From:
W-A-Y West of Jewfish
Creek
Dear Friend & Subscriber,
Do you remember receiving a letter from me with a dollar
bill attached to it a couple of weeks ago?
You do remember? Good. And now, as you can see, once again
I am sending you a letter with money attached. This time it's
a penny. A nice, bright, shiny copper penny.
What's going on here? Why do I keep sending you letters
with money attached? Am I some kind of nut or something?
Maybe so. Come to think of it, nobody yet has ever accused
me of being sane! However, this time, at least, there
is a bit of method to my madness. You see, what I'm trying to
do is "condition" you. What I want is for you to get used to
the idea of receiving money in the mail as a result of your
association with me. I want it to become a habit. I want it to
happen every day. I want you to experience what it is like to
be flooded with so much mail you will have to hire an
extra 40 people just to count it all and help you make your
bank deposits!
Don't scoff. I've already done it dozens of times.
And now, my friend, I'm going to show you how to do
it too. Won't that be nice? Let's get started!
First of all, if you've been paying attention, you should
have already learned something that can dramatically
increase the bottom-line profitability of almost any
direct-marketing organization. Did you miss it? I bet not.
What I'm talking about, of course, is the proper way to
respond to an order.
Do you know what most mail order companies do when they get
an order: Usually, the procedure goes something like this:
They log it in, keypunch the customer data, generate a label,
send the label to a fulfillment facility and then... the order
gets filled.
Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!
Here's what they should be doing: As soon as they get an
order, they should immediately send what I call a
"thank you, please send more money" letter. Right away.
Without waiting for keypunching. Without waiting for label generation. Without
waiting till the order is filled. Without waiting for
anything.
It should be done rather like the way I did it when
you ordered from me. Remember? Remember how you
got a very dramatic (and incidentally, very sincere) letter
from me that thanked you for your order? Remember how I took
the trouble to reassure you that you had made a wise decision
when you subscribed to my letter? Remember how I resold you a
little on the benefits to come?
And then... do you remember how, at the end of my letter, I
told you I had enclosed another subscription order
form... and... how I asked you "to give it to someone you
love"?
What's that? You say you did catch all that? You say
you're already doing something similar or at least you're
going to start?
Good! Good! Good!
Now listen: Did you also notice how, by attaching something
to the top of my letters, I am able to immediately capture and
focus my reader's (your) attention? Did you also notice,
however, how I made sure the attachment "made sense" (no pun
intended) within the context of the rest of my letter? Did you
notice how neatly my copy made the transition from the
attachment (a penny) to the subject (getting money in the
mail) of my letter?
You did catch all that? Wonderful. I knew you would.
After all, you are one of my subscribers and my subscribers
really are the sharpest people (true) in the entire industry.
OK, let's stop messing around. Let's dive right in to the
subject of this month's letter which is...
The
Amazing Direct Mail Secret
Of A Desperate Nerd From Ohio!
I first got bitten by the mail order bug in the mid-1960's.
What really got me fired up was reading a little set of
booklets called The Direct Mail Guides written by a man
named Thomas Hall. Those guides were terrific. They remain, to
this day, the very best material I've ever read on the subject
of direct mail.
In any case, those guides were my original inspiration...
and later... I became even more excited when I read an article
in The Reporter of Direct Mail about a man named John
Leslie who had a company called "Leslie Creations" and later,
another company called "Mail Order Methods."
To me, Leslie and Thomas Hall were heroes. They were
clear-headed doers who were successful in the most exciting,
romantic business on earth: Mail Order. They had money, an
exciting lifestyle (Leslie even had two refrigerators:
One just for soft drinks!), recognition of their peers, and
everything else a man could want. I longed to be just like
them.
So I started to study. Hard.
