Create-A-Book manual, dealer tips

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Many Marketing Tips!

Tips from successful Create-A-Book Dealers over the Years

Making books on location is a proven method of selling personalized books. Many of the top dealers said they set up in malls at Christmas and other special times of the year. Most have done a McGruff Give-A-Book program and a lot have web sites.

Some of the benefits of going on location include making business contacts, getting great exposure and developing a mail order business. (To generate the mail order list, one dealer has the customer fill out their address on the order form when she makes a book on location. Other dealers develop mail orders from brochures they place in the books.) Most of the dealers have done some of the following:

sell the books through the McGruff Give-A-book program, the hospital program, fund raisers and mail orders from brochures picked up from outlets where the brochures were placed.
have established accounts with catalog companies.
have set up web sites.
make sales by paying a commissions to several people who sell the books through the brochures year round.
have an agreement with obstetricians who buy the baby book to give to their patients.
put books in waiting rooms where parents and children are waiting to see a doctor or similar.

What is your advice to new dealers?

Put a lot of yourself into your business and build it up. Do the work yourself until it is off the ground. If you do hire employees, make sure they are reliable. It takes hard work, dedication and determination to be successful.

Don't expect overnight success. Don't expect every project to be a phenomenal money maker. Even if you don't make much money on a project, it may impact your business in the long run. Some projects are worthwhile since they help create goodwill and give you valuable exposure. Be patient. Don't give up after two or three years. Set up a web site and do some on location sales every now and then.o on location.

Community Relations

Get involved with local civic organizations. They provide excellent contacts.
Find out if you have an Altrusa Club in your area. Their main objective is to promote literacy.
Dealers have received great free publicity by working with nonprofit organizations.
Get involved with your Chamber of Commerce. One dealer met his local paper's editor and got great free publicity for a Give-A-Book program this way. See if your Chamber of Commerce publishes a newsletter and find out if you can be featured.
Check your area for business meetings to attend.
Check your local Kiwanis Club. Most have made a three year commitment to help children in some way. Also talk to Rotary Clubs. Optimist Clubs help schools and children.
Make speeches or presentations at group meetings. AARP meetings are particularly good.
Do a Give-A-Book program! Go to www.YoungReadersCouncil.org for details.

