The only way to make any significant money in mail order is to acquire and keep loyal customers. The way to acquire them is to offer them a bargain they can't refuse. The way to keep them is to meet their expectations (not your own) every time out.
I recently ordered a $29.95 booklet. According to the author/publisher, I was getting "over 100 pages" of explicit advice on how to start and operate a successful home publishing business.
"Not bad," I thought. "That's only 28 cents a page."
When the booklet arrived, I tore open the package and began to devour my new booklet. The first ten pages were autobiographical stuff I had no interest in and which shed no light on how I could become a successful home publisher. That came out to $2.80 down the tubes.
Of the next 90 pages, 60 did deal with home publishing. Thirty didn't. That's another $8.40 for a total of $11.20.
The 60 pages--about $16 worth--that did indeed deal with the topic, unfortunately, did so poorly. Not only were these pages filled with misspelling, poor sentence structure and bad grammar--which kept taking my mind off the subject of the booklet--but there was virtually nothing new. Every piece of information the booklet contained was information I'd read in twenty other places. The author didn't even go to the trouble of approaching his information form a different angle.
To make matters worse, the last 22 of the booklet's "over 100 pages" was a "back-of- the-book" catalog. I had paid this writer $6.16 so he could try to sell me something else. Now, I don't have a problem with a back-of-the-book catalog. As a matter of fact, I usually enjoy them. And even, on occasion, buy from them.
The problem I had with this particular booklet is that the author raised my expectations unrealistically. He advertised "over 100 pages" of information. And that, I felt, I should have gotten. It is, after all, what I paid for.
If the guy had advertised "90 pages" of information and stuck his back-of-the-book catalog in, I would probably have been satisfied. I'd have even forgiven him for the 10 boring pages of autobiography he forced me to slog through.
Needless to say, I was upset. I had actually paid $16 for what information there was and $13.95 for the junk! Okay, so he got my $29.95. I didn't, however, buy any of his back-of-the-book offerings. Nor will I buy anything else from him in the future.
The lesson here is clear. If you want to acquire and keep good repeat buying customers, you must Meet Their Expectations. You must do so with your initial offer and with each subsequent offer you send them.
Each time your customers are satisfied, they are prime prospects for your other offers. Each time you fail to meet their expectations, they're gone.