I read everything I could get my hands on about
advertising, direct mail and mail order. I
mean everything. If my local library or bookstore
didn't have a marketing book I wanted, I would drive hundreds
of miles to get it. I even flew to New York (I was living in
Ohio at the time) to check out the Manhattan Public Library,
and to Washington, D.C. to forage through the Library of
Congress.
Let me tell you: I was driven. I read it all. I was
voracious. I went on a reading frenzy with the same passion a
Great White goes on a feeding frenzy. I memorized all the
rules, AIDA, IDCA, PPPP and so on. I learned, from my reading,
that hundreds of split-run tests over the years had proven the
following:
* It is more cost effective to use bulk rate than
first-class postage.
* Teaser copy on the outer envelope always increases
response.
* A two-color letterhead is better than
only one color.
* The best direct mail package always contains (in addition
to an outer envelope with teaser copy all over it and a
two-color sales letter), a four-color brochure, a business
reply envelope and a printed order card.
This was gospel. After all, all the books said the same
thing. Those books also said it was almost impossible to make
a compiled list work and that you should never, ever try to
make a mailing to names from a telephone book.
Who was I to argue? This stuff was all "proven".
And so, armed with the results of all this "proven"
research, I set out to make my fortune in direct mail.
Back then, my life settled into a routine and it went like
this: I would come up with a product idea like a book or a
report or something and then, following all the rules, I would
create a direct mail package to sell that product. After that,
I would then beg, borrow or steal enough money to get my
envelopes, letters, brochures and everything else printed up
and then, (to save money), my wife and I would stuff the
letters and stamp and seal them ourselves and put them in the
mail. Then, of course, we'd sit back to wait for the money to
roll in.
It never came. Not very much anyway.
And so, I'd start over. I'd find or conceptualize another
product and I'd go at it once again. I was so obsessed in
those days that, if necessary, I would literally spend the
utility money to make my test mailings. Sometimes my wife and
I would be anxiously waiting for the orders to come while
sitting in a dark house with no water because we hadn't paid
our utility bills.
True.
This got to be very tiresome. Especially for Nancy. She was
remarkably firm, after awhile, on the idea we should not let
our water be turned off just so we could mail another test.
Can you imagine that? I mean really; how narrow-minded can a
person be? Is it any wonder we eventually got a divorce?
So anyway, after about three years (I'm sometimes a slow
learner) of this dreary existence, I sat down and did some thinking. I said to myself something
like this:
"Gary, what would you do if you had to make your
next mailing work? What if you could only mail one
letter and, if you didn't get a response, you would quite
literally, be beheaded?"
Try thinking like that sometime... like your life
actually depends on the success of your next mailing. Can
you do it? Can you put yourself in that frame of mind? Well,
I did, and I came to a number of conclusions, and I want you
to reason along with me.
Now listen, if, for real, you had to mail one letter to a
stranger and you had to get an order from him or you
really would be murdered, here is the way I think you would be
thinking:
First, I bet you would NOT mail bulk! Certainly not if your
life depended on it. Would you? I sure wouldn't for at least
three reasons:
1. If the stranger I was writing to had moved, my bulk-rate
letter would NOT be forwarded to him... and... if my life
really was on the line, I sure wouldn't chance non-delivery.
Would you?
2. Secondly, if I mailed bulk rate and my
letter did get delivered, I would be scared to death that
maybe the stranger to whom I was writing would see it was bulk
rate and maybe not open it because maybe he was very busy and
maybe not feel like taking the time to open anything except
his personal mail.
That's way too many maybes for me.
3. Thirdly, even back then, I had a
sneaking suspicion that sometimes postal workers would throw
away bulk-rate mail because they were too tired or too lazy to
lug it around and they knew nobody would miss it!
And so, my friend, for those three reasons, I decided to
mail my "life or death" letter via first-class mail.
But wait! Since my life was on the line, I also wanted to
make sure my recipient knew it was first-class mail. In
other words, I wouldn't risk confusing him by using metered
mail or a first-class printed indicia. No. Absolutely not.
