Tuesday, January 29, 2019

#40 Curt Strohacker: He Turned a Hobby into a Big Business

Issue #40 – Tuesday, January 29, 2018

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/01/40-curt-strohacker-he-turned-hobby-into_29.html

Posted by Denny Hatch

Curt Strohacker: He Turned a Hobby into a Big Business


At Eastwood, work was play and
 the customer was the real boss.

By the time he was 18, Curt Strohacker had owned 46 automobiles.
     One at a time.
     The exception was a brief period when he owned four Austin-Healeys. Of course, in Chicago in 1963 you could buy a nine-year-old Chevy for $50, so buying and selling cars was a teenage rite of passage. Spend $100 and you had the wheels of a maharajah. This was possible because, as Curt said to me:

"Nobody took insurance very seriously. If you got into trouble, the neighborhood cop would confiscate your ignition keys and drive you home. I never had car insurance until I was in college. Things were different then." 
     Curt Strohacker founded The Eastwood Company. He mailed a million catalogs to shoppers whose passion was either restoring old cars or collecting limited edition miniatures—cars, trucks, fire engines, military vehicles, airplanes and outrageous roadside buildings.
     His domain: a cramped corner office overlooking Route 30 in the Philadelphia suburb of Malvern, where he presided over 50,000-square feet of modern offices, a spotless warehouse containing more than 2,000 items and a retail store guaranteed to send do-it-yourselfers and toy collectors into orbit.

The Beginnings
From 1970 to 1982, Strohacker was an industrial salesman for products ranging from steel to fire-fighting equipment. His last job was with 3M where he called on every imaginable kind of industry in the Philadelphia environs—from potato chip factories to U.S. Steel.        
     In his travels he learned about machinery—how things were made and how to repair them.
     When one of his customers who sold buffing wheels and compounds decided to call it quits, Strohacker felt he could make a go of it. In 1978 he invested $500 to form The Eastwood Company, taking the maiden name of his wife’s maternal grandmother. 

The Very First Eastwood Catalog
Curt printed an eight-page, black-and-white catalog at a quick printer in West Chester and tested two markets: antiques (the brass candlesticks crowd) and antique cars. In addition, he ran a space ad in Hemmings Motor News, which had 200,000 readers. He quickly found car restorers were his market.
     The first order was for $170, and he was on his way. Because Strohacker wanted to keep his sideline business separate from 3M, he signed the letter in his catalog—and all Eastwood correspondence—as “Fred Bailey.”
     One fascinating aspect of Strohacker’s approach to business: long-term loyalty that goes both ways. Framed in his office are the company’s first ad, its first catalog and the first order. That first buyer—White Post Restorations—is one of the leading restoration shops in America. Products from Eastwood’s first catalog are still carried and an Eastwood ad has appeared in virtually every issue of Hemmings since 1978.
     How did that first ad pull? I asked. Strohacker yanked a ring binder off the shelf and told me the precise cost per order. 

Expanding
As the business grew, Curt rented an office vestibule and put up shelving. Merchandise was delivered and stored there. He would take items home where he processed and packed orders in his basement; finished orders were then brought back to his little rented vestibule for next-day pickups by UPS.
     While he worked at 3M, Strohacker’s wife and father-in-law took phone orders from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. In the afternoon, an answering service kicked in. His customer list was typed so it could be reproduced on 33-up Avery labels. Eventually he went to a service bureau. In 1979 a toll-free number was introduced. The 800-service went out of business the day the catalog dropped.
     By the early 1980s, revenues had reached $400,000. Strohacker was working 40 hours a week for 3M and more than that for Eastwood, plus he had a wife and small baby. His wife ordered him to fish or cut bait.
     In 1983 the 3M umbilical cord was cut and Strohacker went on his own. “3M couldn’t understand it,” he recalled. “I was making a lot of money for them.” 

The First Employees
About that time, a young college graduate named Jim Shulman came looking for a job. Rail thin with black hair, horn-rimmed glasses and an owlish mien, Shulman sported a degree in history and a nascent career that ranged from selling toilet cleaning chemicals to sets of china on the phone. “I could fog a mirror, type and file,” said Shulman. “I was alive, and I showed up.”
     Pennsylvania was the ideal venue for Strohacker’s fledgling business. It had the highest number of registered antique car owners in the United States and the Antiques Automobile Collectors Association (AACA) was founded there in 1935 with headquarters in Hershey.
     As a result, two major antique auto shows are held annually—in Hershey and Carlisle, both prime events at which to move merchandise.


