Wednesday, May 27, 2020

#95 1977 Textbook Perfect Ad

Issue #95 — Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Posted by Denny Hatch

This 1977 Direct Marketing Ad Was Perfect.
It would work like gangbusters in 2020 in print, email or the Internet!


The two-page spread above was the result of millions of dollars of testing by myriad book clubs over a period of 41 years. The very first such club was Book-of-the-Month invented by Max Sackheim and Harry Scherman in 1928. 

BOM was an enormous success and quickly followed by Literary Guild, History Book Club, Mystery Book Club, Military Book Club, and a slew of others. In the 1960s and 1970s I ran the Peter Possum Paperback Book Club, Macmillan’s Lawyer’s Book Club and the Better Homes & Gardens Family Book Service.

You Wanna Successfully Market Books, Consumer and Business Products and Services—in fact anything—via email, the Internet, space advertising and/or direct mail? Here’s how to do it.

First Identify Your Prospects—Who’s Gonna Buy.
• “Success in direct marketing is 40% lists, 40% offer and 20% everything else.” —Ed Mayer

Hire a top list consultant.

Get a list of postal and email lists of people by name (not “Resident”) who:
• Have bought (or evinced interest in) your kind of product or service.
• Buy by mail order (over distance).
• Can afford what you are selling.
• Pay their bills.

If you plan to advertise, be sure to pick publications and websites where:
• Direct marketing ads appear regularly.
• Your competition has advertised on a repeat basis.

Get samples of your competition’s direct mailings, email offers plus print and digital ads to see if they jibe with what you are offering.
"If you want to be successful in direct marketing, see what your competition is doing, watch those efforts that keep appearing over and over again (which means they are successful and bringing in tons of money), and then steal smart." —Dorothy Kerr

Come Up with a Barn Burner of an Offer.
• Always make an offer. No offer, no reason to respond. Don’t throw money away.

• Doubleday's terrific offer: your choice of 6 hardcover books for 99¢.

“If you want to dramatically increase your response, dramatically improve you offer.” 
—Axel Andersson

Consider a Free Gift/Premium.
—Doubleday offers a Free Tote bag when you join.

Dick Benson on Premiums
• "A premium is a bribe to say Yes now.”

• “Dollar-for-dollar, premiums are better incentives than cash discounts.”

• “Desirability is the key element of a premium; the relationship of the premium to the product isn’t important.”

• “Two premiums are frequently better than one.”

Create a Powerful, Evocative Headline


• Doubleday’s copywriter did not say: “Take 6 Books for 99¢.” A book is heavy clunky thing of paper, glue and millions of tiny black symbols. Instead the headline says: “…indulge your fantasies this month.”

• “Your fantasies” might be:
—Thrilling reading experiences to liven up your life.
—Receiving six best-selling titles with colorful covers to be displayed on a bookshelf that will impress friends, family and business associates with your literacy and intellect.

• The 13 most powerful and evocative words in the English Language:
You - Save - Money - Easy - Guarantee - Health
Proven - Safety - Discovery - New - Love – Results

• The word “you” or “your” is used three times in the Doubleday headline. The ad is talking directly to you, the reader.

• “Headlines on the ad and teasers on the envelope are the hot pants on the hooker.” —Bill Jayme

“The headline selects the reader.” —Axel Andersson

“Headlines make ads work. The best headlines appeal to people’s self-interest or give news.” —John Caples

• “On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your advertising dollar.” —David Ogilvy

“Headlines that promise benefits sell more than those that don’t.” —Ogilvy

• "Your headline should telegraph what you want to say—in simple language.” —Ogilvy

• "Readers do not stop to decipher the meanings of obscure headlines.” —Ogilvy

• "The more typographical changes you make in your headline, the fewer people will read it.” —Ogilvy

“Some headlines are ‘blind.’ They don’t say what the product is or what it will do for you. They are about 20 percent below average in recall.” —Ogilvy

“When you put your headline in quotes, you increase recall by an average of 28 percent.” —Ogilvy

Now, I spend hours on headlines—days if necessary. And when I get a good headline, I know that my task is nearly finished. Writing the copy can usually be done in a short time if necessary. And that advertisement will be a good one—that is, if the headline is really a “stopper.” —Claude Hopkins

• “The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in its returns. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five or ten times over.” —Hopkins 

• In other words, never-oh-never spend many hours perfecting a career-changing email message and then slap on the first subject line that pops into your head and click "Send."