Since my life depended on getting that letter opened, I
decided I would use a real, honest-to-God, live postage
stamp!
By the way, have you ever seen any of those stupid direct
mail packages that use first-class postage that is cleverly
disguised to look like bulk?
Enough about postage. The next thing that occurred to me is
I would not put a label on my carrier envelopes. Certainly not
if my life depended on it. No. What I would do, instead
is, type or handwrite my stranger's name and address on that
envelope because I would want him to accept my letter as a
personal communication.
O.K., what else? Well, I decided I wouldn't put any teaser
copy on the envelope either. I mean, honestly, would you
risk your life on getting a response from a letter mailed
to a stranger if the outside envelope said:
"Here's How To Get TIME
Magazine
At Half Price!"
I wouldn't.
What would I write on the envelope? Well, I decided my best
bet would be to write something like "URGENT" or "FIRST
CLASS MAIL" or else maybe write nothing at all.
And what about the corner card? Should it reveal my letter
was from TIME-LIFE BOOKS or THE AJAX WIDGET COMPANY
or HALBERT'S MAIL ORDER GADGETS?
Not on your life.
Not on mine, anyway! No, sir. If, quite literally,
my life depended on it, my letter was going to arrive in a
plain, white personal-looking envelope with a real
live, honest-to-God, first-class postage stamp, a typed or
handwritten address, no teaser copy, and a corner card that
revealed only (and very discreetly) the sender's return
address.
Doesn't sound very impressive, does it?
Stay with me. You are reading the evolutionary process of
some original conceptual thinking that has resulted in gross
sales of untold hundreds of millions of dollars.
Onward.
So much for the envelope. So far, I had done everything I
could (short of mailing by registered or certified mail) to
get my letter delivered and accepted as a piece of personal
mail... and... therefore, I had done what I could to achieve
the primary and most important thing in all of Direct Mail
Land which is...
I Got My Envelope Delivered
And
I Got It Opened!
What's that? Are you thinking "what's the big deal?" Listen
my friend, as simple as this sounds, the Number One reason for
the financial failure of most direct mail is because...
It Never Gets Delivered And/Or Never Gets
Opened!
Really. Aside from making the wrong offer to the wrong
list, not getting your letter delivered or opened is the
Numero Uno mistake. Think about this: What does it matter how
sparkling your copy, how compelling your offer, or how
attractive your price if your intended recipient never
receives (or opens) your letter? You know, this simple truth
seems to me to be so self-evident I feel a bit silly being so
redundant about it. But, you know what? I'd rather be
redundant than bankrupt and bankrupt is where a lot of mailers
have wound up because of failure to grasp this simple and "obvious" concept.
More about that later. But now, let's say we've got our
letter opened. So what else is there to worry about?
Hmn? Let's see? Well, what about this? What if my prospect
opens what he thinks is a piece of personal mail... and
then... all of a sudden... he finds out it's not
because he sees a color brochure, a printed order card, a BRE,
a rabbit's foot and some kind of YES-No "hot potato"?
No good. Certainly not if my life depended on getting a
response. No good at all. There's just no way I would be
willing to risk having my guy open what he thought was a
personal letter and then see all that stuff and go, "Oh,
yuck!"
Nope. You know what I decided I would want him to see when
he opened that letter? Actually, it's so unusual I'll bet
you'll never guess. And... unless you're very broad-minded...
you'll probably never forgive me for this kind of anarchistic
thinking. Because... what I decided I wanted my guy to see
when he opened that envelope was a (gulp!)... a... a... a...
Letter!
Yes. I wanted him to see what was, or at least appeared
to be, a real, honest-to-God personal letter.
And nothing else.
And so, my very first "life or death" mailing contained
only two elements: The rather plain envelope I've already
described and a simple one-page (361 words) letter that had
the appearance of a personally typed letter.
Did it work?