Corvettes at Carlisle 2018

2018 Automobile Show, Hershey, PA
        
A Curious Partnership
Strohacker and Shulman needed transportation. AEnter Brett Snyder who waited tables at a Chinese restaurant in nearby Devon. For his sideline business of peddling used books and magazines, Snyder had a van with bald tires and a rocky transmission.
     If Eastwood fixed the transmission and bought new tires, Strohacker wanted to know, would Snyder contribute his van to help do car shows? The first of many symbiotic relationships was formed; at that year’s Carlisle show, the van opened for business with Strohacker and Shulman purveying auto restoration equipment and Snyder selling old copies of LIFE.
     Snyder became Eastwood's operations manager; Shulman advanced to become director of new business before going off on his own as a consultant in 1997. 

A Company of Car Nuts
When he joined the company, Shulman was not into cars. Instead, he was an avid collector of fountain pens, wind-up Victrolas and 78-rpm phonograph records. His pride and joy was the tackiest American automobile ever, one of just 1,500 1962 Chrysler Imperial LeBarons designed by Virgil Exner. Shulman’s is metallic baby blue with white leather interior, freestanding headlamps, giant fins, rocket taillights, square steering wheel, and a 413 cu. in. V-8 engine that develops 350 horsepower and more gewgaws and chrome per square inch than any American car ever built.

1962 Exner Chrysler Imperial. “The tackiest American car ever built.”

Shulman’s vanity plate proclaims: THE MERM, a tribute to Stanley Kramer's 1963 comedy, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In a race scene, Ethel Merman whacks Milton Berle, who is driving this very model, and shouts, “We’re in the Imperial! Why are we last?”
     Strohacker, who had a weakness for little English station wagons, owned a Morris, a 1967 Austin Mini-Countryman and an Austin-Healey sports car. Product Manager Henry Hauptfuhrer has spent the past 30 years (on and off) restoring the 1960 MGA of his boyhood. Ask Marketing Director Kaye Broom what she drives, and she’d tell you a Toyota Camry. “Now ask me what I own,” she suggests.
     “What so you own?”
     “A 1950 Cadillac, a ‘78 Trans Am and a ‘64 Ford F-100 Pickup,” she replied. “Since I was a little girl, I have always loved speed.”
     Manager of Resources Charlie Sonneborn owned 15 collector cars including a 1941 Lincoln Continental Cabriolet, the same model driven by Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”  Sonneborn’s vanity plate: BABYJANE, naturally.
     About 80 percent of Eastwood associates—men and women alike—were car enthusiasts, Strohacker would have like it to be 99 percent.
     “The inmates are in charge of the asylum,” Shulman said to me. 

Listening to the Customer
When he started Eastwood, the most popular item was a restoration kit Strohacker designed—three buffs, three compounds and an instruction sheet. Actually the product that put Eastwood on the map was a $32.95 spot welder that could attach to any AC arc welder; it enabled the user to do factory quality work. Professional machines at that time were selling for $300 to $400. It was a top-seller with a price tag of $50.
     With the exception of some paints, Eastwood’s merchandise is not car- or model specific; tools are generic and the merchandise is skewed toward metal fabrication, welding, sandblasting, glass repair, interior care, rust prevention, painting and detailing.      
     The company was strictly a marketing operation that did no manufacturing. Strohacker and his team were constantly on the prowl for new products as well as wide open to suggestions on how existing products can be modified or new ones created.
     An example. Based on input from serious car restorers, Eastwood’s research and testing team came up with a design for a sandblast cabinet that can fit anywhere and would travel flat, thus saving the customer a small fortune in shipping charges. It was manufactured exclusively for Eastwood, which owns the patent. 

