store with your subscription offer as a
    "statement mailing suffer."  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.

    Direct mail agencies such as Publishers Clearing House can be a very
    lucrative source of new subscriptions, in that they mail out more
    than 60 million pieces of mail each year, all of which are built
    around an opportunity for the recipient to win a gigantic cash
    sweepstakes.  The only problem with this type of subscription agency
    is the very low percentage of the total subscription price the
    publisher receives from these subscriptions, plus the fact that the
    publishers are required to charge a lower subscription rate than
    they normally charge.

    There are also several agencies that offer Introductory, Sample Copy
    and Trial Subscription offers, such as Select Information Exchange
    and Publisher Exchange.  With this kind of agency, details about
    your publication are listed along with similar publications, in full
    page ads inviting the readers to send $10 or $20 for trial
    subscription to those of his choice. The publishers received no
    money from these inquiries - only a list of names of people
    interested in receiving trial subscriptions.  How the publisher
    follows up and is able to convertthese into full term, and paying
    subscribers is entirely dependent upon his own efforts.

    Most major newspapers will carry small, lightweight brochures or
    oversized reply cards as inserts in their Sunday papers.  The
    publisher supplies the total number of inserts, pays the newspaper
    $20 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 $20 per thousand for
    distribution, make this an extremely costly method of obtaining new
    subscribers.

    Schools, civic groups and other fund raising organizations work in
    about the same manner as the cash-field agencies.  They supply the
    solicitor and the publisher gets 25% or less for each new
    subscription sold.

    Attempting to sell subscriptions via radio or TV is very expensive
    and works better in generating sales at the newsstands than new
    subscriptions.  PI (Per Inquiry) sales is a very popular way of
    getting radio or TV exposure and advertising for your newsletter or
    other publication, but again, the number of sales brought in by the
    broadcast media is very small when compared with the number of times
    the "invitation commercial" has to be "aired" to elicit a response.

    A new idea beginning to surface on the cable TV scene is "Products
    Shows".  This is the kind of show where the originator of the
    product or his representative appears on TV and gives a complete
    sales presentation lasting from five minutes to 15 minutes.
    Overall, these programs generally run between midnight and 2 AM,
    with the whole program a series of sales presentations for different
    products.  They operate on the basis of the product owner paying a
    fee to appear and show his product, and also from an arrangement
    where the product owner pays a certain percentage from each sale
    generated from this exposure.

    Newsletter publishers often run exchange publicity endorsement 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 going that might be of especial
    help, etc.  This can be a very good source of new subscriptions, and
    certainly the least 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 a
    million of them with new ones cropping up faster than you can count
    them) is that your ad in several of them will let other people in on
    what you're doing.  You will be able to keep track of a lot of the
    people trying to make a place for themselves in the mail order
    field.

    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 be come subscribers.

    By studying and understanding the information in this report, you
    should encounter fewer serious problems in launching your own
    successful specialized 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 keep on learning,
    changing, observing and adapting to stay on top.

    The best way of learning about and keeping up with this field of
    endeavor 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 trade associations for a free
    exchange of ideas, advice and help.