I'd say so. That letter generated 7,300,000 cash-with-order
customers and was the wellspring that built a mail order
company, (Halbert's) that eventually employed more than 700
people, 40 of whom were needed just to make our bank deposits
which often consisted of some 20,000 checks per day.
Now listen. My thinking on what a direct mail package
should contain has changed over the years. For one thing, I
have learned how to achieve that same effect (or, at least a
similar effect) by using bulk-rate stamps and now, I usually
include a reply envelope... and most always... an order form
(I hide it, though).
In any case, what you have just read is the evolutionary
process of how I developed my A-Pile/B-Pile concept and I am
including a more precise and formal, up-to-date explanation of
that concept on the next few pages of this letter. If you
create direct mail yourself, what I suggest you do is put
those particular pages in a file someplace and re-read them
every time you are about to design another mailing. And... if
you pay other people to create direct mail for you... I
suggest you photocopy (just this once, you have my
permission) those pages and give them to your creative person
and tell him/her to consider the concepts contained therein
before your next piece is created.
Onward.
The A-Pile
Vs.
The B Pile
Are you ready to get started? Good. You are now about to
learn the most important thing you will ever learn on the
subject of direct mail. I have a similar lesson to teach you
about newspaper and magazine advertising, but that will come
later in another letter. Right now, we will talk only
about direct mail.
Whatever. Professor Halbert is now going to give you his
semi-famous "A-Pile/B-Pile Lecture." It goes like this:
Everybody in the world divides his mail into two piles which I
call the A-Pile and the B-Pile. The A-Pile contains letters
that are, (or appear to be), personal. The B-Pile
contains everything else: Bills, catalogs, brochures, printed
announcements, envelopes that obviously contain a sales
message, and so on.
Now listen up: The most important thing you can ever do
when creating a direct mail promotion is to make sure your
letter gets in the A-Pile!
Here's why. Everybody always opens all of their
A-Pile mail and only some of their B-Pile mail.
It's as simple as that. And when you are spending thousands
(and sometimes millions) of dollars to mail a sales message,
you want to make damn sure everybody who receives your
letter will at least open the envelope. You know, this simple
truth seems to me to be so self-evident that I am always
amazed when someone wants to argue with me about it. And,
usually, as you might expect, the most vigorous arguments come
from the most "experienced" advertising people. These people
just love to tell me how they always found that B-Pile direct
mail is more cost effective.
They are always wrong. You see, they may have sent a
personal looking envelope but usually, as I'll explain later,
they forget to eliminate the "Oh, yuck!" reaction. But first,
let's talk about the differences in the appearance of an
A-Pile envelope as opposed to an envelope that is destined to
wind up in the B-Pile.
It's really quite simple. You see, A-Pile envelopes always
look personal. Not necessarily personal like they came from
your Aunt Minnie but, at least, personal like they were a
communication from one real person to another real
person. The best (most cost-effective) A-Pile envelopes
always have a live postage stamp affixed. They never
have teaser copy. They never immediately reveal by the corner
card the material inside contains a commercial message. They
are never addressed by label and they are seldom oversized or
odd shaped.
Want an example? If so, just look at the envelope this
letter came in. It's a plain white #10 with a typewritten
address, a first-class postage stamp and a corner card that
reveals only the name and address of the sender.
Down With Awards For Graphic Design;
Up With Response!
Now let's talk about B-Pile envelopes. What do they look
like? You already know. You've seen thousands of them. They
are usually label addressed and they contain teaser copy,
award winning graphics, photographs, YES-NO windows, windows
with a fake check showing through, "Miami Vice Colors", a
printed bulk-rate indicia or else a printed first-class
indicia (the stupidest mistake in direct mail), tearstrips,
and any and everything else a misinformed direct mail "expert"
can think of that will (he thinks) help get his envelope
opened.
It's so sad.
