BJM Free Press

There are many legitimate ways to get discount advertising, and many ways to get so-called “free” advertising.  This report isn’t about getting a press release into a magazine, or publicity, or anything like that.  This is a way to get the cost of your ADS 100% covered, so that your advertising costs you nothing.  If done right, you’ll even profit from it.  There is some work involved, but it’s easy, enjoyable work.

First, you need to have your own display ads ready to use.  These can be one column inch, two column inch, 3″ x 6″ or whatever size.  What you are going to do is to create your own ad sheet.  In other words, you will put your ads on a page, then sell the rest of the space to other advertisers who want to reach the same market as you.  Their payments will cover the cost of YOUR ads reaching that market.  Ideally, you will have some small ads on one side of the page, with other advertisers taking the rest of that side, then you can have either more ads or a full page flyer on the back side, with all costs covered, INCLUDING your mailing expenses.

Here’s a short course in creating an ad sheet.  First, create a heading on a piece of paper.  Don’t make it too big, because you’ll take up valuable ad space.  Try to keep it to one inch tall.  Leave room for your ad rates, which we’ll figure out later.  Next, divide the rest of the page the long way into three columns.  If you use a one inch heading, and leave a quarter-inch margin on the top and bottom, you’ll have three columns that are seven inches tall, or 21 column inches (3 columns x 7 inches).  If you figure your ad rates at $5 per inch, going to 1,000 opportunity seekers, you can get a maximum of $105 from a one-sided ad sheet.  If you use both sides, you can get a maximum of $225 (you get an extra inch of advertising per column on the back side, since you don’t need the heading).

How do you get other advertisers?  Buy inexpensive ads in the ad sheets you receive in the mail.  You can use the least expensive, one column inch ads.  Tell the name of your ad sheet, the circulation, the ad rates, and, of course, your name and address.  This is all you have to do.  If your rates are competitive with the other ad sheets, you’ll get the advertisers.  Don’t worry.  When you receive their ads and payments, just stick their ad to your ad sheet.  When it’s full, with their ads and yours, you’re ready to get it out.

Now, you might have thought about the costs to reach 1,000 people.  Printing them will be $20 – $30.  First class postage, which costs $.29 at this time, would be $290 alone.  How can you cover that, along with printing expenses, with only $225 or less?  There are a few different ways.  First, you can advertise a “big mail.”  Do this with one inch ad sheet ads.  Tell people they can receive a collection of your best offers free by sending postage.  Put together a selection of your advertising flyers, along with your ad sheet, and the envelope you will be sending them in.  Weigh them to get the number of ounces, and find out the required postage.  Put that amount in your ad (“send three first class stamps to:”).  You will get a lot of orders that way.

Another way is to use a circular mailing service.  These are usually run by people who have their own offers that they want to mail for a lower cost.  They will charge by the flyer, usually three to five cents, to include it in their mailing.  Thus, you can mail 1,000 of your flyers for $30 – $50.  This is actually a good service you can run yourself.

Finally, if you don’t want to deal with the mailing OR printing, you can use a print & mail dealer.  This dealer will print your circulars and mail them by the thousand in their own bulk mailings.  This is the least expensive way to go.  You can usually get 1,000 flyers printed and mailed for under $50.  That’s only ten ads you’d need to sell, at $5 per inch.  That’s pretty easy to do.  You can then fill up the empty spaces with your own ads, for extra exposure.  Any ads you sell over ten are shear profit!

This method of covering your advertising costs is being used by shrewd mail order dealers every day.  You can start one ad sheet, and then when it’s to the point where you’re mailing a few thousand monthly, start another going to a different market for added effectiveness.  The work is not hard, and it’s fun!

Look in your mailbox.  What do you see almost every day?  Coupons.  Look in your newspaper.  What do you see EVERY day?  Coupons.  It seems like coupons multiply like rabbits.  Why?  Prices are rising, unlike a majority of people’s incomes.  Coupons only make good financial sense.  But what if you discovered that someone’s making money from coupons?  They are, and so can you, by selling a special type of coupon.

Manufacturers use coupons primarily to attract new customers.  The money savings entice people to try products they might otherwise not have.  The same can be true of local businesses in your area.  Sure, they put coupons in their newspaper ads.  But you can give them the opportunity to get their coupons into the hands of the exact customers they need, and at a far better price than the local newspaper.  You can produce a Local Business Coupon Book easily, inexpensively, and profitably, if you follow the steps outlined here.

The first step in running a successful coupon publishing business is to find the businesses that will advertise with you.  Any business that relies on local advertising is a good prospect.  Here is a short list of businesses you should consider:  Theaters; Hair Salons; Fast Food Restaurants; Record and CD Stores; Dry Cleaners; Supermarkets; Car Washes; Muffler Shops; Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt Shops.  Basically, any store that could reasonably use a coupon to draw in new customers is a prospect.  You may want to specialize in one area, such as fast food restaurants.  Or, cover the whole gamut.  Look through your phone book for businesses you might not have thought of.

