What do I need to know before starting a mail order business?

Question

What do I need to know before starting a mail order business?

Answer 1

1-is there a market for what you want to sell?

2-Can you make a profit selling those items/services?

3-How much competition is there?

4-Do you have enough money to get started properly? - being undercapitalized is a big factor in businesses failing (been there-failed)

Answer 2

If youre advertising through mailing lists

1) Test your offer on a small scale first before doing a big list

2) Make sure your type of list matches the offer... but its always worth split testing different demographics

3) Test everything!  always send two variations of an ad and see which one performs better.

I highly suggest picking up the Joe Sugarman - Adweek Copywriting Handbook.  It's an excellent resource from a pro mail order guy