Now bear with me. I want you to imagine, in your mind's
eye, that a very busy man (or woman) is going to his mailbox
and there... lo and behold... he finds a double handful of
B-Pile mail. Can you see it? Can you see that unbelievable
"Collection of creativity"? Can you see all those
pastel-colored window envelopes? See the one that says, "Free
Oxygen To Everyone Who Breathes"? Can you see the one that
says, "The Most Important Collection Of Books Ever Offered
By TIME-LIFE"? Can you see the one that has (oh boy!)
three windows? Can you see that fat one which contains
enough printed material to make up the first volume of the
Encyclopedia Brittanica? (Come to think of it, that one
did come from the Brittanica.) Can you see the one
with a photo of a starving child begging for food? Can you see
the one some idiot tried to personalize by computer printing
(on the envelope!) some cute little message that says,
"Here's good news for the Halbert family and everybody else
who lives close to 8033 Sunset Boulevard"?
Just look at that mess!
Can you guess what happens when a busy man (or woman) goes
to his mailbox and finds such a collection? What is the first
thing he will do with all this stuff? Go ahead and guess. I
bet you get it wrong.
O.K., let's find out. Did you guess the first thing a
person will do with all this stuff is throw it away? If you
did, you are wrong. You see, the first thing a person will do
with it is sort through it to see if he has received any
A-Pile mail.
After that, then he throws it away!
Now, before I go on, I want to admit he will not always
throw all of it away. If he happens to spot an envelope that
catches his eye... and... if he happens, at that very moment,
to be just dying to buy another magazine subscription
or self-help book... or... if he has just been going crazy
waiting for a piece of mail from the Columbia Record Club,
then maybe, just maybe, he will open one of these envelopes
and see what it is all about.
But don't count on it. The percentages are against you.
O.K., if getting your letter into the A-Pile is the most
important thing you can do, what is the next most important
thing you can do? The answer is simple. The next most
important thing is to make sure your letters stays in the A-Pile.
Here's what I mean. Suppose your prospective customer gets
an envelope which looks like one of the A-Pile envelopes (like
the one this letter came in) that I have already
described. Listen: There is no doubt such an envelope will be
opened. It looks personal, it has a first-class stamp, it does
not obviously contain a sales message... and... all in all, it
is an excellent example of a personal looking envelope.
However, what happens when he does open the envelope and he
finds a bunch of material that looks like the creation of it
has set up some graphic artist for life (not to mention his
sleazebag brother-in-law who owns a printing business)?
You know what I'm talking about, don't you? I'm talking
about the big colorful brochures, YES-NO tokens, lurid,
oversized order forms, ingenious award winning "hot potatoes",
whistles, bells, kazoos, and a personal message from President
Reagan.
What will happen? I'm sure you already know: What will
happen is our prospect will say, "Oh, yuck!"... and... most
likely... he will now throw the promotion away!
No good. Here is a better way. I want you to imagine what
will happen when your prospect opens the A-Pile envelope...
and instead of seeing "Graphics on Parade"... he sees
what appears to be a simple, typed letter and another
envelope that is plain, white and sealed and has typed on it:
"Please Open This Envelope
As Soon As You Have Read My Letter.
Thanks. GH"
What will happen? It's easy to figure out. Your prospect
will begin reading the letter to find out what this is all
about. And then, if you are skillful enough, your letter will
grab your prospect's attention, it will hold his interest, it
will whet his appetite for your goods or services... and
then... at the end... it will refer him to the sealed envelope
and tell him to open it for more information and descriptive
literature.
And what will he find when he opens the sealed envelope?
Nothing special, really. You see, what he will find is all the
same stuff (order card, brochure, reply envelope, etc.) that
was in many of the B-Pile packages I have previously
described.