Successful Ways Dealers Have Sold Books

One dealer found working in a department store around Mother's Day produced good sales.
Some dealers have been very successful with Lord and Taylor's because of the upscale image of the store. Dealers have also had success working with Sears and Price Club.
Use face painting to keep the kids busy so the parents have time to browse the books.
Give out free coloring sheets to children to draw them to your set up.
Set up next to the food court in your mall for added exposure.
Hold a giveaway to draw people to your set booth. Make a poster that says "Register to win a free Create-A-Book."
Setting up in grocery stores has worked for some dealers.
Give away balloons to draw kids to your books.
Dealers set up in front of a bookstore in a mall. This saves the mall fee, as only a percentage of books sold was paid to the bookstore.
Organize your own craft shows.
Set up at church bazaars.
If your customers do not know the child's information while you are on location, hand them a quarter to call and find out the information or offer free shipping. Both have worked well.
Set up in government buildings during vendor days.
Some dealers work with a hospital during the Children's Miracle Network telethon.
One dealer secured a prepaid order for 1,000 books by marking brochures "paid." The doctor hands these brochures out to his patients.
Work with a florist offering books with birthday, holiday and new baby orders.
Contact the "cradle roll" coordinator at churches.
Remember fraternities and sororities are always looking for fund raisers.
Work with a local newspaper on subscription drives.
A dealer approached a congregate living facility about offering books in their gift shop.
Insurance agents have used personalized books to get "in the door" with new potential customers.
Display your books in beauty salons so customers can look at them while waiting for their appointment.
Contact insurance agents, Realtors and car salesmen about giving books to their clients.
One dealer sold books for high school seniors including a photo sticker for their graduation picture. She put a blank sheet in the books for autographs. The school book is particularly good for this type of gag.
Build a data base and follow up on old customers by sending incentive coupons.
Include your brochure when paying personal bills.
Always carry a brochure, business card and sample book with you. When someone asks what you do, show them.
Make sure to include your address and phone number in each book you make.
Don't limit yourself to a certain age group.
To eliminate any problems with stored covers warping, always slightly bend in the covers inward before putting the books together.
Try highlighting the personalized information in your samples.
For a 40th birthday gag gift, use the dinosaur pictures and the single mother version of the baby book text.
Make purchases in the stores where you display your book. The store managers appreciate the reciprocal business.
One dealer gives underprivileged children books for Christmas.
Write "Thanks so much" on the back of your business card.
A dealer worked with a company called Party Time which makes up gift baskets for children and adults. She provides books to them for $4 below retail.
Make a poster featuring the photo stickers to get customers' attention.
Put up posters at your local college to get work binding reports and papers.
Use customer surveys to accumulate testimonials.
One dealer always asks, "What was the family's reaction to the books?"
Concentrate on schools during your slow times, working with PTAs, fund raisers and book fairs.
One dealer uses a statistical survey to add validity to her sales pitch.
A dealer parks his vehicle on the side of the road with a banner giving his company name and phone number.
Try to work out a special promotion with a hotel providing books for their children's programs.
Call your local newspaper to check the cost for inserting catalogs in a Sunday edition.
Place catalogs in travel informational displays (get permission).
Look for other special programs in your school system that could benefit from your books and try to find sponsors.
Get a phone answering machine. You're missing orders without one.
Try setting up in a hospital to make books for sick or visiting children.
Give your child's teacher a book for her classroom.
One dealer sets up in her local Pizza Hut during Kids' Night.
Call the local paper and tell them about your business.
Some dealers have had success dropping off brochures door to door.
Consider offering discounts for quantity, senior citizens, educational, etc.
Teachers' conventions are good places to market your books. Make up a "teacher version" sample.
Donate a book (with photo stickers) to photographers. Then try to do a tie in using their pictures in the front of a book.
Use the Create-A-Book or Presto Print logo on your checks.
One dealer has his mom walk around the mall with his daughter asking everyone if they had seen "those great personalized books over there?"
A dealer got a spot on a locally produced network affiliate show called "Good Company Super Bargains" offering a special price on books.
One dealer gets attention using a robot . The robot goes up to people and talks to them.
Hold a "show" at a local hospital for its employees.
A dealer worked with her local newspaper's kids' page. Kids sent in a list of books read during the week and a drawing was held for a free book.
Get multiple sponsors for your Give-A-book projects. This is the best way to get closer to retail price for your efforts.
Send a brochure to the purchaser instead of the recipient.
Work with banks through their senior citizens programs.
Offer a piece of candy with each book sold.
Make a book for a disc jockey or television personality and you'll probably get a lot of free publicity.
A dealer received a lot of publicity from an essay contest he sponsored using the topic, "Why reading is exciting!"
Personalized books make excellent gifts for wedding attendants.
Try working with toy stores to market your books. Offer a discount with a minimum store purchase.
Ask your doctor's office to give $2 off coupons for your books. This is good public relations for him/her.
Do a book production demonstration at a school.
Ask local businesses to insert a flyer in their employees' paychecks. Use payroll deduction forms when selling to the employees of a large company.
Make and send a book for someone famous.
When PBS has their local fund raising program, work out an arrangement to give the station $3 (or a figure agreeable to both of you) for every book sold. This is very inexpensive publicity.
Check to see if your local paper has a neighbors' section. Have them interview you.
A dealer had a 35 percent response rate from a direct mailing where he sent a brochure to previous customers and asked them to promote literacy by passing the brochure to a friend. Actually many of the orders came directly from the previous customer.
At your next show or fair, offer a $1off coupon at the gate where they pay admission.
Offer My School Fun Book as a graduation gift for day care centers and pre kindergarten programs.
A dealer worked with an Indian reservation with My School Fun Book. He found it worked well to put "your family" in place of friends' names and "northeast Wisconsin" in place of hometown to save time in typing in variables for these books. This may work for other books if friends are not known by the purchaser.
One dealer called us to explain a special fund raiser she is doing with a school. Once the funds are secured, then they will be used to buy My School Fun Book for the kindergarten children in that school. The books are to be given out at first parent teacher conference. This is a novel idea because the dealer has a double opportunity to sell her Create-A-Books.
Market this book as a gag gift for someone graduating from high school or college. Put some blank pages in the back for autograph.
Work with local bakeries, yogurt or ice cream shops to offer My Birthday Wish with a birthday purchase. You could offer the business $2 $3 for each book sold.
Talk to banks, pediatricians, dentists, etc. about giving the birthday book to certain special clients.

