The Most Successful Sales Letter of all Time

Dear Reader:

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both—as young college graduates are—were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

What Made The Difference

Have you ever wondered, as I have, what makes this kind of difference in people’s lives? It isn’t a native intelligence or talent or dedication. It isn’t that one person wants success and the other doesn’t.

The difference lies in what each person knows and how he or she makes use of that knowledge.

And that is why I am writing to you and to people like you about The Wall Street Journal. For that is the whole purpose of The Journal: to give its readers knowledge—knowledge that they can use in business.

A Publication Unlike Any Other

You see, The Wall Street Journal is a unique publication. It’s the country’s only national business daily. Each business day, it is put together by the world’s largest staff of business-news experts.

Each business day, The Journal’s pages include a broad range of information of interest and significance to business-minded people, no matter where it comes from. Not just stocks and finance, but anything and everything in the whole, fast-moving world of business. . .The Wall Street Journal gives you all the business news you need—when you need it.

Knowledge Is Power

Right now, I am looking at page one of The Journal, the best-read front page in America. It combines all the important news of the day with in-depth feature reporting. Every phase of business news is covered. I see articles on new inflation, wholesale prices, car prices, tax incentives for industries to major developments in Washington, and elsewhere.

The Journal is also the single best source for news and statistics about your money. In the Money & Investing section there are helpful charts, easy-to-scan market quotations, plus “Abreast of the Market, ” “Heard on the Street” and “Your Money Matters, ” three of America’s most influential and carefully read investment columns.

If you have never read The Wall Street Journal, you cannot imagine how useful it can be to you.

A Money-Saving Subscription

Put our statements to the proof by subscribing for the next 13 weeks for just $44. This is among the shortest subscription terms we offer—and a perfect way to get acquainted with The Journal.

Or you may prefer to take advantage of our better buy —one year for $149. You save over $40 off the cover price of The Journal.

Simply fill out the enclosed order card and mail it in the postage-paid envelope pro-vided. And here’s The Journal’s guarantee: should The Journal not measure up to your expectations, you may cancel this arrangement at any point and receive a refund for the undelivered portion of your subscription.

If you feel as we do that this is a fair and reasonable proposition, then you will want to find out without delay if The Wall Street Journal can do for you what it is doing for mil-lions of readers. So please mail the enclosed order card now, and we will start serving you immediately.

About those two college classmates I mention at the beginning of this letter: they were graduated from college together and together got started in the business world. So what made their lives in business different?

Knowledge. Useful knowledge. And its application.

An Investment In Success

I cannot promise you that success will be instantly yours if you start reading The Wall Street Journal. But I can guarantee that you will find The Journal always interesting, always reliable, and always useful.

Sincerely,

Publisher

P.S. It’s important to note that The Journal’s subscription price may be tax deductible.
Ask your tax advisor.

© 1994 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This letter is estimated to have brought in $1 billion in sales. When writing a sales letter (or any ad) you should look at extremely successful letters/ads.

Notice how personal the letters tone is. Also notice how it starts with a story. That is gold! (to the tune of one billion bucks)

Go get some

Paul

Advertisers are not Marketers

As I sit here working on my next project (see it here) I am reminded of the difference between advertising and marketing.

Most people lump them both together and we as marketers HATE that. Advertisers only sell one thing- ads. The only person they know how to sell to is desperate businesses.

Advertising is something that must be measurable or it can become a cancer to your bank account. Most advertisers rarely have real numbers of what to expect with your ad. The one number they do know is how much to charge you.

It is vital to never let anyone involved with design or an ad agency to plan your marketing. Designers and ad agencies are where you go when you have the wording and design idea that is conducive to your target market.

Don't allow some creative yo-ho take your ad and crash it into the ground. They can be very persuasive as they show you some killer graphics surrounding your business name. They use this as a aphrodisiac and play on your ego.

When you see Super Bowl commercials and get done laughing do you go to the store and buy that product or switch your car insurance? Not likely. Guess what, GEICO has no idea if the ad for the Super Bowl works either because there is no direct response measures in place.