But what is different, what is so very different, is
when he was exposed to this material. It's a matter of
timing. Selling is like seduction. If you ask a woman to go to
bed with you, whether or not she says "yes" is largely a
matter of when you ask her. If you ask her immediately,
as soon as you've been introduced, most likely she will think
you are a creep and tell you to get lost. However, if you wait
a while, wait until she gets to know you a little, wait until
you've wined and dined her a few times, wait until she's had a
chance to warm up to you, to discover you are, indeed, a fine
fellow, then, my friend, your chances of getting a "yes" for
an answer are much, much better.
So it is with selling. Any kind of selling. It doesn't
matter if it is door-to-door, direct mail, television, radio,
newspaper ads or whatever; if you take the trouble to warm up
your prospect, to seduce him a little before you pop the big
question ("will you buy my goods?"), then your closing rate will be much, much higher.
Don't Be A Masochist!
I know, I know. There's an old joke about a guy who
immediately asked every woman he meets to go to bed with him,
and when his friends ask him if he doesn't get slapped a lot,
he replies, "Sure I do, but I get lucky a lot, too!"
Well, in my opinion, that guy is much more of a masochist
than he needs to be. You don't have to go around getting
slapped all the time in order to get a little romance in your
life... and... in direct mail, you don't have to settle for
the high rate of rejections to sales most promotions get.
A Million Dollar Example!
Look: Here is a true story which will illustrate my point.
Not long ago, I was asked to go to las Vegas to help a guy who
was in trouble. The guy was a nephew of Colonel Sanders, and
he had inherited a lot of Colonel Chicken's money and he had
invested it in a lot of high-priced vitamins he was unable to
sell. The vitamins were stored in a warehouse and he and his
partners wanted to know if I could figure out a way to sell
them by mail.
I wasn't very interested. I was very, very interested,
however, in a certain promotion which was being mailed by one
of the men at that meeting, and I told this man I would like
to redo his mailing piece for him.
He wasn't interested. He said his mailing was already
working. He said he was mailing between 300,000 and 1,200,000
letters every month and he was making a good profit.
You know what I told him? I told him his mailing was
working in spite of how horrible it was. I told him he
had obviously discovered an appeal that was so "right on
target" to the people he was mailing to that even a really
terribly conceived mailing piece would work. I also told him
that if he would let me redo his mailing package and give it
the A-Pile treatment, he would hardly be able to believe the
results.
He agreed to let me try. He wrote me a big deposit check (I
love that part!) and we made a deal. Then I got back on
the plane and flew back to L.A. and, before the wheels touched
down, only 45 minutes later, I was finished. I hardly rewrote
the promotion at all; I just cleaned it up a little so it
flowed a little more smoothly. But, of course, the main thing
I did was reformat his promotion. I made sure his
envelope looked personal so it would get into the A-Pile and I
made sure when the envelope was opened the promotion still had
an A-Pile look and the prospect would be sure to, at least,
begin to read the sales letter.
So, what were the results? Does this stuff really work or
is it all theory?
None of this is theory. Everything I have told you has been
proven by careful testing. What has happened in this case is
that promotion, (using the same sales pitch and almost the
exact same words), is pulling in approximately $96,000.00
more every month.
That's over one million extra dollars per year in return
for 45 minutes' work.
Case closed. End of lecture.
Onward. Thank you for reading that last section. And now,
with your permission, I shall continue. Let us go back to where I was earlier in this
letter before I subjected you to my A-Pile/B-Pile lecture. As
you will recall, I was flat broke trying to reason with a
pig-headed wife who considered running water and electricity
more important than making another direct mail test. So much
for her. In any case, after I figured out my "life or death"
letter should at least "look" personal, I decided it would be
just wonderful if, somehow, I could give my sales letters the
appearance of having actually been individually typed and
that's when I figured out...
How To Make
A Fake Computer Letter!
Please pay attention; this is going to be fun reading!
O.K., now back in those days, computer letters were just
starting to catch the attention of the direct marketing
community. The first ones were just awful. All the letters
were in upper case type and they looked more like a
DECLARATION OF WAR than a personal letter. But then, a bit
later, a genius named Leo Yochim got hold of the first upper
and lower case IBM print chain and started massaging computer
programs in such a way as to eventually develop a computer
letter that looked a lot like a real typed letter.
