I was bitten by the marketing bug years before the advent of the World Wide Web. In those days, mail order marketing was the big thing and to this day, I still own the first home based business training guide I ever purchased. You might be surprised at some of the products that were popular, oh so many years ago!

Copyright © GT Bulmer
http://www.StarrBizz.com

My first formal training in the wonderful world of sales and marketing came in the form of a 160-page book titled Plan For Mail Order Profits by David G. Baron. I'm not going to reveal how many decades ago that was!

David's Plan covered everything from what to name your mail order business, what equipment and supplies you would need, what products sell best by mail, how and where to contact the suppliers of those products and even professionally written ads to use to sell the products.

Some of the recommended products have long since gone out of date - I'll give a few interesting examples later in this article - but the Plan also provided a few checklists that still hold true today, no matter what type of marketing you do.

The Plan highlighted a number of key personal and emotional needs that a good product must fill if it hoped to succeed in appealing to the mass market. A few choice items from the list:

- Better health, greater strength, longer life
- More money, for self or to spend on others
- Improved Appearance: beauty, style, cleanliness
- More Comfort: convenience, luxury, self-indulgence, the good life
- Business Advancement: a more desirable job, greater success
- Personal Power: self-awareness, self-realization, emotional growth

The Plan provided a handy checklist for new products being considered. This is just a sampling of items from the list. It was good if you could answer "Yes" to these questions:

- Does it fill a need?
- Is it easy to use?
- Is the potential market big enough?
- Does the price seem to be a bargain?
- Are there dramatic features to exploit?
- Is there a reorder factor?
- Does it have year round appeal?

It was bad if you answered "Yes" to these questions:

- Is your discount less than 40 percent?
- Is it hard to visualize in an ad?
- Is it sold in stores?
- Is it similar to old-hat products?
- (And several other questions similar to those in the first
category, above, but expressed in reverse)

The Insider's Secret To Products That Can't Fail

The Plan gave tips on creative thinking and how to originate products. But it also revealed a technique for choosing products that you know, in advance, will be successful and profitable. While the technique is obviously decades old, it is still great advice for Internet home business marketers today.

The principle is this: Sell what is being sold successfully by others. If you can find a way to improve on the original, or add some unique innovation, all the better.

Peculiar Products From The Past

Okay. Here are a few of the products featured in the Plan For Mail Order Profits. Remember, this marketing guide was published in the mid-70s. Oops. I just let the cat out of the bag, didn't I?

SEE WITHOUT BEING SEEN! View Unsuspecting Subjects In Total Secrecy, $2 retail price for 8 by 10 inch size (Super spy mirror with special coating on one side.)

INSTANT HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA, $2 retail: (Probably fooled some of the people some of the time!)

SELF-CORRECTING TYPEWRITER RIBBON, $3.50 retail (Yes, kids, there was a time when keyboards tapped letters and characters onto a page through inked ribbons. Imagine the hassle of making corrections or changes? Self-correcting ribbons sold like hotcakes!)

WHAT'S YOUR I.Q.? TEST, $2 each, 3 for $5 (If you actually paid for this test, you already failed! No, just kidding. This sort of test is still very popular today, but now you don't have to pay for it - just search it on the Net.)

SKI RECORD, This Record Shows You How To Ski In 30 Minutes - Or You Pay Nothing!, $5.95 (Shows you how to ski? It's a vinyl record! I'll just wait for video to be invented, thank you.)

HYPNOTIZING DISK, Hypnotize Strangers In 30 Seconds! $2 retail (Now I wish I would have bought one! Then I could convert it to digital and upload it to my website and get EVERYbody to buy something!)

SCOTTY, a water-activated handwarmer, $4.69 retail - "Just add 2 teaspoonfuls of water and get 150F heat for 70 to 80 hours!" (Where was this product last January!)

SHAG TEE is your own portable golf range, $12.95 retail - "Shag Tee, regularly used, can quickly improve your score." (I'll bet!)

ANIMAL COAT-OF-ARMS proclaims your dog's ancestry, $11.97 retail - full color, framed in gold leaf, accompanied by a history of the breed (Hmm. Now THIS one's not a bad idea!)

There are numerous other recommended "hot sellers" in that '70s book, but these ones are a few of the more interesting ones. Just goes to show, there is a market for anything! And THAT principle holds true to this day, too.

Well, that was another of my strolls down memory lane. Hope you enjoyed the historic highlights.

Sincerely,
GT
StarrBizz.com

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