ADSHEET #8™
HOME - ABOUT - SUBMIT ADS - JOURNAL - MENU
Website ideas for Extra Income Mail Order Dealers
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #1 - My mailbox is filled daily with envelopes stuffed with sales circulars. If I'm not interested in certain offers, I discard them. These folks could save a ton of money by scanning those documents, posting them on their website, and mailing postcards and/or running small display or text ads in our industry print publications. The cost of mailing out sales material for a few months easily exceeds the yearly cost of web hosting.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #2 - Just Write! - Writing blog posts is a great way to get people to your site to expose them to your products, services, and opportunities. If there were such websites out there, updated regularly and owned by Mail Order Dealers, I would visit them every day! Sadly, I still haven't found even one. I’m not talking about “advertising" websites, I mean sites that act as a Mail Order Dealer's personal home base.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #3 - Dealer Directory - This can be as simple or as involved as you want. You can ask dealers to submit 50, 100, or 500 words describing their business. You decide how many methods of contact - postal mail, email, phone, or website - a dealer can include in their listing. You decide whether a dealer can include a photo or other graphics. You decide if the listing is free or available for a fee. You can tailor it to your website's theme.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #4 - Affiliate Marketing - One use of your website, instead of or in addition to promoting your own products and services, is to promote the products and services of others in an "affiliate" arrangement. You might think you don't need a website to do this. I argue that you do for the sake of professionalism, if nothing else. Social media is swamped with affiliate links being thrown about. A sentence and a link are about all you see. I never, ever click on them. I want to go to your website where you can tell me why I should buy whatever it is you're referring me to. I want to see what else is going on in your business. Okay, most of these folks don't have businesses, but you do. You're a Mail Order Dealer. Host your affiliate programs on your website!
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #5 - Redirection - If you host affiliate links on your website, this is a good feature to know about. Create a directory on your site, such as example.com/books. Then, in your control panel, set up a redirect so that when someone clicks on example.com/books, they are automatically taken to whatever your affiliate link might be. A link using your website address looks a lot more professional than the original bulky affiliate link. You can create a redirect for every affiliate program or product you have.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #6 - Host Third-Party Content - Many websites now host "extra income mail order" advertising, but most deal in scanned circulars, display ads, PDF files, and other graphic products. It's your website, and you can host whatever advertising formats you want, but you might consider that the industry needs more sites that host plain-text advertising. Sites that host plain text exclusively would do well. Of course, that’s my biased opinion.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #7 - Association Website - A handful of associations for Mail-Order dealers have existed over the years. Still, as far as I know, none have had a real website. I say "real website" because one such association did have a website. Still, it consisted of one paragraph that said something like, "For information on the (insert name here) association, write to (insert address here). I never understood this. They had the power of the Internet at their fingertips; they had visitors on their website, and they still wanted them to write for information? They could have given a full description of the association and asked for the membership order. Create an association - maybe a "discount advertising" club - and create a website for it. There are many possibilities.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #8 - Sell Bulk Ad Space - I've never seen this done before, but I've thought about doing it myself. Offer to sell plain text ad space in blocks of 1,000, 2000, 5,000, or 10,000 words. Then, specify how long a person has to use those words. Also, specify the minimum and maximum words per ad. For example, you might not want to sell 10,000 words if the purchaser can submit them 25 words at a time. You might both be in a retirement home with 1,000 words left! Consider allowing ads to be posted on behalf of other dealers. The only rules for this idea are the rules you come up with.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #9 - Co-Op Advertising Group - I thought about this type of program back in my "disk publishing" days of the mid-1990s. It will work just as well, if not better, on websites. It involves getting a handful of advertising publishers together who agree to place the advertising of all members of the group in their publications. So, when one member sells a text ad, he sends it to the other web publishers who put it on their websites, at no charge. This requires that members agree to the type of advertising they will accept - text is a lot easier - pricing, and how long ads will stay posted. Members can advertise something like, "Buy ad space on my site, and that ad will be posted to (insert number here) other websites for the same term." Adjust this idea to fit your needs.