The Order Mechanism —Easy and Foolproof
 

“No response device, no response.” —Anver Suleiman

“Make it easy as possible for the customer to order.”
—Elsworth S. Howell

“The order form should be so simple a moron can understand it.       
—Malcolm Decker

• The order coupon above is a classic requiring just four lines to fill out:
­—Six rectangular boxes for the 6 ID numbers of your 6 chosen titles.
—Name line, address line, city, state and zip line.
—Stick it in an envelope and drop it in the mail.

• The offer—indeed the entire business model of the club—is described in the coupon in just 78 words:
—Any 6 books for 99¢.
—You will be billed.
—Agree to buy 6 more books (at huge discounts) in the coming year.
—Free tote bag.

• What I would add in 2020 to this 1977 Order Coupon
—800 Number
—URL for e-responses
—In other words, let the customer order in the most convenient way.
—Always put your address on the order device. If the prospect detaches the coupon and loses the ad, it's still possible to order.

• What is sweet about the old 1977 order coupon
—Send no money; bill me.
—The responder is not forced go through the nuisance of giving credit card info, which could hurt response. That says Doubleday trusts that you’ll pony up the 99¢ and therefore trusts you.
—Today’s marketer—in this sleaze era of “I got away with it” and premium bandits—would be nuts not to insist on credit card data.
—This would be an interesting test—w/wo credit card data. 

About Order Mechanisms and Coupons
• Never go live with a promotion until the ordering process has been tested and proven (1) that it works and (2) it's easy follow. 
 
• Recruit five people—strangers, not office mates—to go through the ordering process. If anyone has problems, you should be told at once.

• For example, with paper order forms, is there enough room for the customer to write everything?

Takeaway to Consider—The Old Rules
 Work Just Fine for Email Marketers.
• When email/Internet marketing began to catch fire in the mid-1990s, I was in my mid-50s and well-known for my iconic newsletter and junk mail archive service, WHO’S MAILING WHAT! And later as editor and publisher of Target Marketing magazine. Plus 7 business books.

• Throughout my career I was lucky to have had great mentors who welcomed my picking their brains. My first writing success came when I was 15 years old.

• Enter the Internet—a new medium. Every business, individual entrepreneur and design studio jumped on the bandwagon. Almost all had no idea what the hell they were doing.

• These hotshot tyros—who had never been mentored—hired young people to assist them.

• Think of Dean Swift (of Gulliver’s Travels fame) who wrote:
  Little fleas have smaller fleas
      Upon their back to bite ‘em.
  And smaller fleas have lesser fleas
      And so, ad infinitum.

• I intuitively knew that all the rules and techniques I had learned and written about over the years were applicable. This was marketing and sales—creating wants (not servicing needs). It’s headlines, copy, offers, design, fulfillment, finding the right people to market to. It's not about digital vs. print. It's about tried and true communications.

• Alas, these hotshots’ messages to me were: “Hey, ole-timer, the Internet is a new medium and a new paradigm. It’s a world of new rules and we make the rules now. So, buzz off.”

• Whereupon the Dot-com Bubble Burst and a ton of the hotshot (non-mentored) kids were canned and moved back in with mummy and daddy.
The dot-com bubble (also known as the dot-com boom, the tech bubble, and the Internet bubble) was a bubble caused by excessive speculation in Internet-related companies in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Composite stock market index rose 400%, only to fall 78% from its peak by October 2002, giving up all its gains during the bubble. During the crash, many online shopping companies, such as Pets.com, Webvan, and Boo.com, as well as several communication companies, such as Worldcom, NorthPoint Communications and Global Crossing, failed and shut down. Some companies, such as Cisco, whose stock declined by 86%, and Qualcomm, lost a large portion of their market capitalization but survived, and others, such as eBay and Amazon.com, also lost value but recovered quickly. —Wikipedia
• In short, this post is an attempt to show how the old rules of direct marketing—developed over 800 years—directly relate to the nascent digital age. Hope you find it helpful.


P.S. For the fascinating story of how a seasoned direct marketer used proven direct marketing know-how to catapult AOL into the Internet stratosphere and bring in 30 million members, check out my 2001 profile of the Direct Marketer of the Year: AOL and the Genius of JanBrandt.

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Word count: 1625


You Are Invited to Meet Denny Hatch

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

A Note About Denny Hatch’s Marketing Books
When North American Publishing summarily shut down its little book publishing division, all my direct marketing and business books were suddenly gone from the market. Some were available as “collector’s items” at many hundreds—and in some cases thousands!—of dollars. I have made arrangements with a Canadian marketer to republish some of these as Special Reports or White Papers. Will let you know when they are available. Thank you for your patience.

