Your Questions About Direct Marketing Association

Jere answers:

IDEA: Turn to the monthly directories of Standard Rate and Data Services (“SRDS”). These fat directories — available at every business library and advertising agency — perhaps even in your own consultancy — list by area the media — print, mail, email, TV and radio, even posters — used by every sector. It’s the leadingprovider of ad prices and related data. Thus, if you were looking for health/pharmaceutical people, all you need do is turn to “Health/Pharmaceutical” and you would find: 1) all professional and trade journals aimed at this sector; 2) listings of mailing lists of health/pharmaceutical workers. Then you all you to do is copy down the titles of possible target prospects. For instance, a trade journal has to list by title every subscriber. In health/pharma titles would include physician, hospital administrator, HMOs, alternative medicine practitioners, researcher, etc. (the breakdown is much, more elaborate than this, of course.) Another excellent source if the Directory of Associations. Here, membership in EVERY association is broken down by title. Simply go to the Health/Phrama/Medicine/Hospital categories and start copying down relevant prospects’ titles.
A list of about 20 titles PLUS sources would let you be the hero of this assignment.
An excellent free source of how to use lists in general is the Direct Marketing Creative Generator. This blog (martygrossdm.blogspot.dm) has a lot of ideas on marketing to specific lists. It’s written by a university professor and direct marketing creative director.

Jere answers:

You are probably better off creating an account with LinkedIn or Hoover. This way you can target your direct market by company and business association.

Jere answers:

Salary is based on

education

field of employment

experience/job performance

job market/demand

economic conditions

financial strength of the employer

really hard to give you a ball park figure with so many variables

Salary levels vary substantially, depending upon the level of managerial responsibility, length of service, education, size of firm, location, and industry. For example, manufacturing firms usually pay these managers higher salaries than nonmanufacturing firms. For sales managers, the size of their sales territory is another important determinant of salary. Many managers earn bonuses equal to 10 percent or more of their salaries.

According to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, starting salaries for marketing majors graduating in 2007 averaged $40,161 and those for advertising majors averaged $33,831.

Related Occupations:
Advertising, marketing, promotions, public relations, and sales managers direct the sale of products and services offered by their firms and the communication of information about their firms’ activities. Other workers involved with advertising, marketing, promotions, public relations, and sales include actors, producers, and directors; advertising sales agents; artists and related workers; demonstrators, product promoters, and models; market and survey researchers; public relations specialists; sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing; and writers

Jere answers:

There are several options for home jewelry parties. The best of them pay the hostess benefits so your profit is solely your profit. When I was researching which jewelry company to go with I looked for:

– initial start up costs
– monthly fees (if any)
– inventory requirements
– incentives for team building and minimums for overrides (the money you make off your team)
– host(ess) incentives and who pays for them
– credit card processing and who pays the fees
– who pays state sales tax

Finally, check and see if the company you are looking at is part of the direct selling association.

I’m a lia sophia advisor and can tell you that lia sophia offers incredible hostess benefits that make it easy to get hostesses to book parties. The hostess can get up to 40% of the sales from her party in jewelry plus great discounts on personal jewelry purchases. And again, the company pays that benefit so the advisor has little out of pocket expense.

The hostess does most of the marketing for her party at work, schools, church etc using flyers/postcards you create as well as electronic invites.

I market my business at local job fairs, craft shows etc.

Drop me a line if you’d like to learn more.

Kim

Jere answers:

My first suggestion would be, while you’re searching for an agent, keep writing. Write short stories and send them to literary magazines. Your best bet at getting something published is by submitting to several of the literary magazines put out by everything from stand-alone companies to universities. Even a small credit (and most of them are small credits–they’ll pay you in contributor copies) is a credit that can help you get noticed.

Work on your platform. Do you have a blog? Write on it. Do you tweet? Start tweeting if you don’t? Facebook? Talk up your book. A platform is huge these days in the publishing industry. Who do you think an agent or publisher will be quick to represent? A person who has written one book, or a person who has written one book, but who also has 1700 followers on Twitter, 600 people who follow her blog, and 2000 Facebook friends who will all eat up a little piece of marketing put out by them? There are several great resources out there for building your platform. I’ll list some below.

Also, make sure your novel is strong and that it’s polished. Polish your story, your query, your sample chapters, and even your name on the title page until it’s sparkly enough to star in a Mr. Clean commercial. But that’s a given anyway.

Here’s a good resource to get some ideas on where to start:
– Nathan Bransford blogs about finding agents, writing, and the publishing business. Http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2008/04/how-to-find-literary-agent.html

– New Pages is a great place to find literary magazines to both read and to consider sending your work to so you can build a platform. They review literary magazines and give addresses where to send your writing, editors names, etc.: http://www.newpages.com/

– CRWROPPS – I’m not sure what it stands for, but it’s a listserv that comes to your email box every day with publishing opportunities (and university job opportunities if you have an MFA) – http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CRWROPPS-B/

– AWP – The Association of Writers and Writing Programs – If you can join it, join up. This is your contact organization as a writer. If you live close to Boston or can be in Boston, the yearly conference is being hosted there this year. Go if you can. It’s a fantastic place to meet fellow writers, hear some great people speak (Margaret Atwood spoke at the conference in Chicago last year, and I’ll admit, she was kind of my rock star moment when I had her sign my copy of Cat’s Eye). At the conference last year, I was able to hear some of my favorite writers speak on the panels. – https://www.awpwriter.org/

Finally, get to know the publishing industry. A good book for that is The Merchants of Culture by John B. Thompson – http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745647869 . If you’re going to get into the publishing industry, then you need to know the lay of the land. This book will help you understand it better.

Best of luck to you! And keep writing!

Edit: Oh, and for platform building, here are a couple of books/sites to look at:

– Booklife – http://www.booklifenow.com/ – I met this author at AWP last year, and I bought his book on platform building then. He’s a great guy, and the book was very helpful!

– Here’s a new book put out by Writer’s Digest about platform building – http://www.writersdigestshop.com/create-your-writer-platform

Also, Writer’s Digest puts out yearly market guides:

For Literary Agents: http://www.writersdigestshop.com/2013-guide-literary-agents
For Short Stories and Novels: http://www.writersdigestshop.com/novel-short-story-writers-market-2013