Advertising your Mail Order business

Mail-Order Advertising

For the small plantsman who wants to sell mail-order, the best advertising investment is space-either “classified” or “display”-in one of the regional or national garden magazines. In the classified sections, ads cost from 40 cents per word with a minimum of $8.00, to 75 cents per word with a $15.00 minimum. Since most of these periodicals have circulations between 250,000 and 350,000, an advertisement in one of them will be read by many interested people. But don’t advertise in such mass-audience publications unless you are ready and able to fill a large number of orders and do it promptly.

In your mail-order advertising, if you are just starting in business, do not include any such statement as, “Please enclose stamp for plant listing.” True, by not requiring a stamp, you will receive a great many inquiries from folks who just naturally answer advertisements and don’t often buy. If you request a stamp, you will avoid these idle inquiries but you will also shut out many interested gardeners who may not have an extra stamp on hand or who want to inquire by postal card. The names you receive from your ads will form the nucleus of your mailing list. And, even better, satisfied customers from such a source write you year after year asking for new circulars or for special plants.

There are many specialty magazines like those issued by plant societies. If you advertise in these, you must offer something mighty rare, exceptionally low-priced, or perhaps inject a “gimmick” into your ad (i.e., that something free will be included with an order of specified size), if you hope to induce the specializers to write for a listing. These gardeners obtain much of their plant material by swapping with each other, so unless you can make your ad really appeal to them, you won’t get much of a return on your specialty advertising investment. True, rates are low compared to those of the larger magazines -but it is the final sales results which really count.

What you spend will be dictated by the budget you have set for yourself. A wise move is to try first an $8.00 or $15.00 ad in the classified section of a garden magazine. If the ad is run under the right heading, it will get a lot of attention and should bring you an excellent return. If, for instance, you have several types of rather common plants to sell, such as wax begonias, ivy, and philodendron, and at least fifty plants of a rare kind, ask to have the ad placed under the heading best adapted to the rare type. If your list includes a number of ordinary plants, plus a good line of African violets, have the ad placed under African violets. It might read along these lines:

African violets, newest varieties; other interesting pot plants. Free list.

Vinnie’s Violet House, Dept. A.

45 Main Lane, Maintown, U.S.A.

Should you be undecided about the proper heading or classification for your ad, ask the publication’s advertising manager to insert it under the heading he thinks most logical.

Keywords: Greenhouse Gardening, Landscaping, Plants, Pool, Gardener, Landscape, Trees

Tags: home greenhouse

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