Look into offering this book on the back of candle or balloon packages as a premium incentive.
Try setting up on location at birthday parties and offer the books made on the spot with a minimum of 10 books purchased. One dealer doing this lets the kids make their own book. He charges $10 a book and the kids love it.
Send out a direct mailing using the guest list from a campground. These campers can tie in their recent visit to the campground in a book.

Santa Letter

One dealer worked out a deal with a local mall that provides a place for children to stay while parents are shopping. The mall bought 200 Santa Letters to give to the children. On the "Letter from" line, she typed in "Your friends at Gotham City Mall..." This would work for your day care centers as well.

A dealer's local town has a revitalization project involving the downtown area. The Revitalization Association provided "mail" boxes for the dealer to collect orders for Christmas letters from Santa for $2.25. The dealer printed the letters and started mailing them December 15.

If you would like to send Santa letters postmarked "The North Pole", check with your local postal service. They usually have a mail receptacle for this purpose.

My Dinosaur Adventure

In the past, dealers have donated My Dinosaur Adventure to teachers conducting dinosaur units. Each child had a night to take the book home to read to their parents. This makes an excellent, inexpensive advertisement. Teachers should be given extra catalogs. (The same idea can be utilized for units on winter celebrations using The Magic Dreidel.)

Set up in a video store and offer discounts on a dinosaur book with a movie rental. Ask the store to play The Land Before Time video to attract customers to you.

Jurassic Park generated a lot of interest in dinosaurs. Work with local novelty stores, video stores or theaters to provide a personalized dinosaur story.

Use this book as a birthday book for an "Over the Hill" party. Print the single mother version of the baby book and collate it with the dinosaur illustration pages.

The Big Parade

Set up on a parade route in your town. Offer $1 off if this book is bought during the parade. Give away balloons to the children.
Sponsor an entry in a parade. All queen candidates are looking for sponsors and usually display your business name on the sides of their car.
Talk to parade organizers to see if you can offer a chance to be Junior Grand Marshall with each book sold. Then draw a winning name just before parade day. (You might work with a fund raising group.)
Make parade books with one of the friends being the Grand Marshall of your town's parade or of one of the big national parades. This is particularly useful if the adult ordering the book doesn't know the child's names.
Don't forget the smaller parades for holidays such as Fourth of July, St. Patrick's Day or Veteran's Day.

The Sports Book

A dealer in Atlanta worked very successfully with The Sports Book during the world series between the Braves and Minnesota Twins. He was advertising and getting attention with the "Tomahawk Chop." His cart said, "Make a book with your three favorite Braves players and the coach."

After the personalized books were made, Dave Justice, who was promoting a book nearby, autographed the Create-A-Books.

The book could be used by team sponsors as a gift for each child on the team.

A lot of positive attention was received by a dealer with The Sports Book. She presented a sports announcer at a local network station with a copy that included his name as well as his coaches. Everyone was thrilled with the book, especially the anchor for the 5 o'clock news. This anchor was so excited about the personalized books that the dealer was called for an interview. The dealer's phone didn't stop ringing after this interview! People even recognized her on the street.