Do you see how that could kill your business?

You want people to see your ad and call, not build up some long bullsh-t link with them. It is an utter illusion that we need to expose our company a thousand times to get people to call. I don't care to get them to memorize my name if I have them as customers.

When you watch tv notice what direct response marketing is (what you want to be doing) and brand recognition (like owls and air freshener).

Those commercials that are telling you to buy Nutri-System now push you to the phone. How many phone calls do you think GEICO got after the Super Bowl? How many Sham-wows do you think sells every time the commercial airs? LOTS!

Yellow Page reps are terrible also. They will literally tell you to do what the guys in the big ads are doing. "well if it is working for them"... who said it's working? Who says I want to be another spoke in the wheel. I want to out gun my competition not look like a big page of sameness.

Almost nobody uses direct response methods in their yellow page ads. Most use the business card style generic ad. If you add a freebie to your YP ad along with the right wording you could easily get the jump on the bigger companies.

Whenever you find yourself discussing wording for your postcard, flier or space ad with the person making/selling it... STOP! They know nothing about you, your target market or how to sell your service. Pretty pictures and a great logo will get you nothing (but a good stroking of your ego)

Contact somebody with a little know how with direct marketing before you hand over the keys to the car. If the advertiser is wrong they still get paid. If they are wrong you're screwed.

Advertising is a part of marketing, not the other way around.

Go get some


Paul

Exposing the Ad

The Fewer the Words the Better!

You say that people will not read lots of words and postcards cut through by being basic? Boy, I’ve got news for you… you’re way wrong! You would be hard pressed to find me a postcard that had a better response than a letter. I can find you MANY 16 page letters that outsold the 8 page version which outsold the 4 page version which outsold the 2 page version… get my drift? I am talking about companies that generated millions and millions off more words. I am talking about sales that would not have happened with 50 words on a card.

Do you think that your service is just too basic to go on for a page or more? I could write a 5 page letter on thumbtacks. Don’t focus on the "we clean______" ,"I cut grass", "we install_____".

You don’t write about what you do, you write about what it does.
It is not the amount of words that turn them off, it is what you are saying that turns them off. People love a good book. They love magazine articles, they LOVE stories. People are always looking for interesting news. What do people say to each other all the time? ―what’s new?
Ever notice that every 6 months you see- New and Improved Tide, New Nutri-system, New ways to make $1000 a week sitting on the couch, etc…

Most fail in their attempt to add more words because they run out of things to say about themselves. Most of you create ads focused on themselves. Let's face it, you love you some you.

When you write about you it does not take long before you run out of things to say. You likely slap your name at the top of your ad followed by a "we're #1 in Philadelphia" or "Angie's List Award winner" or you may toss in a worthless tag line like "we don't cut corners, we clean them"

When we view our company we get excited to think of ourselves as being the best. I get aroused thinking I am the best marketer in the service industry, YEAH BABY! but alas, am I truly the best marketer in the industry. If I state I am the best marketer, how would you feel about that?

You would likely roll your eyes

We need to realize that most all ads look the same within the service industry. If you really want to stand out it is quite simple, say something meaningful. How do you do that?

Take a look at some of your ads and your website landing page (home page). How many times to refer to you or your company. Count the times you say I, we, us, our, my, and company name.

People really want very little information about you. Either they need your service or you create the need (which take words), they do not see your credentials or hype and get talked into it. I had a interesting chat with a business owner who told me that ad content does not matter, either they need your service or they don't....

I find that interesting, it is a good thing people in this country do not impulse buy, right? Every time we go to the store we get only what we went there for, right?

In an earlier post I discussed what can be learned from infomercials. The biggest lesson to be learned is that they create a need you did not know you had and sell you something you had no intention on buying 5 minutes before you landed on that channel.

They flat out convinced you in a half hour. You say that you don't buy off infomercials and your target prospects don't fall for that stuff? You are a sucker and so are they. If you don't believe me than tell me why you go to the grocery store and end up with a fleet of items they strategically place to influence your purchase.