When you approach these businesses, target a group within a five mile radius.  It will be more time-efficient for you, and you can use the area grouping in your sales pitch.  Stress the fact that around 80 percent of their business will come from that five mile radius.  Tell them that you plan to distribute the coupon book within that radius, so it will draw the best results.

To be really profitable, you should get at least 15 – 25 businesses in the book.  The more, the better.  How much to charge?  That depends on how many books you will be distributing, and what your costs are.  One coupon book producer charged $100 for a coupon going to 1,000 people in an eight mile radius.  His total cost was $300, and he sold 11 businesses coupons.  This gave him an $800 profit in one week!

The second step is to create the coupons.  If you have a computer, the job of designing the coupons can be quite easy with some of the word processor/graphics packages available.  If not, talk to your printer.  He or she will more than likely have some ready-made templates for coupons.  You can just fill in the blanks.  If your printer doesn’t have blank coupon sheets, you can get an attractive sheet of six coupons with blanks for advertiser names and addresses, offers, and expiration dates by sending $5 to Pat Flanagan Publishing & Design, 540 Imus, Mishawaka, IN  46545, and include your business name and address, as well as your coupon book’s title.  They will be attractively typeset along the bottom of the coupon!

Be sure to put YOUR business name on the coupon (in small print, so it doesn’t distract).  Subconsciously, people will remember your business name and associate it with saving money.  In any case, you will need to put the advertising business’s name, address, phone, logo (if any, many businesses will have them premade for you to use), the amount of the discount, any conditions they may have, and an expiration date.  Your printer can help you with the layout, if you are inexperienced, or you can find easy to use layout boards at an office supply or art store.

Assembling the coupon books can be done in a number of ways.  The easiest, and recommended, way to start is by simply stapling them together.  Only one staple will be necessary, on the left side of the stack of coupons.  Make a cover coupon with your business name and the name you’ve chosen for the coupon book.  Put that on top of the stack before you staple.  Other methods are perforating/padding, and perforating/perfect binding.  Your printer should be able to provide pricing information on these and other binding methods.

The third step is distributing.  You have already identified the radius within which you will distribute your coupon books.  There are two methods of delivery you can use.  You can either deliver them by car or foot, or you can bulk mail them.  Bulk mailing is infinitely easier and more efficient, but requires a bit of paperwork and registration fees.  If you are delivering in one zip code area, you can use either five digit presort mailing, or carrier route presort mailing.  You should check with your postmaster regarding rules and fees.  As soon as you have mailed the coupons, deliver a copy of the coupon book to each business that has advertised in it, so they know that customers will now be bringing them in.

The fourth and final step is follow up.  You need to know how your coupon books are doing.  Ask the businesses that advertise in your book to write the amount purchased by the coupon-bearing customer on the back of the coupon, and to hold them for you.  Stop by at least once a week and pick up the redeemed coupons.  Besides giving you purchase totals that you can refer to in future sales to new customers, this also gives you a chance to talk to the businesses about purchasing coupons in new books.  You can show them right then and there the results they have gotten, and they should be enthusiastic about signing back on.

It is important to maintain a good relationship with the businesses who advertise with you.  Show them that you are committed to helping them increase their business.  If you care, so will they.  This is a fun business that can be started part-time, and can easily move to full-time.  Remember the man who cleared $800 his first week in this business.  He was just starting out, and you can do that, too!

Here is a list of the four best publications to put your advertisements in:

“Mail Order Opportunity Weekly”.  For a free copy, write to:  Wayne’s Printing, Rt. 2, Myrtle, MS  38650

“Mail Order Bulletin”.  For a sample issue, send 2 1st Class Stamps to:  Wayne’s Printing (see above)

“Popular Advertiser”.  For a sample issue, send 2 1st Class Stamps to:  Wayne’s Printing (see above)

“Ben Franklin’s Almanac”.  For a sample issue, send 2 1st Class Stamps to:  Wayne’s Printing (see above)

Plus, here is a list of other publishers you should contact:

GD Services, PO Box 80, Foyil, OK  74031

Youngers, PO Box 37, Princeton, IA  52768

Berwick’s, 15 E. Devane St., Pensacola FL  32514

Wolf Enterprises, 111 Carmichael Ct., Cary, NC  27512

Helen’s Gifts, 4450 NW 22nd, Lauderhill, FL  33314

Ida L. Edmonds, Rt 1 Box 373, Bernie, MO  63823

Odds & Ends, PO Box 10797, Chicago, IL  60610

Profit Tools, 3824 Elm Lane, Oshkosh, WI  54901