Whether you run an online or off-line mail order ... thing all ... need are ... how do you go about getting ... in the snail mail order business you could run ads in Whether you run an online or off-line mail order businessone thing all businesses need are customers.So how do you go about getting customers?Well in the snail mail order business you could run ads inbusiness opportunity magazines, or you could go direct mailrenting mailing lists.Online business works something the same you can post yourmessage on Newsgroups or Free For All sites.To promote my latest opportunity I recently rented a mailing list of200 fresh business opportunity seekers supplied on sticky labels.Out of the 200 names and addresses at least 30 of them were regularadvertisers in UK business opportunity magazines, another 10 hadbusiness names and addresses but the biggest surprise was findingmy own name and address on the list.After I discarded the useless names I sent my offer to the rest of the listand had a 0% response to the mailing.The whole mailing had been a complete waste of time and money.It wasn't until later that I found out why my response was so low.I ran a small classified ad in around 10 business opportunity magazinesand small adsheets for a month and coded each ad to see whichpublications were bringing in the best response.I got a reasonable response from all the ads for up to two months.After two months I was still receiving replies from these ads butinstead of further information requests these replies were filled withbusiness opportunity leaflets and had a sticky label on the envelope.Someone was going through these publications and compiling amailing list and I could tell by the different codes on the labels to whichpublication was renting my name.To someone new in the business opportunity market this list could bea make or break for their business but it showed me what a lot ofbusinesses online or off-line are doing wrong.If you try to sell any product you run a better chance of selling it to abuyer than another seller but a lot of direct marketers are promotingtheir product to other sellers.If you post a message to a Newsgroup or FFA site they are full ofother sellers and you usually get counter messages trying to sellyou something.The same goes with mail order mailing lists they usually contain moresellers than buyers.It doesn't matter how good your product is or how good your headline orpromotion materials are, if your message is going to someone who isalready involved with a business opportunity you can be sure they don'twant another one.In order to reach the real market for your product you must advertisein any magazine or ezine that your potential buyers would read.Create an advert that will invite potential customers to send forfurther information on your product or service.When customers reply to your advert save their names and addressesto a database or address book and use these names to promoteyour products.These names have made the effort to contact you and have shownan interest in your product so it is only a matter of time before theypurchase one or more of your products. Article Tags: Mail Order, Business Opportunity Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com