Now find me any example of how glorifying yourself works.

How can you make ads that can create a need instantly? Hit on their triggers-

People connect words to images, not the letters that derive them. For example if I say "money" you do not think of the letters m-o-n-e-y, you think of green dollars or your bank balance. Your mind visualizes everything. Now imagine what the vision is when someone reads about how you are #1 or your award. They don't envision anything that is relative to them and your ad blends back into the 2000-3000 ads they see that day.

To grab attention you need to know what created your past customers to call you. Why did they want/need their carpets or windows cleaned? Was it a special occasion, did their carpets smell, was it because they do not have time to do it themselves? Once you get an idea of reasons they bought you can exploit that.

A Home With Dirty Windows is Like a Nice Smile With Yellow Teeth

Humidity, Pets and Carpet Can Make Your Home the Talk of the Town

You may have noticed I have created mental imagery here. Now you may not get those people whose windows are clean or those that do not have pets?... so what. You can't appeal to everyone but you can lock down a part of the market by being precise.

Let's face it, almost everyone has carpets and everyone has windows. You will never appeal to most of them no matter what because their triggers are different. You want to narrow your search to those most attracted to your offering.

Now as you get in to the rest of the ad you should discuss why your service can help them. You want reasons derived from benefits and not your perceptions. You most likely speak in a features manner right now that is introverted-

"We offer the highest quality at the lowest price"

That seems like an awesome statement doesn't it? So awesome in fact that every service and product has latched onto it turning it into meaningless drivel. Do you really give the highest quality at the lowest price? How do you know? How will they know, because you say so?

Now let's remove ourselves from the statement and define it-

Great value!- Most 3 bedroom homes are under $150 and every homeowner is protected by a 100% satisfaction guarantee

You are likely aware of what customers pay in that area. Average it out and use that if the price is fair. Quality is elusive, guarantee satisfaction and quality becomes a non-issue. Keep in mind EVERY company promises high quality, back it up .

A Guarantee is a POWERFUL feature and scares the hell out of most business owners for no reason. Let's say you are looking for a used truck. You are looking for a red 2005 Ford F150. You find 2 of them each at different dealerships. Let's say they both cost the same price and are in the same condition, similar millage.

The only real difference is that one of them has a warranty and the other is "as is", which one will you buy? No brainer, right? What if the one with the warranty is $100 more, would you pay it for the security? Likely. What if it is $500 more, would you still pay it? Likely you would take it or at least think hard about it.

Now imagine the homeowner that has a kung fu grip on her checkbook. She looks at 2 ads for window cleaning and one has a guarantee and the other says nothing about it. Even if the ads were identical she would lean towards the guarantee. We are all trained with "buyer beware" because of personal experience and word of mouth. We all hear the horror stories.

Subconciously just seeing guarantee drops a certain amount of defensiveness,

Do you see where the guarantee transformed from a feature to a benefit? Do you see how "lowest price" can be communicated in a different way to allow the person reading the ad to draw their own conclusion. We just help guide them and they are less resistant. We are trained to resist ads otherwise we would make 3000 purchases a day. Yet the infomercial and the grocery store can still talk us into it.

You can cause people to impulse buy a service. I have done it a thousand times and will do it thousands more.

Find your features and turn them into benefits-

• Get a set of 3x5 index cards and on each card write down a feature of your service. Keep in mind a benefit is not a feature. A feature is: window cleaning, house cleaning, screens cleaned, we use The Sudser 3000, we work Saturdays, We have 10 years experience, guarantee... etc

• You will sit with your cards and scribble maybe 5-10 before you get frustrated and give up- DON’T! You can likely get at least 25 features from your service. (these can be
  guarantees, soap, processes, customer service, specially trained employees) Stop and take a breather and get back at it!