And guess what? Those first computer letters would, on the
average, increase response by 300%!
But there was a catch. Actually, there were two catches.
One was very few people knew how to create those computer
letters and the other was it cost a fortune to do the
programming and generate the letters.
This did not bode well for a nerd (me) who couldn't even
pay his utility bills.
Now remember, my frame of mind back then was that I was
going to create a "do-or-die" direct mail package and that
concept does not lend itself well to a letter that begins
"Dear Sir" or "Dear Occupant" or "Dear Resident".
So one fine day, I found myself reading a newspaper story
that changed my entire life. It was about a little old lady
who had found a neat way to supplement her social security
income. What she would do is, she would go to her local
library and pick out a surname and then do some research and
find out if there was ever a coat-of-arms (family crest) that
was recorded with that name.
Then, if there was, she would make a black and white
drawing of it and have that drawing printed on a postcard.
Then she would mail her postcard to everybody who had that
surname who lived in her county. The postcard would say she
had discovered a coat-of-arms had been recorded with the
recipient's name and this is what the design looked like in
black and white. She also went on to say the coat-of-arms was
even more dramatic in color and would offer to hand paint one
for the reader for a relatively modest fee.
Bingo!
Oh, wow! My mind started racing. "Look," I said to myself.
"Gary, here is a way to make FAKE computer letters! What I'll
do is get a bunch of telephone books from a bunch of big
cities and then I'll pull out all the Andersons and Bakers and
Halberts and so on, and then I'll type one letter that starts
out 'Dear Mr. Anderson,' and then I'll weave in that name all throughout the copy."
And I did, and it worked!
I started out with phone books, but later, after I had a
little money, my partner (Dennis Haslinger) and I made an
arrangement with Reuben Donnelly in Oak Park, Illinois (Bob
Harter was our rep back then; I wonder whatever happened to
him?) and here's what we had Donnelly do: We had them computer
pass their entire file (that cost about $70,000 back then) and
put all those names into alphabetical order. By the way, you
know what is ironic? They had just taken them OUT of
alphabetical order because of the new postal regulations that
required you to keep your list in ZIP order!
Anyway, once the file was in alphabetical order, we'd have
them kick out 20 surnames or so and have them address
envelopes to all those names and keep each pile of envelopes
addressed with certain surnames separate from the other
"surname piles."
Let's say one of the names was Anderson. O.K., what we'd do
is we'd type one "Anderson letter" and then have it offset
printed... and then... we would have a thousand or so FAKE
computer letters.
And... of course... we'd then insert all those "Anderson
letters" into the "Anderson envelopes" and mail them out...
and then... we took in
Millions And Millions And
Millions And Millions And
Millions Of Dollars!
And ever since, good old semi-handsome Gary has been able
to pay his utility bills.
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Sincerely, |
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Gary C. Halbert
In Print Salesman |
P.S. Some of the names pulled like crazy and some names
didn't work at all. Can you guess why? I'll tell you next
month, and I'll also tell you how to test a list without
getting burned.
It is very important you know this stuff about how
to test a list. Your list broker does NOT know and
neither does whatever consultant you are using. And listen:
This info on how to test a list is so important that if
you have a big test mailing going out before next month, you
should call me and I'll tell you what you need to know (free)
on the phone.
P.P.S. I'm working my buns off for you. If you've been
paying attention, you've started learning important stuff
(like how to acknowledge an order) before you even got this
first issue. So tell your friends about my newsletter. Rave
about me. Recommend me... and... better yet, give them one of
the order blanks I've included with this letter which are to
be found (of course) inside the enclosed sealed envelope.
Thank you.
Copyright © 2002 Gary C. Halbert. All Rights
Reserved. |