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #10 - Simplified Universal Website - We've all seen ads for MLM or other programs that include a website address along with a dealer ID number or other identifier that lets that dealer get credit for purchases or sign-ups made through that link. The Simplified Universal Website is similar, but as the name suggests, it's a simplified version. As the Prime Source of the offer, you put up a simple static web page that gives complete information about a product or service and instructs the reader to order from the address shown in the ad that brought them to the website. No transactions are carried out at the simplified site because, again, it's just a static site that provides information. It exists to make sales easier for your dealers. Or, instead of a dealer support site, you could use it to provide product information for which you have sold complete reproduction rights. No matter what you sell, dealers publish small ads with the website address and their mailing address. The website does all the "explaining" and sends the prospect back to the "promoting dealer" to place the order. One website can support unlimited dealers. It helps you sell because it helps your dealers sell. Can sales circulars be hijacked? Yes, but that's always been possible. Create security measures that work for you. This is just an idea. Adapt it to suit your needs.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #11 - Free Rotating Ads - Set up an advertising page on your website. The page will hold only 50 ads. Invite dealers to submit a free text ad for this page. New ads go to the top of the page and move down one position each time a new ad is posted. Ads fall off the page after moving through 50 positions. Dealers may re-submit their ad at that time. The program aims to drive return visits to your site; therefore, you need to offer something valuable and unique, not just host dealer ads. Dealers return often to check the page to see their ad's position. You set the number of total ads on the page and the word limit per ad. I would not try this with anything but text ads. Anything else would be too labor-intensive. With text ads, you copy and paste the ad from their submission email. You could use this system for paid ads, too.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #12 - Review Site - Do you remember "Stew's Reviews," a column by Stew Caverly? It ran regularly in a few of the larger Mail Order advertising publications. Stew invited Mail-Order Dealers to send him a sample of whatever they were promoting, and he'd share his thoughts on selected submissions in his column. Stew's column has been gone for some time, and I don't think anyone has filled that void. You could fill that void with a dedicated website, or a portion of a website.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #13 - Email Adsheet - Use one of your hosting account's email addresses to create an email adsheet. Don't try this with a Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo email address; you'll look like you're working out of the public library! One idea is a "progressive" adsheet. Such an advertiser could hold 100 ads. The newest ad goes to the top and the oldest ad falls off the list. So a dealer emails you an ad. You add it to the top of the ads and email the updated ads back to the dealer, along with payment instructions. There is no conventional circulation. Instead, each dealer's ad rotates through 100 positions. This means at least 100 dealers will receive that ad over time. Free sample copies provide additional exposure. This is just an idea. Create a publication that works for you.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #14 - Downloading For Dollars - You can create an advertiser as a downloadable PDF file. Invite dealers to submit a free 200-word ad for the advertiser. Once you have enough ads, you can offer the file for download for a small fee. You can set up a PayPal account for payment, if you wish, and then either email the file to them or provide a password and a link to the file location where they can download it. You can either charge for the file and give away the ad space, or vice versa. I like the "free ad" version. I'm sure you can come up with many variations of this idea.
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #15 - Password Profits - The idea is to post your valuable information, such as information reports, reprint reports, mailing lists, and other information products, in a directory on your website. You then "password-protect" that directory and, instead of printing the material for each sale, you send the purchaser the password. You can make the password permanent and allow continued access to the directory, continually updating it with new information. It's up to you!
Mail Order Dealer Website Idea #16 - Bad Guy Report - There have been a few of these over the years, but, as far as I know, only in print format. That said, there seems to be a need for an online source for this information, such as "bad check" writers, non-delivery of ordered items, and other wrongdoings. Keep in mind that the ability to post something instantly doesn't relieve you of the responsibility to verify the validity of the information.