My first experience as a mail order customer was getting enough pennies together to wad them up inside of a piece of paper, stuffing them into an envelope, sticking a bunch of stamps on it, and putting it into that magical mailbox at the end of my driveway.

I was mailing them off to that "secret" place where they grew the amazing toy poodle figurines that changed different colors to indicate what the weather was going to be like. I remember pink being a specifically important color change for these poodles.

In that little Texas town (now the not so little town of Irving), the lazy summers did not have a whole lot going on. So, I went out to the mailbox five or six times a day, my heart beating fast, hoping to find my "weather poodle" waiting for me. This went on for several months until I finally forgot about it, but not entirely. I'm not sure why it never arrived, but I can bet it was because when my wad of pennies stuffed into an envelope arrived at the post office, it was promptly chewed into a million pieces by the machines that sort the mail. This was, of course, before I knew that sending cash in the mail was illegal.

I cannot quite remember what the ad said that induced me to send my life savings off in the mail, but I do remember the picture of the poodle in the ad. I can still see it as if it was yesterday. Why am I taking a walk down memory lane with mail order memories? To illustrate what great ads are composed of, and to encourage you to use what works.

My brothers fell for the x-ray glasses that were supposed to allow you to see through any woman's clothing. (grin) Amazing product? No, amazingly effective ad. You can put the right elements into your Internet advertising that the mail order greats put into their tiny little ads back then.

I began my own mail order career in 1985 after hearing the story about the woman who advertised in a magazine with a tiny classified that offered her "special" chocolate cake recipe for one dollar. When she went to her post office box, it was stuffed so full that she had to get help carrying it all. There were also bags waiting behind the counter because they would not all fit into her post office box.

My fascination with receiving letters and catalogs in the mail made my own experience with mail order exciting. I found out later that although I did not make a ton of money back then (I had a bit of a problem with following instructions from those who had come before me), it taught me a lot about how to sell on the Internet even before the Internet came to be.

Learning the concepts that made a great mail order ad will take you a long way towards your own website's success. Some things never change. Great ads will still out-pull responses over bad ones. These old mail order ad methods helped me build my first online store of computers and computer accessories. The store sold thousands of dollars worth of inventory in just a few weeks. Almost by accident, I discovered the secret to Internet sales. It was, of course, information. My site had FAQs about computer configurations, different types of processors, what products I personally liked over others and why. This FAQ page was one of the most highly visited pages I had. It was kind of like a condensed technical manual on how to install different things in your computer, what things were compatible and what were not compatible. This type of information builds something crucial to the success of your website - credibility.

You can sell a lot of things on the Internet as long as you provide free background information about those things on your site. Want to sell lots of underwear for dogs on your site? Provide a whole section of background information about why dogs need to wear underwear. Just an example. You get the picture. It's like the guy I mention in my book who sells out of all the peacocks he raises every year. His website is all about peacocks. It started out to just be a hobby site of his interest in peacocks.

Handle your website the same way. Pretend you are someone else coming to your site who has lots of interest in a particular subject. Would you find what you were looking for on that subject? On the way to the research room, they trip over your online store. Get the picture? I'll discuss this in another article later, but this small bit of information should get you thinking differently about how your website sells.

One of the very first books I ever read was by one of the absolute greats in mail order, Mr. Melvin Powers of Wilshire Book Company. This book was called "How to Get Rich in Mail Order". He has since updated this classic to incorporate Internet references.

You can read about Melvin Powers' famous book by visiting this website address: http://www.r66cci.com and clicking on the Online store button.

One of the best things about this book was his discussions of famous mail order entrepreneurs and their winning ads.

Here is a really quick analysis of these great ads to find a few of their winning elements. My book "The Little Website That Could" (due out soon from the publisher) discusses this subject in great detail. Come back to visit soon so you can find out when this book is available.

One element I find especially effective is the personal picture. It can look like any of the following:
Picture of them by themselves, dressed nicely, looking all nice and friendly-like or very authoritative and serious (depends really on what you're selling)
Picture of them sailing, skiing, fishing, or whatever it is they enjoyed as a hobby
A really nice picture of them with their spouse or whole family
The Internet has become kind of impersonal, even though it was based on the "community" concept. People want to know what you look like. Are you normal and a friendly-looking person? Do you look honest?

Some of the cheesiest ads (my opinion only) in mail order have been the ones with a guy or girl standing next to a mercedes automobile, in front of a huge house. Is that their house or did they lease it for the picture? Same with the car. It usually looked like they went into a Mercedes auto sales showroom and slipped the salesperson a hundred dollars to allow them to have their picture taken next to one! Maybe that's not even them in the picture. It has to be credible and believeable.

No doubt, these ads did well because I kept seeing them over and over again. I just did not find them intriguing enough to get me to respond to the ad. The more personal picture, I believe, is what people like. I am not so crazy about an ad where someone seems to be bragging about their new-found, supposed wealth. It somehow made the ad a little unbelieveable to me. People who visit your website need to trust you. This is the winning element that encourages them to become your lifetime customer. You can sell them once by mistake sometimes, but keeping them as a customer for life who recommends you by word-of-mouth is a rare thing indeed. It is built on that "community" element of the Internet.

I was reading an article recently (sorry, I cannot, for the life of me, remember where). It was written by a guy who consults with large companies about their web presence. One comment he made especially stuck with me. He said that just because some of the big names put a flashy ad on the web of their name for brand recognition does not make for good Internet strategy. He said the best Internet strategy is the one that truly incorporates the customer. What does the customer want? This is what really drives what the content of your website should be. Gives a powerful message to website owners that we often forget there are people at the other end of the computer screen, and they MUST trust you above all else. Honesty, honesty, honesty. You don't want to be a hit-and-run website. Too many of those. It is better to be remembered by people as the company that actually had people running it, not machines. The picture of you helps your visitors identify with who you really are, not what your company does.

Some of the other elements I found to be very effective were the attention-grabbing headlines, the inclusion of a clip coupon at the end of the ad, and the guarantee. As mentioned before, my book will discuss in much greater detail all the elements of a great ad. The ones using the elements mentioned above got me the most response. Remember Mark Haroldsen's "Awaken the financial genius in you"? How about Joe Karbo's "Lazy Man's Way to Riches"? They appealed to all of us. Everyone thinks they've just got to have a genius in there somewhere that's going to make them rich, and everyone is lazy at one time or another.

What about the Ginzu knife commercials on television? Everyone hates a dull knife, and we all have a kitchen full of them. I still have my grandmother's Ginzu knives hanging around, and they're still good! That is a rare thing for some of the old mail order products to actually still work.

Apply the principles of great mail order ads to your next sales campaign on the web. Study old ads in magazines. Try to visit a used bookstore where they might have old copies of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science or comic books. These used to be the best places to advertise back in the "old days" of print media.

Mr. Power's book is a great source of examples of the ads that worked.

Don't copy what others did, but find the common elements.

You'll likely find that what worked for them then can work for you now! Success to you!

Lynne Schlumpf
Author of the upcoming book "The Little Website That Could"
http://www.r66cci.com
lynne@r66cci.com
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