About Denny Hatch’s Novels
Meanwhile two titles are available. They are:
THE FINGERED CITY
How Mafia Marketed a Candidate
To Become Mayor of New York City

THE STORK
A Comedy About Breeding People 
 Kindle Edition: $2.99

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. The blog is a free service. No cost. No risk. No obligation. Cancel any time. I look forward to being in touch!


IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE POSTING A COMMENT… Write Me!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment Section. If you do not have a Google account, contact me directly and I will happily post your comment with a note that this is per your request. Thank you and do keep in touch.  dennyhatch@yahoo.com

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!

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

#94 Secret of Successful Email Marketing


ISSUE #94 — Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Posted by Denny Hatch


The Secret of Successful Email
Marketing: Think Lede-gen.


Note: The word “lead” is also pronounced led—as in the toy soldiers of my childhood. As of 1950s the new spelling of “lead” relating to texts—as in lead paragraph—is “lede.” It’s a homophone. No question about how it is pronounced. I like it. —DH


About Today’s Blog Post
Last Monday a.m. I went into my Yahoo in-box. I clicked on a Washington Post newsletter I subscribe to and started scanning the contents. In the middle of the copy I  saw an intriguing little ad—maybe 2"x3". I clicked on it.

Immediately my iMac screen was completely dominated by the image above.


Whereupon I started watching Jim Rickards deliver a 45-minute jaw-dropping, fact-filled lecture on the Coronavirus catastrophe and the coming consequences:
"Look, I’m about to show you undeniable proof this current economic shutdown could trigger another Great Depression… Something 10 times worse than what happened in 2008. And that’s why I'm writing to you today… To show you the five steps you need to take to protect your family and your wealth from this looming unprecedented catastrophe. These are the same steps I’m taking to protect my loved ones."
Rickards’ Unfortunate Delivery
Rickards speaks in a flat monotone with no energy, no emphasis, no warmth, no anger, no excitement. He drones on and on and on, punctuating his delivery with photos, newspaper headlines and poignant quotes. Through much of his pitch I wanted to slash my wrists.

The only fun, diverting element is the occasional appearances of a grey cat in the background doing cute cattish things.

At first I had no idea what the hell Rickards was selling. But, boy he’d done a ton of research and was convincing.
In that first 35 minutes I began fret that this guy might be a high-powered consultant who was looking for an investment from me of several hundred dollars or more. Being a pensioner, I was not about to spend this kind of money.

I was about to jump off the train when he began revealing some specifics of his philosophy and products—books, special reports, and actions to take. Among them:
Make sure you have enough water, basic food, and toiletries to last at least 3 months.
• Buy gold—what Goldman Sachs calls it the “currency of last resort.”

• Invest in a boutique silver mine whose shares are going for just $3. (“It just needs to go up another $3 for you to double your money.”)
• The best way to hedge against potential market losses is to buy crash contracts.
• Beware the Ticking Time Bombs in your portfolio.

Okay. I recognized Jim Rickards for what he is. He’s one of those fear-mongering survivalist gold bug types that showed up once a year in the ‘80s and ‘90s at Howard Penn Hudson's annual Newsletter Association conferences in Washington, D.C.’s Mayflower Hotel. Hardly an original thinker. But—given his personality limitations—a pretty good salesman.

After roughly a rough 45 minutes of his mesmerizing tedium, Rickards finally made me an offer:
“You can take a look at my research and receive everything I’ve mentioned so far, at no risk to yourself. Simply take a risk-free trial subscription to Strategic Intelligence, and aside from your 12 monthly issues, I will immediately send you…”

"So today you can take a risk-free trial for half of the normal rate. In other words, take this $261 value for only $49 for the entire year."
Takeaways to Consider 
• Think of email marketing as lede generation marketing. 

• Lede-gen marketing was a mail order technique for selling really expensive products or services where you didn’t want mention price at the outset. For example: homesites on a Jack Nicklaus golf course in Georgia or executive jets.

• "If you spend too much on step one—the initial contact—you'll lose money. Guaranteed." 
—Bob Hacker, Seattle Marketing guru
 
 • In pre-Internet days you sent a cheap-o lede generation postcard or simple mailing with a powerful irresistible message to a list of relevant prospects. Or you ran ads in relevant publications. You didn’t talk price. You spewed benefits, benefits, benefits and promised no risk. Your response mechanism was a simple, “Yes, I’m interested!”
• You followed up with a series of steps via mail or phone. The point of each step was to get the person to say yes to the next step. It was essential never to say anything that would give a reason to say "no" anywhere in the sequence.
• In this digital age you send an email that costs virtually nothing or buy a small ad like the one I saw in my Washington Post e-newsletter.
• Instead of “Yes, I’m interested” the response is an instantaneous click on the face of the l'il ad.
• Unlike old-fashioned lede-gen marketing, where the sales cycle can go on for weeks or months, Rickards had this fish in his net a nanosecond later. He fed my desire for instant gratification with his fascinating, tortuous follow-up. He compressed possible weeks of a sales cycle into a 45-minute orgy of information.
• Whether a product or service, consumer or business, it is essential to have a powerful sales presentation that hypes the 7 key copy drivers—the emotional hot buttons that make people act:
Fear - Greed - Guilt - Anger - Exclusivity - Salvation - Flattery

