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HOW TO START A PEN PAL CLUBPen pal clubs are operating throughout the world. They are simple to start and can provide an excellent income for their managers. With the collapse of the Iron Curtain, thousands of new individuals in Europe and throughout the rest of the world are seeking to start new friendships via pen pal clubs. Many want to practice their English. Some are looking for that someone special. Others are simply interested in meeting new friends. There has never been a better time than now to begin in this fantastic business. The best way to operate a Pen Pal Club is via a monthly newsletter featuring newsbits and a listing of new members. We've found that a simple 8 x 11 sheet, printed on both sides, is all you need to get started. If you are more ambitious, consider an 11 x 14 sheet that can be folded in half to provide four pages of text. As you grow, you can expand your size, moving into a tabloid format on newsprint. In the beginning, however, start with something you can lay out at home and reproduce easily at the local copy shop. Your newsletter can be set up on your typewriter or home computer. The low price of personal computers make them an attractive buy for newsletter publishers. A low-cost word processing program and letter quality printer will be all you need to get started. There are also numerous programs available that let you produce top quality newsletters with little effort. Simply type your information into a professionally laid out template, add a headline and logo, print the document, and voila! You have created an eye-catching, professional quality newsletter. What could be easier? Your newsletter should include a quick run-down on what your members are doing. A "gossip-style" column entitled something like On the QT will fill members in on what others are up to: Janice is planning to vacation at Tahoe next month, Debbie is going to take her vacation in Hawaii; Jason is attending night classes for a real estate license; John is thinking of changing jobs, probably in advertising sales; Bob is setting up his own Carpet Cleaning Service; Denise is wanting to move to Denver, etc. At the end of the column, make sure that you ask members to send in news about which other members will want to know. The reader or membership involvement of your gossip-style column will get your newsletter off to a running start and keep your members loyal to you because of the interesting news you pass along in each issue. You can follow your latest gossip with either a question and answer session or letters from the readers in the style of Ann Landers or Dear Abby. Complete the newsletter with a short story on how to meet new men or women, what to say and how to develop a friendship, new book reviews, or some other topic of interest. The back page can feature the listing of men and women wanting to correspond with or meet other people with similar tastes. Include a short description of each person along with their address. This section will allow your readers to meet new friends, find that special person, or exchange information with folks from other countries. You will be introducing people of diverse national, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. You will help form friendships that will cut across national, political, and geographical boundaries. What could be more fun? To develop a list of people interested in corresponding with new friends, you can place a series of classified ads in local, national, and international publications. Check your local newsstand for the magazines that carry such ads. It won+ t take long to get a basic list of one hundred or more interested folks to begin your operation. You should have an ample supply of letterhead stationary, imprinted mailing envelopes, and return reply envelopes prepared by your printer. Next, make up a sample copy of your newsletter and an application or sales letter that explains your membership fee of $15 to $20 per year for the newsletter, plus $1 to $2 per month that you carry a member's name and address in your Correspondents Wanted section. Provide an application form for the new member to fill out. Such a form will include name, address, interests, hobbies, languages spoken, etc. Make it brief, but all inclusive. Send out your newsletter samples along with your sales letter and membership application to the list of names you've collected. Be sure you also ask for reports on what members are doing, and encourage them from time to time to send up-to-date information for the On the QT gossip column. At the same time, run an advertisement in as many of the small mail order publications
and ad sheets as you can afford. (For a comprehensive listing of these publications,
complete with names and addresses of publishers, order Directory #3709 for $3 from the
distributor from whom you purchased this report.) Your ad could read something like the
two below: Be sure to get your newsletters out regularly, and don't stop advertising. Keep up your efforts to sell as many issues of each publication as you are able. Expand your membership list and get as many new listings for each issue as you possibly can. You might want to consider offering three back issues of your publication for three dollars, or as a free bonus for all new subscribers. You could carry this idea as a free bonus in your advertising, and as a special offer in your newsletter. You might also want to expand your income potential by offering motivational and information booklets, books, tapes to your readers. Ask the dealer who supplied this report to give you a listing of all the materials he has available. Make your newsletter the basic tool of your success. Expand the newsletter's size to take in advertising from dealers seeking to reach the singles and pen pal market. Accept a page of classified advertising. There is no limit to the number of things you can do once you consider the possibilities. You'll want to keep records on all your members, and continue to up-date the listings you carry, but basically that's all there is to getting started. You could even run ads seeking interested folks in your local newspapers and expect a good response. We definitely recommend that you send for sample copies of other pen pal club bulletins to see how they operate and what ideas of theirs you can adapt for use in your newsletter. By all means, become a browser and look through all the magazines related to pen pals and mail order introductions every time you pass a magazine display rack. By keeping good records of all the mail you receive, you can also sell or rent name
lists of people who have responded to your offerings to other mail order dealers. Real
opportunities exist for the marketing potentials of a pen pal club newsletter. You can
start out small and expand to your heart's content. The world is wide open, and people are
clamoring to meet interesting new friends in other states and countries. You can reach
this vast market with a limited investment of time and money. You are only restricted by
your own imagination. Turn the dreams into reality. Start today! The following is a brief list of Pen Pal Clubs you will want to write to for sample
copies of their publications. PEN PAL GAZETTE SINGLES CRITIQUE UniQue Mails Friends Signal International |