The Call Center
Fully 75 percent of Eastwood’s associates were required to spend a minimum of five hours a month in the inbound telemarketing facility on the ground floor. For the new hires, call center certification was the first order of business—learning how to talk to customers and then upsell.
     “I can’t make money selling a $4.95 can of paint,” said Hauptfuhrer. So what happens when a customer orders a $4.95 can of paint?
     The telephone sales representative (TSR) asks what the person was working on. Chances are Eastwood had the additional tools and supplies needed for that particular job and any related tasks. The upsell helps out the customer as well as turns an unprofitable sale into a moneymaker. Of course, car restorers love to talk about what they are doing and the TSRs has to resist the temptation to chat.
     What happened if the question is too technical? In 1986, it was determined that too many people were calling the order desk with technical questions, so Eastwood set up a separate help line where highly trained technical people could talk a customer through a difficult restoration problem.
     Complicated questions were bounced over to the help line. While advice from the help line was free, TSRs were fully trained in selling—and upselling. No one was exempt from duty in the call center; Strohacker himself would frequently be found with a headset, looking intently at a computer screen. 

Dealing with Order Overload
Until 1998, if an inbound overload occurred—such as the result of a television commercial—the word was quickly spread and qualified associates tore down to the call center to help out. During the great blizzard of 1996, 10 associates camped out in the office for three days so phones would be attended.
     “Companies spend thousands of dollars on corporate bonding and team-building seminars,” said Kaye Broom. “Here, all it takes is a good snowstorm.”
     Plus, as Broom suggested, call center duty blurs the difference between managers and workers that contributes to Strohacker’s philosophy of team building.
     Brooksmith Associates (later BSA, then Acxiom, then MorTech) designed Eastwood’s original telemarketing software in 1983 under the direction of Jim Shulman. “You have a college degree,” Strohacker said to Shulman. “You’re in charge of the computer.”
      In those days, Eastwood was getting an average of 30 orders a day; later the daily tally could be in excess of 1,000.
     In 1998, the MorTech system became operative throughout the building; associates could to take orders right at their desks rather than going through what Broom called “stair aerobics” to rush to the call center during an overload situation. 

The Ultimate Customer Contact: Auto Shows
The most important interaction with customers occurred at the annual convocations of auto enthusiasts. Just as hunters go hunting, some 50,000 autoholics converge on central Pennsylvania for their yearly fixes.     
     Returning to their roots, the Eastwood crew would fill up a giant tractor trailer with at least one of every item in the catalog and set up shop in a 40’ x 60’ tent that is completely electrified, enabling them to demonstrate everything from stitch welders to the new sandblast cabinet.


Overhead, a giant helium-filled blimp proclaimed Eastwood’s presence. The associates work like dogs from seven to seven, go off for a good dinner and start all over again the next morning. They sold in 110-degree heat as well as ankle-deep in mud.
     In 1994, the tent at the Carlisle show collapsed under the weight of a spring snow. “The tent company came and fixed it,” Strohacker recalled. “We were back in business in two hours.”
     “At shows, we reach different people than those who buy by mail,” Shulman explained.

"Like Brigadoon—the mythical Scottish town that comes alive one day every century—these people come out of the muck every year, often clutching a tattered catalog they picked up at last year's show. Sure as hell somebody will come back with a half-used can of paint he bought last year complaining it wasn't right. We apologize profusely, give him a new can of paint and check the old one in the garbage."
The eight to 10 shows a year they attended represented a minuscule percentage of the overall business. Shulman called it “Kamikaze Retail.”
     But the face-to-face contact with customers kept the company vital and supplied it with the ideas needed to keep coming up with new products.
     For example, an entire subculture of auto restoration is the 50,000 members of the National Street Rod Associations (NSRA)—fanatics who acquire pre-1948 vehicles and modify them with all kinds of garish accessories and paint schemes.


These folks have their own special needs, and Eastwood served them.
     Shulman himself attended about 40 auto shows a year and scheduled his vacations around these events. As a result of his travels, he discovered a trend: an upsurge in interest in ‘70s cars. This trend was mirrored in the kinds of products being ordered by Eastwood customers. 

Eastwood Automobilia
In 1989 Strohacker got it into his head to restore a 1951 GMC panel truck to mint condition and emblazon it with the Eastwood logo for use as corporate signage—much like Budweiser’s Clydesdale team and wagon. Restoration took far more time and a lot more money than anticipated. Could they turn the disadvantage into an advantage?
     Ertl, a manufacturer of collectibles, was selling a 1:43 scale model of the very panel truck with a slot in the roof for use as a bank. Eastwood ordered 2,500 replicas of the truck, which it then offered in the catalog for $15.95. It was an immediate sellout.
     A second edition of 5,000 sold out the following year. Suddenly Strohacker found himself in the limited edition miniature collectibles business with a catalog he titled Eastwood Automobila; it catered to a completely different audience—with merchandise at a far lower price point—than Franklin Mint or Danbury Mint. 

