The Road to Big Profits

Maps serve a purpose. People use it for directions. They trust it and depend on it to get them where they want to go. It tells them where the local attractions are, and other places if interest, particularly among tourists – the people who use maps the most.

Considering the credibility and the power of maps as a printed medium, it takes an entrepreneur 2 seconds to realize that there’s money in maps… as an advertising vehicle.

You can design your city map to be as large as 28″ x 40″ which can be printed by commercial print houses with large format presses. Or you can use the 11″ x 17″ format and bring it to your neighborhood quick printer.

The Map

What you’re going to make a map of is as critical as deciding about how you’re going to do it. These are the two questions that will make the foundation of your business.

Big cities are very seldom a great market for City Maps. However, if you break them apart and make maps for selected business districts, even down to selected neighborhoods, the taking is plenty.

Focus on dense retail districts. Target those with neighboring restaurant row, historical spots or other tourist attractions.

Purchase reprint rights of already existing maps as this would prove significantly easier and more cost efficient than producing one yourself.

Cartoon styled maps may be visually entertaining, but they are seldom useful. You will probably attract more advertisers if you can equate your advertising rates with potential use.

Advertisers

Position advertising blocks on the outer edge of the map area. Depending of the size of your map and the paper you plan to print it in, you can have as many or as few “blocks” to offer for advertising. Encourage your advertisers to buy more than one block of advertising. This will not only make your map look more exclusive, it will also make your selling ad spaces get done a lot sooner.

Producing How-TO CD’s

The CD is entitled: “This CD Can Make You Filthy Rich”, and It’s about producing how-to CDs – a concept whose time has come. At $15 each, plus $3 shipping & handling, the producer of CD will gross $18,000 selling 1,000 CDs.

Minimum Start-Up: $2,500
Average Start-Up: $5,000
Revenue: $12,000
One Person Business: Yes

The production cost is quite small. The audio program was written by the producer who brought the script to a “Narration House” where a professional announcer does the voice recording using a professional studio.

NARRATION HOUSES

You can order radio commercials as well as other “voice” recorded programs to be produced by so-called “narration houses”.

This business is usually run by a professional announcer who owns or has access to a professional recording studio.

Just send your script to a narration house and have thim record it for you. The amount you are charged depends on the length of your material and the type of tape on which you want your “master copy” recorded. A 30-minute material may cost you $450.

THE INTERVIEW FORMAT

Another popular format for a How-To CD is what we call the “Interview” format.

This is where the author or producer of the CD is interviewed on a subject in which he or she is an expert.

Since this format is prepared on a “question and answer” basis, it is relatively easy to structure, allowing for a more logical presentation of the ideas the author wants to cover.

With this format, the author can prepare 30 to 50 questions which, together with the answers, can be edited down to a 30 to 40 minute program.

Depending on where the interview is produced, this format may cost less than a straight presentation where the bulk of the work uses the voice of a professional narrator.

YOUR MARKET

In a “How-To” project, it is always recommended that you select your topics based on your expertise or access to information.

From a marketing standpoint, it is equally beneficial for you to be familiar with the market to which you expect to market your How-To CD.

If your topic is very selective, use direct mail to market your CDs. If it is an extremely popular topic that can be promoted on TV, use 60-second TV spots or print ads.

Prepaid Long Distance

The next money-maker in the long distance telephone business will be focused on the way we buy and pay for long distance service.

PAY PHONES & OTHER STUFF

In the past, technological advancement in telecommunications services has opened doors for entrepreneurs to make money selling services.

Private-Party owned Pay Phones spread like wildfire, and 25c Per-Minute Long Distance Flat Rate Billing was introduced and gobbled up by an excited marketplace.

PAY NOW, CALL LATER

Prepaid Long Distance service is nothing more than a marketing person’s dream of being able to charge for something that need not be delivered right away.

Here’s how it works:

1. You walk into a convenience store and buy a Phone Card for $10, or any denomination it is being sold.
2. When the time comes for you to use the card, simply edial the toll-free 800 number and enter the 14-digit code printed on the card.
3. An automated operator’s voice comes on the line and announces that you have $10 worth of long distance calling available to you.
4. A dial tone comes on and you enter the area code and phone number you want to call.

PLUS & MINUS

Prepaid Long Distance and collecting Phone Cards are now a big craze in Japan. Phone Cards are now being traded like baseball cards, with values in excess of $1,000

Companies giveaway free long distance service as premiums and incentives, and then print their names on the Cards that they giveaway.

But in spite of all thes fads, Prepaid Long Distance has some built-in disadvantages that need to be corrected to guarantee its success.

Here are a few:

• We are a credit-based society. We are not accustomed to paying in advance for services we are not using at the time of purchase.
• The rates marketing companies are charging are relatively higher than basic phone company rates.
• As a business, long distance resellers and marketers will be competing for the same consumer “penny”.

Mixed with something novel or commercially accepted, prepaid phone cards may just make it big in the U.S.