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What is a Big Mail? If you are a total
beginner to the mail order world, you will have no idea what the
term means. Before I knew better, I used to think a Big Mail was
just a big envelope containing some type of free samples. As I found
out later, my interpretation was right. Unfortunately though, I
paid for 100's of Big Mails and ended up instead with a bunch of
junk.
In the 1950's and 1960's, small mail order
businesses would keep all the junk mail that came in the door. They
would then recycle it by offering it as a Big Mail to people who
would send a required number of postage stamps to help with the
mailing. Inside these Big Mails were publications, articles and
free samples of newsletters and other small business stuff that
was interesting to most people getting started.
Then, somewhere in the 1970's or so, someone
got the bright idea to make money with Big Mails from both sides.
First they would charge other small businesses a fee for mailing
copies of their flyers in their Big Mails. These prices ranged around
$12.00 for 1,000, 8½x11, pre-printed circulars. The other
small business had to pay the cost of having the circulars printed
as well as shipping them pre-printed to the Big Mail company to
place in their mailings. They didn't save any money because a large
majority of the Big Mail company's would receive the pre-printed
circulars, throw them in the garbage and keep the money. There was
no way to legitimately prove that the Big Mailer had actually mailed
a particular circular in a group of 100's.
It didn't take long for lazy people to
be attracted to the offer from the Big Mailer. They were people
who didn't want to work on their marketing skills but would rather
pay someone else to do the work for them. With greed playing against
greed the whole concept of a Big Mail blew entirely out of proportion
and today we have Junk Mail instead of Big Mail.
But you can start a trend and revert back
to the old original concept of a Big Mail. Believe me if you do,
you will stick out like a beam of light in a sea of darkness. You
can actually develop some profit-making techniques too. Here's how
. . .
Select a general theme for your Big Mails
such as books, software, Internet, network marketing, publishing,
printing, etc. Only allow each Big Mail to contain circulars, ads,
flyers, samples and sales literature from a variety of companies
that sell similar products.
A Big Mail should actually be like a mail
order catalog you would get in your mail. Let's use Lillian Vernon
as an example. Now Lillian handles a wide variety of different products
but the general theme of the catalog is home-oriented, consumer-based
products for the general public. You never see Lillian Vernon selling
automobiles, computer systems or tickets to the next Bob Segar concert.
Then consider more targeted catalogs such
as The Catalog of Catalogs which allow readers to choose free sample
issues of various publications. This way, the creators of this concept
can cover a wide range of different tastes from cooking to homebased
business to children's magazines. But The Catalog of Catalogs still
carries a general theme . . . and that is that all the products
being offered are catalogs.
I hope I have helped to re-direct your
line of thinking when offering Big Mails. Help put an end to the
junk and making the USPS rich!!