The Ertl Double-cross
Subsequent developments in the model collectible business were not kind to Automobilia. Ertl and others decided that since they manufactured the unpainted scale model blanks for others to decorate and sell, it, too, could paint up its blanks and sell them.
     In effect—and in actuality—Ertl went into direct competition with its own customers. Not only that, Ertl created infinite numbers of these little models, thus blowing the whole concept of limited editions out of the water. 

The Sears Connection
In 1994, Strohacker saw a photograph of Sears Direct Marketing President Vachel Pennebaker standing next to a vintage MG and called him cold. The result: a symbiotic, highly profitable relationship in which the Eastwood catalog was given a Sears Shop-at-Home Service cover and mailed to Sears buyers.
     Yes, Sears made a lot more money than if it simply rented its list to Strohacker (which it wouldn’t), but results were higher when a Sears book went to a Sears customer who could use a Sears charge card.
     From Strohacker’s point of view, he was reaching a vast, virgin universe of car tinkerers outside the mainstream—not members of antique auto clubs or associations, not readers of Hemmings Motor News, but those who are restoring cars.
     For Eastwood, the Sears Shop-at-Home connection was an eye-opener. Quality standards were high, as Sears required all suppliers and partners to adhere to the letter of the law because of its fluorescent profile. As a result, Sears worked with Eastwood to help improve everything from the accuracy of catalog descriptions to customer service. Many Sears suggestions were incorporated into Eastwood’s own catalog. For example, Eastwood did not sell vises. Its vise mount metal brake was shown gripped by a Craftsman vise—as a tip o’ the hat to Sears. 

The Egalitarian Corporate Culture
People who worked at Eastwood were “associates” rather than employees. Instead of top-down management, teams were created. On walls throughout the company, interspersed with giant prints of great old automobiles, were posters that proclaimed: TEAM (Together-Everyone-Achieves-More).
     Only Strohacker and Shulman had private offices, and Shulman’s was demolished. Freestanding partitions separated the associates’ workspaces; like call-center duty, this tends to blur the difference between managers and workers. “It’s tough,” admitted Strohacker. “Some people don’t want to be on teams. They want to be told what to do. I’ve got to change that.”
     Where was Eastwood headed? Did Strohacker have a master plan? “I’ve more than fulfilled my personal needs,” he said. “No, I have no master plan. Let’s just see what evolves over the next few years.”
     He added: “It’s hard to tell sometimes whether we’re working or just having fun.” 

Takeaways to Consider
• Curt Strohacker was an intuitive marketer. He did not need to learn about his customers. He was his own customer.

• If Strohacker had not started the Eastwood Company, as a restorer of vintage automobiles he certainly would have been an avid buyer of its products (or the products of some other company that would have filled the niche Eastwood discovered).

• Because Strohacker was his own customer—and because the majority of his associates were car aficionados and, therefore, customers—the entire company was structured from the customer's point of view.

• The first exercise for any new employee was to become call center certified. This applied mailroom personnel on up to the newly hired V.P. Required were:

—Weeks of learning the various product lines.

—Being able to communicate knowledgeably with technically oriented customers.

—Above all learning the art of upselling. This meant turning an unprofitable $4.95 order into a highly profitable $49.95 order.

• Strohacker created a customer service department—an elite cadre of phone representatives on a free help line who could listen to a customer’s concerns or problems and offer help on the phone. These were not order takers; they were experts in automobile restoration.

• Eastwood engendered absolute trust in its customers. Remember Jim Shulman’s description of kamikaze marketing at the car shows and how the company will replace a year-old, half-used can of paint gratis.

• This is reminiscent of L.L. Bean who once said: I never consider a sale complete until the merchandise has worn out and the customer is satisfied. 
                      
Eastwood, 2018    https://www.eastwood.com

###

Word count: 3160

At age 15, Denny Hatch—as a lowly apprentice—wrote his first news release for a Connecticut summer theater. To his astonishment it ran verbatim in The Middletown Press. He was instantly hooked on writing. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1958-60), Denny had nine jobs in his first 12 years in business. He was fired from five of them and went on to save two businesses and start three others. One of his businesses—WHO’S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of competitors’ direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor, journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels and seven books on business and marketing.