• After you get 15-20 written down I want you to go back and explain each benefit customers get from them. How do they feel, how does it do, what does it smell like, etc. Get as detailed as possible, you can edit it down later. What does the Sudser 3000 do for them? Go deep on this.

• Sometimes this helps- go look at a different service, maybe one you use like lawn care, or a product like tooth paste. Take your cards and start writing down what YOU like about it. Why do you like it and what keeps you buying more. What could they do to make the product even better. Taking your company out of the picture will open you up to seeing this more clearly. Take your new found insight and now apply it to your offering- as an outsider.

• Pick the strongest 2 or 3 things you think your customers care about most. Check out your competition and see if they are leveraging those benefits. If you have one they are not using and it is something that really resonates with your current customers… RUN WITH IT! Be careful not to dump it after a couple weeks because you had some bad ads. You will need to make sure the rest of the ad, the offer and the market are solid also.

Go get some


Paul

"How to Make $1000 a Day Cleaning Windows"

Headlines....

Surely the headline above got your attention. You are likely in the window cleaning business and would likely be interested in making a grand a day.

Most of us do not pull off very good headlines, in fact most just put the company name at the top of an ad. To say that is a costly mistake is a severe understatement.

You could literally be eliminating thousands upon thousands of dollars because you did not use bait to catch fish. You instead just cast out and reel in catching only those that happen to get in the way.

Even the ones you hooked are fighting to get off the line.

Whether you are writing a sales letter, postcard, flier or space ad you had better be doing all in your power to get people to read it. Your name does not inspire interest, trust me.

You don' believe me? You say people will remember your name and that's important? When they remember your name, what is it exactly they will remember? What will that cause them to do, call you someday? Not likely.

Let's use the above headline as an example. Let's say you received a flier and in big letters across the top it said-

ONSLAUGHT Marketing

I am uninspired, how do you feel? I do love seeing my name and love that everyone will see it... as it is going to the trash can. Let's look at our other option-

"How to Make $1000 a Day Cleaning Windows"

If you are a window cleaner or thinking about starting a company, would this not get you to take a gander at what the rest of the ad says? I would also imagine you do not have an aversion to making $1000 a day. Even if you thought it was probably bs you would read it just to make sure.

Would you read it? You bet your telescopic pole you would

This exact same thing can be done to homeowners or businesses. The key is to know why your customers actually hire you. You do this by asking questions like "what made you decide to hire someone to do this?". I know you are thinking "because my windows are dirty" and you would be wrong. You need to know why their windows are dirty. Why is it they have not either cleaned them or hired anyone until now. Is it a fear of heights, lack of time, aggravating results, they don't want to chip a nail?

What will surprise you is that many will hit on the same reason. If 65% of the answers were "I hate heights" you now know that is a key element that needs to be added to all of your marketing.

You will always maintain the generic, obvious use of your service, but when you hit a persons triggers they will react-

"How to Avoid Life Threatening Injuries While Spring Cleaning"

You do not need to mention what you do in a headline. In fact I advise against it. You want to pull them in first by hitting a trigger. I used pain here, people have natural aversion to pain and will avoid it at all costs.

Sometimes testing 2 different headlines is the best way to go.

To test a headline you will need to know what ad they are calling from. This is easy if you are splitting the ads geographically, but if you are using both in the same area you will need to have a code for them to tell you or have on a coupon. Just put something like GG1 on the bottom corner and ask them what is in the bottom corner.

The winner is what you run with until you create another headline to test against that.

It is important to not stray too far away from the benefit of your headline. Keep the rest of the ad moving in the same direction.

Here is some food for thought; just a decade ago we used to see around 500 ads per month, today we average 500 ads every 4 hours! The human mind is amazing isn't it. Do you know how we get through the day without our heads exploding? We totally discard all we see that is not of interest.

You likely seen thousands of ads yesterday, how many do you remember? Better yet how many got you to "order now" or to "call now". The ones that hit your triggers are the ones you get off your butt to call.

We will discuss how to continue through an ad next week. The headline alone will not get the phone to ring.

Go get some


Paul