Many athletic associations are looking for ways to raise money. The Sports Book would be a premium product for these groups to use as a new type of fund raiser that is also educational. During the summer, cheer leading camps are held across the nation and traditionally these young people are looking for ways to finance their trips.

The Sports Book can also be used in a Give-A-Book type program in unison with a league association and a local photographer.

A dealer did a Junior League Holiday Market and had her best sales day ever.
One dealer did a pledge campaigns for the local PBSTV affiliate. People who pledged could select a Create-A-Book from a list of "thank you" gifts. They designed a special brochure for the PBSTV customers. In exchange, they got loads of free advertising 34 times a year. The books were displayed during pledge breaks around children's programming. (Organizations who do fund raisers see these types of programs and become aware of you and your books.)
One dealer told us about a fund raiser with a cheerleading squad that got $3 for every book sold. Others are working with private schools, day care centers, nursery schools, and PTAs. Several dealers mentioned that they had not found it necessary to discount the books in working with these groups. If anything, tell the charity they may add to the regular price since it is for their "good cause." The fund raisers give you a lot more "helpers" doing legwork for you.
The Give-A-book program can be used for fund raisers. Get into the school to explain about how it works and let a group such as PTA do it for a fund raising effort for kindergarten children.
A dealer keeps a form handy at her booth for potential groups to fill out and then she can call them back later. This little 3" X 5" form has a heading "Fund raising Inquiry." It simply asks for the "name of the organization" on the top line; the "person to contact"; followed by address, then the phone. The fifth line is "referred by" and the last line is "approximate date of fund raiser."
While set up as an exhibitor at a national reading convention, a dealer put up a small sign that said, "We do fund raisers!" or "Ask about our fund raisers".
They worked with a local hospital to include a baby brochure in the gift pack that moms receive when they take their new babies home. The recipients send the completed catalogs to the hospital who send it on to the Dealer. They sold the books for $12.95 and the hospitals got $2.45 for the auxiliary.
Working with a company called Party Time, who makes up gift baskets for children and adults, a dealer provided her books to her customers for $10.
A professional fund raiser had some excellent suggestions for working with grade school children through the PTA or PTO. The schools like the books because they are nice educational items, not like some of the "junk" that schools usually promote. These books are "super gifts for super kids" Set the promotion to run for up to two weeks and emphasize that it starts today so the kids will go out and get busy. (Actually Mom, Grandma, or other relatives will probably take samples to work with them). It is a good idea to have team captains for each class so the best students can motivate others. He said you must first find out what the goal is for the group. Then you show them how easy it is for them to attain that amount. What percentage the schools gets will depend on the district or school. However, 10 to 15 percent seemed to be a fair amount.
A high school teacher uses gift certificates to sell the Create-A-Books. He worked with 40 kids and gave $3 $4 to the group for each book sold. He guarantees delivery in 24 hours. The group made between $400 $500! If a kid sold 10 books, he generated $40 for the group. For a sales pitch, he made a comparison of candy sales to book sales. For the same amount of money that was generated by selling 10 books it would have taken 80 candy bar sales!

What the dealers said when asked "made you successful with Create-A-Book?

Hard work, dedication and determination. All the ingredients must be there to be successful. Also, satisfying the customer played a big role.
Having a positive attitude about the product and making a commitment to sell the books. I made a commitment to myself to work on selling Create-A-Books seven days a week even if it only means spending five or 10 minutes a day thinking about the business or planning a new marketing approach.
Sowing the seeds all year; putting in the hours on a day to day basis pays off. Producing quality books. I don't take shortcuts. I care about every book I make. I want each book to be my very best.
Having professional sales people. If you hire employees, make sure they are top quality.
Turning out a quality product. If the customer is not happy with the book, we redo it until they are satisfied. We make sure our employees have the same commitment. Nothing can replace quality.
Your voice inflection is important. You can transfer your enthusiasm to your customer through your pattern of speech.

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