CONTACT
dennyhatch@yahoo.com

Note to Readers:  
May I send you an alert when each new blog is posted? If so, kindly give me the okay by sending your First Name, Last Name and e-mail to dennyhatch@yahoo.com. I guarantee your personal information will not be shared with anyone at any time for any reason. I look forward to being in touch!

Invitation to Marketers and Direct Marketers: 
Guest Blog Posts Are Welcome. 
If you have a marketing story to tell, case history, concept to propose or a memoir, give a shout. I’ll get right back to you. I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com

You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!


Wednesday, January 23, 2019

#39 Marketers: 1200 Websites to Explore!

Issue #39 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/01/39-marketers-1200-websites-to-steal-from.html

Posted by Denny Hatch


Marketers: 1200 Websites to Explore!
 
To find 1200 live websites, click here

So you're thinking of designing and launching a website. Or maybe you have one.

     What's strong and what's weak?
     What's wrong? What to tweak? 

When Peggy and I launched the WHO'S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and Archive service in 1984, it was based on the dictum of Dorothy Kerr, then Circulation Director of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT.

"Steal Smart"
"To be successful in direct mail," Kerr said to a group of copywriters, "you have to see who's mailing what, track what mailings are coming in over and over again (which means they are successful) and then STEAL SMART."
     Same thing if you have a website—or are designing one: STEAL SMART!

The Story of the Square with 1200 Websites
In 2005, Alex Tew was a 21-year-old spiky-haired Brit who found himself accepted into a program of business management at Nottingham University. The tab for the first year was $7,000, which Alex didn't have. And he did not want to go into debt.

"His thought processes went something like this: what it he set up a website called www.milliondollarhomepage.com which contained exactly one million pixels (tiny dots that make up an image on a screen)? What if he then used that page as, in effect, an advertising noticeboard where advertisers  — mailing from the US — could buy space at $1 (60p) per pixel?"
—Steve Boggen, Million Dollar Boy, The Times


When Tew's site sold out with more than 2,000 ads, he went live. It took off like a rocket, getting 200,000 visitors a day.
   Think of it! With his first attempt at starting a business he acquired more than 2000 customer that paid him $1 million! Stunning! 

Tew Caused a Stir on Both Sides of the Pond
• It was unlike anything ever before seen on the   
   Internet.

• It was fun. Mesmerizing.

• Pass you cursor s-lo-w-l-y over the face and up 
   pops mini-subject lines describing each ad.

• A hodgepodge—utterly involving.

"Neatness rejects involvement." 
  —Lew Smith, EVP Wunderman Worldwide 

"UGLY WORKS!
  —Bob Hacker, Seattle Direct Marketing guru 

• "I bought pixels there and then. The results for us 
   were amazing. We used to get 40,000 visitors a 
   day to our site—that's now up to 60,000."
—Chris Magras, CEO www.engineseeker.com


14 years later, I believe you will find it a valuable
   tool for quickly comparing websites and getting 
   ideas.

Alas, Tew Took His Million Bucks and Walked.
The Bad News: Over the past 14 years, many of Alex's live websites have gone kaput. I estimate about 1200 websites still exist on this landing page.      
     As you prowl over it, here's a sampling of what you'll find:


The Good News: Tew's baby is still a digital marketer's dream. Where else will you find 1,200 websites within one neat 8-1/4" square to click on, to study and to steal from?
     Some are terrific, others are terrible. For this reason I urge you to soldier on. You'll never find this many ideas in one small space.

About Digital Marketing and Website Design
Nothing like the Internet has existed for marketing ever before. 
     When you persuade customers or prospects to click on something, you have the unbelievable power to steal them away to be instantly transported deep into your private world.
     You can use color, motion, sound, laughter, tears, sex, hope and dreams.

Example: A Fascinating Website in Tew's Square!

Okay. Peggy and I have been very happily married for 48 years. I am emphatically NOT into dating.

However, this is a terrific website because it is:
   1. Immediately obvious what this is about.
   2. Immediately obvious who it's for.
   3. Immediately obvious what it will do for you.
   4. Immediately obvious and easy to get started.

