Direct Marketing Campaign begins! First set of flyers sent out.

In an attempt to promote my eBook and this ThenCameCancer.com website, I mailed out my first set of flyers to doctors today. It was a relatively small mail flight of 200 folded booklets, but it’s a good start.

You can download the complete 8-page direct mail piece here. The flyer consists essentially of a request to oncologists and hematologists to help me get the word out about my eBook and my website to their patients. In addition to suggesting to the doctors several ways in which they can help spread the word, the 8-page flyer also contains sample pages, like:

• the front cover of the eBook

• a page of promotional copy (derived from the virtual rear cover of my eBook); 

• the first page of the Preface of the eBook; 

• the Table of Contents of the eBook;

• the Table of Educational Resources —Articles, from the eBook

• The web page for the expanded More Resources segment of the Unlimited Access version of my ThenCameCancer.com website, featuring the extensive outline that provides information and links to the Foundations, Associations, Pharmaceutical Companies, Journals, Magazines, Internet Media, Videos, List of medications used in chemotherapy, and comprehensive cancer treatment centers, hospitals, and institutions.

Essentially, what I am asking doctors to do is to print out and place a copy of the front cover of my eBook, backed by the one-page promotional copy derived from the virtual rear cover of my eBook, in their office waiting room so that patients can see them as  free handout literature which they can take home with them. Let them get a taste of what the eBook and website has to offer them so that they visit the website and decide for themselves if they just want to browse around on the free, public access version, or if they (hopefully) want to purchase a Membership to gain more access and support this endeavor.

When I went for my annual physical exam at the very beginning of the new year, I showed the flyer to Dr. Nasir Khan, my primary care physician. He liked it and said that his UB / MD clinic would display it in their waiting room. Ideally, I want doctors to attach the front cover of the eBook to one of those letter-size plastic holders you find in the brochure areas of doctors’ office, with several copies of the promotional page available to the patients to take home as the handouts. As soon as I can, I’ll take a picture of the display in the UB / MD waiting room as an illustrative model for what I have in mind.

Now, if I could just get the doctors in America to cooperate by telling their patients about this resource I have provided to newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma patients and their families, maybe my efforts will have turned out to be worthwhile after all.

It’s way too expensive for me to conduct a direct mail marketing that will reach all the doctors, hospitals, medical schools, and others whom I’d like to contact. So, I wish that administrators in such organizations would download the flyer PDF package directly from my website, print out the front cover page and the promotional copy page, and place them in the plastic holders of take home brochures in their own offices, without my intervention. Ah, that would be ideal! 

Considering the costs of First Class postage, plus paper, plus ink toner consumption, plus the initial investment in a Brother laser color printer, it costs me about $2.00 per piece. So, I won’t be able to contact as many doctors than I had originally hoped. Nor can I afford to provide any one of them with a printed set of flyers for their own use without being reimbursed: I have to rely on the doctors to share the costs of paper and ink, which I know may be seen as a stretch by those who won’t be able to see the value of getting the word out to their patients.

But, hey, it can’t hurt to ask, right? After all, it’s just an experiment in shared marketing. I’ve been carrying the load and taking the total risk all by myself thus far. Let’s see how it all turns out from this point on.

For anyone who might be interested in the details, here’s a little background on what led up to my decision to try to promote my eBook and my website through a direct mail marketing campaign in the first place.

Throughout most of December 2014, I turned my attention to the marketing and promotional phases of this eBook and ThenCameCancer.com project. In order to make this project a success, I feel compelled to try to get the word out to as many people as possible who might benefit from either reading my personal narrative, or by gaining quick, easy, and one-stop convenient access to a wide range of informational and educational resources on cancer in general and Multiple Myeloma in particular, or both. I decided that, since the original point of contact which every uninformed, newly diagnosed Multiple Myeloma must go through on their journey with this disease is their doctor, I would try to enlist the support of the doctors in America in getting the word out to their patients.

Towards that goal, I designed a flyer, and I investigated various supplemental ways to distribute information about my eBook and its associated website to doctors—other than the Internet. At first, I thought that I would try faxing, since my initial research turned up a relatively inexpensive broadcast fax service that I could pair up with a relatively inexpensive mailing list. I could send out over a million faxes to all the doctors in America within a week for under $1,000. 

Alas, it turned out that such indiscriminate faxing is illegal. According the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005, it is illegal to fax anything to anyone with whom you do not already have a pre-existing business relationship. Fines are stiff.

Not wanting to do anything illegal or open myself to costly penalties, I then explored using eMail. According the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, it is legal to send out promotional emails to people you don’t yet know, as long as you follow certain guidelines. But the vendors who sell the contact information of the doctors want 45 cents per name, which is exorbitantly expensive in my view, and they won’t let you just take their list and use it forever. They also want to charge you for a one-time email blast which they will do for you at their office for an additional, inflated price. 

To get a bigger picture of my direct marketing options, I figured that I might as well check out traditional direct mail marketing using printed materials sent by the good old U.S. Postal Service. While reading the arcane regulations was not much fun, I did learn that my best option was to create a “folder booklet.” While many experts would argue for a short, simple postcard, I feel that, in order to give doctors and their staff the best opportunity to see what I have to offer, I have to include more information than can be contained on a mere postcard (although I will eventually conduct some tests to see if my guess is correct). 

Since I was now considering using real-world physical materials instead of virtual materials like emails and faxes, along with the postage, I had to incorporate the costs of paper, ink toner, and, of course, a laser color printer to make everything look nice and professional.  Although the cost comparison with email marketing indicated the traditional direct mail marketing would be more expensive, I ended up electing to use the printed form of sending out my flyers because I believe that there is a better chance of actually getting my message in front of the eyes of people who might appreciate seeing it, rather than have them delete unread an email message from an unknown source as junk.

So, I invested in a new color laser printer from Brother (model HL-L8350CDW, in case anyone is interested), and I ordered reams and reams of paper. Throughout the holiday season, I began to pump out and assemble copies of my flyer. It’s a big financial risk I take, but I’d feel like a failure if I did not at least spend some time and money trying to get the word out to those who might benefit. Yes, of course, I need to generate revenue to pay my living expenses and my mounting medical bills (getting a triple cocktail of chemo once a week is not cheap!), as well as to keep this whole operation going. That’s why I am hoping that my investment of time, labor, and money over these past three years on this eBook and website project will now bring in some money. But, as I stated from the outset, the more important goal for me is to be productive and to be of service to people before my time is up. 

However, at the same time, I have to conserve my energy and my very limited financial resources. It would be foolish to think otherwise. So, if this project does not get financially supported by the public relatively soon, then I will ultimately be forced to abandon it and move on to something else which might. I won’t regret the time and effort I put into writing my book and developing this website: I’ll just feel sad that I was unable to connect the content to the people who could most benefit from what I have put together on their behalf.

Anyway, the point of this blog is to announce that I mailed out my first set of flyers to doctors this week, and it really feels good to be able to do so. I will follow-up by sending out several hundred more flyers in the coming days, after which I’ll be interested to see how this marketing experiment will have worked, so that I can determine what my next step will be.

Let’s hope that the doctors—and their open-hearted administrative staff—see the value in what I’m trying to accomplish here and step in to help out. Anyone who wants to can freely download the PDF file  containing direct mail marketing flyer from my downloads page and help to get the word out by printing out and displaying the front cover and the promotional page anywhere they choose. Thanks.