Labels
Many small businesses require address labels, and other personalised stickers but do not have the facility to print them. Based on the number of years that I have seen direct response adverts for home labelling equipment this is also something that appeals to many retail customers.
My grandmother used to send letters with a return address label on the reverse. This is probably outdated for individuals sending letters these days, but still useful for businesses that ship goods using the national postal system. It means that wrong addresses, or customers who have moved away do not have to mean lost stock, it also gives another contact point for customers to see the company address and logo.
Many home printers can also print labels, if your does not then you can buy a newer model that will for a relatively low cost. There are different types of labels and you may want to explore this before you start, for example stationary labels, non-removable identity labels, clothing labels (for kids clothes) etc. I will talk mainly about stationary labels but the principles will apply if you wish to offer a broader range or specialise in a particular kind of label.
You will need to buy special paper for your printer, with a sticky back attached to a backing sheet. The labels are usually pre-sized and you may want to stock a number of sizes for different uses. Your printer should come bundled with software to handle this, but if not you can find plenty of free applications by searching on the internet.
Run some test jobs for each size of label with your own company name and address to ensure that you have all the settings correct, and you have your samples ready for any prospective customers.
Advertising should be local and focussed on the following activities: -
Family, friends, networking
Yellow pages, small businesses
Local Newspaper, Yellow pages
Schools, childrens' clubs
EBay
Website
This is a low cost business to start in, and you do not need to charge a lot of money for the end product to make money. 100 sheets of 30 standard address labels cost $10.95 from www.onlinelables.com. That works out at about 11 cents for 30 labels, clearly the percentage return is high but you will need to sell a lot of labels to make this worthwhile. Start by using the labels on all of your own letters, parcels etc, and by telling everyone you know about what you are doing, that it is cheap, and that it is useful for both individuals and companies. If you are enthusiastic you can expect people to tell their own social contacts about what you are doing if they think it will be useful.
If you get started and start making a little money but want to push this further then write, or phone companies in your local area. You can either use the yellow pages, a small business directory or call into businesses close to your home and tell them about what you are doing. If you are not big on face to face cold calling then a letter with some samples attached and a pricelist will probably get you some orders. Try to focus on businesses that are likely to have more written communications, as opposed to retailers and restaurants. Examples might include accountants, lawyers and maybe even Doctors, or Dentists surgeries.
Advertising in the mediums where your small business clients are likely to look should prove to be a winner. The Yellow pages and regular small adverts in your local newspaper should therefore prove successful. Remember that getting just one customer may be worthwhile if they turn out to be a consistent repeat order and/or require a large number of labels. You could also try leafleting small business parks by leaving a business card or flyer on car windscreens.
I mentioned clothing labels above; many kids influence their parentsˇ¦ decisions. If you could run some kind of workshop where the kids get a free sheet of stickers with their name on them and some promo materials you are likely to create some good will within your community as well as picking up some future orders. Try to put together a half an hour to 45 minute activity that the kids can talk about and get some value from.
EBay has 2500 advertisements for address labels, which will make this competitive but not impossible. Price may become an issue and you should ensure that you can make enough money to meaningfully cover the cost of your time setting up any orders on the printer. As you get bigger this may become more feasible as you will be buying your blank labels in larger order sizes, and thus hopefully at cheaper prices than your competitors.
Similarly Google has 18 million hits under address labels. It will be tough to drive traffic to your website purely online. This does not mean that you shouldn't have a site. By optimising keywords that will drive local traffic, and pushing the website offline you will give customers and potential customers an additional contact point, a source of information, and somewhere to view the various choices of labels, pricing etc.
Finding blank labels is simple; you will need to decide how many styles to carry and how much stock to buy when you start out. I would recommend starting by buying the minimum order size of each label you think will be attractive, and then re-ordering when you start to get orders. As your business grows you will understand which varieties to carry more stock for. If you take this approach then make sure you are up front with your customers about how long they will have to wait for their order.
This is a great little business that you can start from home. Donˇ¦t think of competing with commercial printing companies at first, and you should find plenty of small orders which will add up to a nice 2nd income.