From:
Los Angeles, California
Saturday, 2:30 P.M.
September 1, 1986

     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.


     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?

     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...


     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.
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:


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...


     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...


     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...


     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.


     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.


     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:


     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.


     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...


     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.


     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."

	Sincerely,
	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.

Click Here To View Our Newsletter Archive

Click Here If You Want  To Be On My Newsletter Announcement List

Copyright © 1986 Gary C. Halbert. All Rights Reserved