Below: A Mousetype Ho-Hum in Tew's Square


What is Oblada? Who is this for? What does Oblada do? What will this website do for you? How do you respond?

Takeaways to Consider
• Nothing like the Internet has existed for marketers 
   in the world ever before.

• When you persuade customers or prospects to click
   on something, you have the unbelievable power   
   to steal them away to be instantly transported  
   deep into your private world.

On the Internet you can create magic—or dreck.

Alex Tew's milliondollarhomepage was 3 things:
  1. Involving and fun.

  2. An extraordinary resource for serious marketers 
      to study what others are doing on the Web.

  3. A disgrace in the noble field of direct marketing.

• Alex Tew took his money and walked.

• He betrayed his loyal paying customers, leaving
   them high and dry with what is becoming a 
   metastasizing cancer that makes them all look like 
   losers.

• Tew owes it to his paying customers to keep the 
   site alive and vibrant.  

• When a customer's website goes kaput, it should  
   be deleted from the grid.

• In it's place should be a patch of blank pixels with a
   sign than says: AVAILABLE. MAKE AN OFFER!

• Tew's scheme could be a perpetual moneymaker.

"You become responsible forever for the things you
   have tamed." 
   —The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

###
Word Count: 836

At age 15, Denny Hatch—as a lowly apprentice—wrote his first news release for a Connecticut summer theater. To his astonishment it ran verbatim in The Middletown Press. He was instantly hooked on writing. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1958-60), Denny had nine jobs in his first 12 years in business. He was fired from five of them and went on to save two businesses and start three others. One of his businesses—WHO’S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of competitors’ direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor, journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels and seven books on business and marketing.

CONTACT
dennyhatch@yahoo.com

Note to Readers:  
May I send you an alert when each new blog is posted? If so, kindly give me the okay by sending your First Name, Last Name and e-mail to dennyhatch@yahoo.com. I guarantee your personal information will not be shared with anyone at any time for any reason. I look forward to being in touch!

Invitation to Marketers and Direct Marketers: 
Guest Blog Posts Are Welcome. 
If you have a marketing story to tell, case history, concept to propose or a memoir, give a shout. I’ll get right back to you. I am: dennyhatch@yahoo.com

You Are Invited to Join the Discussion! Share your Internet experiences—good and poor websites, ideas you have on website design.

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

#38 This Man Will Make You a More Effective Writer and Presenter

Issue # 38 - Tuesday,  January 15, 2019
http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/01/38-this-man-will-make-you-more_15.html

Posted by Denny Hatch

This Man Will Make You a More Effective
Writer (and Presenter)—GUARANTEED! 

Mel Martin: The First and Only Pioneer of Subject Lines

The only effective emails are those that get opened.

For an email to get opened, it must arrive with a provocative and relevant subject line.

76 out of every 100 emails are immediately trashed and never read.

That's 55 Trillion Unopened
Emails per year Worldwide
In a typical scenario the average writer spends time working on an email message to make it absolutely clear and perfect.

• Next task: the subject line. Actually that is easy. The first idea that pops into the brain is immediately typed into the Subject Line box and the user hits SEND.

• The two 100% important elements in an email are:
     —From Line (name of the sender)
     —Subject Line and Preheader


If the email does not get opened, all the work that went into it is lost forever. It is deader than Kelsey's nuts.

• In the subject line and preheader, you have at most maybe 65 characters (10 or 15 words) to grab your reader by the throat and not let go until the message is clicked on.

Mel Martin—an advertising copywriter—discovered the power of subject lines. Some of Mel's space ads and direct mailings were made up entirely of subject lines.

Although Mel Martin died in 1993—on the cusp of the Internet Revolution—he has become the preeminent influence in digital communications.

Mel Martin's Riveting Story
"Mel Martin was the world's slowest copywriter. It would take him three to four months to write a direct mail package. He could get stuck for a month on a letter opening.

"He was a very gentle man who did not like interacting with people. Rodale wanted him, and they just couldn't come to terms. He worked in his apartment at 81st Street and First Avenue in New York. We talked a lot—mostly on the phone on weekends. He had a huge terrace and several thousand plants; he was an accomplished gardener and an aficionado of classical music." —Martin Edelston, Founder of Boardroom Publishing and Mel Martin's employer 

Mel Martin was also a very sick man—for years. "By my count, he had over a dozen doctors aside from his internist," Edelston once said to me. "One specialist for each thing that was wrong with him."         Brian Kurtz, Edelston's brilliant young vice president, added: "Mel was an incessant smoker. In fact, if he ran out of cigarettes he had to quit writing and run out for a carton."

