My Mail-Order
Career
Q: When did
you launch your mail-order business?
ME: I launched my
mail-order business during the same time I was publishing my own newsletters,
between 1995 and 1997.
Q: Why did you decide to go into
mail-order?
ME: Publishing mail-order catalogs was much like
publishing newsletters and magazines. I was in charge of every aspect of
design, content, printing, marketing, and distribution. I loved the creative
challenges of producing catalogs. Plus, venturing into something new (but
familiar) excited me.
Q: What mail-order catalogs did you
publish?
ME: I published three different mail-order catalogs;
they were:
• MarketSleuths, a mail-order catalog for
marketers and public relations agencies.
• Creative Agency,
a mail-order catalog for people who worked at advertising agencies.
• MasterFreelancers, a mail-order catalog for writers and
freelance writers.
I distributed my catalogs to my subscribers, my own
prospect list, and I rented mailing lists from magazines and other
catalogs.
Q: What was your biggest challenge?
ME: I
think my biggest challenge was making my catalogs compliant with postal
regulations and qualifying for bulk mailing rates. I had to use a special (and
costly) software program to verify each address and format each address
properly with a barcode. Then I had to hand sort thousands of catalogs
according to zip code, bundle them together, tag them, and then separate them
into different postal bags. My first two catalogs were not self-mailers, so I
had to fold thousands of them by hand and insert them into special envelopes
with my bulk permit # on them. I made my third catalog a self-mailer, but it
was still a pain to mail everything out.
Q: How long did your
mail-order business last?
ME: Barely two years. Producing
mail-order catalogs was very costly. Even with bulk-rate mailing, the cost for
postage was unbelievable. It was a challenge trying to turn a profit. Luckily,
the Internet came along and I adapted my mail-order catalogs into an online
webstore, MasterFreelancer.com. My webstore has been profitable every year
since its existence.
Q: Would you ever do mail-order
again?
ME: Absolutely not. It costs me practically nothing to
run my webstore. I can update and add new products in minutes. I can generate
traffic more easily, and convert browsers into buyers much quicker. I am an
Internet fanatic. I love what technology has given me.
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