"If your copy isn't positively dripping with one or more of these, tear it up and start over." —Bob Hacker
• Rickards uses all of these.
• The online infomercial follow-up to the lede can use expensive razzle-dazzle film wizardry or engaging, believable salespersons giving an intimate and captivating tour of the features and benefits.
• I would use a warm, enthusiastic Ron Popeil or Billy Mays rather than the lugubrious Jim Rickards.

• At one point Rickards referred to himself as a "trusted economist." I suddenly remembered the definition of "economist"— a guy who'd marry Linda Lovelace for her money.
• How long should it be? As long as it takes to tell the story and get a positive response.
• Remember, length is not an issue. With e-marketing you are not spending big dollars on advertising space in publications or buying airtime on TV. You own this presentation and you are bringing prospects and customers into your world to view it in the privacy of their home or office on a desktop computer, iPad or smartphone.
• For example, a 30-second commercial on the 2020 Super Bowl required a huge production budget plus $5.2 million for each 30 seconds of airtime. Meanwhile—in that 30 seconds—millions of prospects were in the loo or deep in discussions of the action they just witnessed on TV.
• Email marketing gives you privacy and the viewer’s undivided attention.
• Send brief, powerhouse emails—or take small ads in relevant e-publications—with a Click Here response mechanism. 

• Do multiple split tests on your lede-gen emails and mini-ads. Constantly try to beat your control. 


• For example, here are three Jim Rickards mini-ads running in Washington Post and The New York Times online. I clicked on the ad at right. The ads have been running daily, so the promotion is obviously profitable. 



• Which was the winner? Only Rickards knows.
• Once prospects click through, they are in your world. You own them.
• Two interesting elements:
1)    There was no way I could speed up Rickards’ interminable pitch. I had to sit through the entire thing. I was getting bored and damn near bailed out early.
2)    However, if I clicked to stop the show, I was immediately given the opportunity to either continue watching or click to see the 8,415-word transcript—a veritable tome.
• All the old proven direct mail order form elements are in play:
   —Make it easy to order.
   —A bunch of free premiums.
   —Massively-discounted price.
   —If dissatisfied for any reason, call to cancel.
   —Full refund if you cancel.
   —And keep everything you received as a subscriber.

• THE ARITHMETIC:  Jim Rickards is a member of Bill Bonner’s sprawling Agora worldwide financial services conglomerate with headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.  Bonner presides over 120+ newsletters and nearly 300 books that serve 1 million readers that reportedly generate revenues of roughly $500 million a year. According to the Washington Post’s rep Jacquelyn Cameron, the small lede-gen ads appear in the Post’s Daily 202 digital newsletters with a circulation of roughly 500,000. The cost of the ads is $65,000 for a one week “exclusive” sponsorship.

• I believe the Rickards/Agora digital marketing technique—mini-lede-gen ad placements (or short simple emails) with click-thru to a smashing landing page and elaborate sales pitch—can work for any product or service, business or consumer, for-profit, nonprofit or fundraising.

                                 ###
Word count: 1373

You Are Invited to Meet Denny Hatch

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

A Note About Denny Hatch’s Marketing Books
When North American Publishing summarily shut down its little book publishing division, all my direct marketing and business books were suddenly gone from the market. Some were available as “collector’s items” at many hundreds—and in some cases thousands!—of dollars. I have made arrangements with a Canadian marketer to republish some of these as Special Reports or White Papers. Will let you know when they are available. Thank you for your patience.

About Denny Hatch’s Novels
Meanwhile two titles are available. They are:
THE FINGERED CITY
How Mafia Marketed a Candidate
To Become Mayor of New York City

THE STORK
A Comedy About Breeding People 
 Kindle Edition: $2.99

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. The blog is a free service. No cost. No risk. No obligation. Cancel any time. I look forward to being in touch!


IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE POSTING A COMMENT… Write Me!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment Section. If you do not have a Google account, contact me directly and I will happily post your comment with a note that this is per your request. Thank you and do keep in touch.  dennyhatch@yahoo.com

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!