The image that Kurtz and Edelston painted was reminiscent of French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922) who suffered terribly from tuberculosis and resided in a cork-lined room. Only in the cool of an occasional evening when lower humidity did not aggravate his delicate lungs, would Proust venture out into the demimonde of Paris.

The difference between Mel Martin and Proust: Proust produced torrents of prose.

Mel Martin's Two Signal Accomplishments
• With his overpowering design and bold gut-wrenching copy (which you'll see in a moment), Mel transmogrified Boardroom Reports—a boring, buttoned-up business newsletter publisher—into a $125 million cash cow with 200,000+ subscribers.
     Okay, in the world of today's gazillionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, $125 million is relative peanuts. 
     But Marty Edelston was producing dinky newsletters (Boardroom Reports and later BottomLine/Personal) along with books. His basic expenses were minimal—paper, printing, postage and a relatively tiny staff of hardworking people. His enterprise was a cash cow.

• Mel's specialty was the one-line Attention-Getter. Stoppers. Grabbers. Headlines. Teasers. Mel dubbed them "Fascinations."
     Today, "Fascinations" are Subject Lines with Preheaders.

Below is Mel's lede for his seven-year 
control letter for BottomLine/Personal



Dear Fellow American,

  This letter is about information that's "none of your business."

   Did you know that... blah, blah, blah... 

Evolution of a Legend
The direct mailing that put Boardroom in business was written and designed by Eugene Schwartz, a bean pole thin mail order book publisher who made so much money he amassed one of America's great modern art collections.
     Below are Schwartz's envelope and letter that generated enough cash to start up the publication
 (Sorry for the muddy reproduction.)



Here are the Johnson Box and lede
you see at the top of the above letter


In terms of copy and design (in comparison to Mel Martin's later wild and woolly visual explosions), the kindest thing you could call this dreary effort is "serviceable." 

Marty Edelston first hired Mel Martin to write editorial material on a per diem basis for his fledgling newsletter. Quite simply, Mel detested the work. 

So Edelston went along with Mel's idea to create a Contents Page.  From 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. one day every two weeks, Mel would boil down the contents of the newsletter into a one-page table of contents, which ran on the cover. 
     In Edelston's words: "Each contents page was a glittering jewel—far and away better than the rest of the publication." These contents covers were the birthplace of "Fascinations." A sampling: 

Adviser....................15

Advance warning on longer lead times in major areas.

Consumer discontent: How management misjudges it. A four-step program for keeping out of trouble.

Which U.S. and foreign cars hold their value longest.

Danger to executives using company lawyer.

When a pay raise is not a pay raise. Why young executives are unhappy.

Turnaround strategy.

When a customer list can be classified as a trade secret.

BRAINSTORMING..........19
Premiums women want.
Inducements to move your business.
What office colors work best.
Easy way to speed letters.
Useful book for retailers.
How to handle sales call reports.

CORPORATE STRATEGY....14
How to stay out of court: Part 2 of Fred J. Halsey, Jr.'s series on avoiding litigation; The mistake that is the biggest single cause of business lawsuits; how you soften a potentially damaging statement made on the phone; ways to diffuse an angry customer.

The front page of a single issue of Boardroom Reports might contain 60 to 80 of these teasers. You had to take a look!

Moving Into Direct Mail
Edelston proposed that Mel Martin try a direct mailing to get subscribers for his publications. The writer did not have a clue where or how to begin; he had only written ads—never a full-dress mail package. So Mel created an ad and the two of them converted it into direct mail.

Here's is Mel's very first #10 envelope for Boardroom's BottomLine/Personal:


In the beginning, Mel would do pencil sketches of how he wanted the mailings to look. Eventually he taught himself to use the computer and, in Edelston's words, "became a first-rate, second-rate computer artist."

He would design each mailing with tiers of "Fascinations," the most powerful ones appearing in the largest type.


Note the airbags warning: This envelope was sent out in 1992-1995. Fast-forward 20 years to 2014. The horrendous Airbag Scandal—recall of millions of cars and bankruptcy of Takata—came true.

Sometimes Mel Martin would put a single giant "Fascination" on the front of an envelope.



Or Mel would dump a bucket of gore into the reader's lap, piling "Fascinations" on top of "Fascinations"—not only on the envelope, but also throughout the letter.



When he wasn't writing copy, Mel would read all of Edelston's newsletters—Boardroom Reports, BottomLine/Personal and Tax Hotline—and turn the various stories into "Fascinations." He maintained a massive archive of "Fascinations," including full annotations of which article appeared in which newsletter on which page—where on the page—and what date.

When it came time to create a book made up of past newsletters, Mel would go into his archive of "Fascinations" and cook up a mailing; Edelston's editors would then create a book based on Mel Martin's mailing package, not vice versa, as is the usual case in publishing.


Why Mel Martin is "The Greatest"
For Today's Email Communicators 
• Marketing and Communications coins-of-the-realm today are Twitter, Texting and email.
     Tweets (280 characters) and texts (160 characters) are bite-sized paragraphs easy to comprehend by all readers. They are effective because:

"50% of adults cannot read at an eighth grade level." —Literacy Project Foundation

• "Currently, 45 million Americans are functionally illiterate and cannot read above a fifth-grade level.  —Literacy Project Foundation    
  
• "The addictive nature of web browsing can leave you with an attention span of nine seconds—the same as a goldfish." Dr. Ted Selker, MIT Media Lab

Takeaways to Consider

• The two most important elements of email are:
     —From Line (sender's name)
     —Subject Line with Preheader

If the email doesn't get opened, the message is lost forever—a total waste of the sender's time.

• Mel Martin was the world's first and only pioneer of powerhouse subject lines.

• The subject line is the equivalent of the teaser on a direct mail envelope and the headline of an ad.

"The headline is the ticket on the meat." —David Ogilvy

• "The writer of this chapter spends far more time on headlines than on writing. He often spends hours on a single headline. Often scores of headlines are discarded before the right one is selected. —Claude Hopkins (1866-1932)

• "Avoid the 'hard-to-grasp' headline—the headline that requires thought and is not clear at first glance." —John Caples (1900-1990))

Email is the most efficient down-'n'-dirty testing medium ever. Instead of waiting six week to see the results of a mailing, you can run A-B-C-D-E split tests and know which subject line/preheader is the strongest.

"Short Words! Short Sentences! Short Paragraphs!" —Andrew J. Byrne, Freelancer

"Mel Martin was one of the world's greatest copywriters, and nobody has ever heard of him." —Brian Kurtz, VP, Boardroom Publishing

Final Takeaways: Subject Lines and PowerPoint

• At business conferences I find myself staring at giant screens with a series of slides, bulleted points, charts, graphs and long wordy paragraphs—all of them in unreadable artsy-fartsy mouse-type.

• Not even those of us seated in the first row are able to read what the hell is onscreen.

• Whereupon the dreary dweeb speaker—eyes glued to the screen—reads the mouse-type in a halting monotone making zero eye contact with the audience and generating zero enthusiasm.

• When preparing a PowerPoint presentation it is imperative to create one-liners—Subject Lines—that everyone in the room from front row to highest seat in the balcony—can read with the naked eye.

• Each slide—one or two lines in giant bold type—should be the memorable Subject Line of what you are currently talking about.

The 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint: No more than 10 slides. No longer than 20 minutes. Only use type size 30 point bold or larger.

"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely." —Edward Tufte

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Word count:1750


At age 15, Denny Hatch—as a lowly apprentice—wrote his first news release for a Connecticut summer theater. To his astonishment it ran verbatim in The Middletown Press. He was instantly hooked on writing. After a two-year stint in the U.S. Army (1958-60), Denny had nine jobs in his first 12 years in business. He was fired from five of them founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of competitors’ direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor, journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels and seven books on business and marketing. and went on to save two businesses and start three others. One of his businesses—WHO’S MAILING WHAT! newsletter and archive service founded in 1984—revolutionized the science of how to measure the success of competitor's direct mail. In the past 55 years he has been a book club director, magazine publisher, advertising copywriter/designer, editor, journalist and marketing consultant. He is the author of four published novels and seven books on business and marketing.
 
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