Thursday, December 17, 2020

#117 Greedy Museums

 

#117 Post – Thursday December 17, 2020

 http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/12/117-greedy-museums.html

 

Posted by Denny Hatch

 

How the Greedy Met Museum Markets Itself
To Billionaires and Shortchanges the Public

 

                                                   Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Ronald Lauder Gives Major Arms and Armor Gift to the Met

The galleries will be named after the collector, whose 91-object gift is the museum’s most significant since 1942.
The New York Times, Dec. 9, 2020

 

Look at the smug smile on Ronald Lauder’s face. He is about to be memorialized forever with his own wing in the world’s second most famous museum. (#1 is the Louvre in Paris.) You betcha he's puffed-up.

     The memorial to this smugly duckling was made possible by Ronald's mother, one of the greatest women entrepreneurs of the 20th Century. Along with Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, Estée Lauder (1906-2004) was a business genius and titan. Her vast empire of upmarket cosmetics for upmarket women has 50,000 employees worldwide with annual revenue of $14.3 billion and market cap of $89.5 billion. 

     Brava!!!

 

                                   A Gaffe     
A favorite story: Mrs. Lauder once gave a dinner party so her friends could dine with the former King Edward VIII, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of His Other Realms and Territories, King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith and Emperor of India.

      The place card at the table for the former king's notorious mistress-cum-wife read: “The Dutchess [sic] of Windsor.”

    Did Ronald honor his mother's extraordinary accomplishments by creating the Estée Lauder Museum of the 2000-year History of Cosmetics and Body Painting (that started with the Egyptians or maybe lots earlier)? Nah. She was just a nice little lady from Corona, Queens (NY) who managed to make good.

     But Ronald! Now he’s somebody worth remembering for eternity! Here’s a guy who became expert at parlaying his share of Mommy's business into a personal net worth of $5.1 billion and founding a museum to honor himself and show off his personal art collection. 

     Lauder's Neue Galerie is on Fifth Avenue just north of the Metropolitan Museum. The thing is full of so-so art and tables of tchotchkes in glass display cases

     The crown jewel centerpiece and raison d'etre of Lauder's boutique museum is a huge (4'6"x 4'6") blazing drop-dead gorgeous gold portrait painted and gilded in 1903-1907 by Viennese master Gustav Klimt (1862-1918). Its story was made into a fascinating film, Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren with Ben Miles playing Ronald Lauder.


Adele Bloch-Bauer, 1881-1925 (meningitis, age 44) 
 
     I have been to the Neue Galerie twice. Both times I spent a good half hour or more camped out in front of The Lady in Gold trying to get my head around (1) this amazing image and (2) the $130 million price tag. I finally decided, yeah, it's worth it.
 
Naming the Met's Arms and Armor Galleries
After Ronald Lauder Is Simply Preposterous!
 Lauder's gift to the Met is—in two words, teensy-weensy—a paltry 91 goodies added to humongous collection of "approximately fourteen thousand objects, (of which more than five thousand are European, two thousand are from the Near East, and four thousand from the Far East.)"
   The second largest such collection is in Worcester, Mass (1500 objects) and #3 is the Art Institute of Chicago with a measly 700 objects.
     Clearly the venal directors of the Met saw an opportunity to put a potential billionaire donor in their pockets, even though it probably represents a gross insult to the families whose forebears donated the 14,000 items that make up this magnificent collection.
  

My Family’s Met Museum Connection

My great grandfather, Alfrederic Smith Hatch, was a 19th-century financier. He invented what became known as war bonds (made famous in WWII) and sold a ton of them to raise money for the Union cause in the Civil War.

     In the financial panic of 1884 the brokerage firm of Fisk & Hatch went bust and Alfrederic was forced to resign as president of the New York Stock Exchange. Suffice it to say he made millions, spent millions and died broke.

     In 1873, he was flying high. He bought the magnificent 100’ yacht Resolute and paid famed American artist Eastman Johnson $10,000 ($213,300 today) to paint The Hatch Family Portrait—himself, wife, in-laws and eleven children.

     The portrait hung in my grandfather’s house until 1926 when he gifted it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has been on permanent display ever since and is considered a masterpiece of its genre.

 

Great Uncle Charley

I never met my grandmother’s brother, Charles Noe Daly (1868-1933). He died two years before I was born.     

     A gun nut, he amassed the largest private firearms collection in the world. Among the goodies:

    • Saddle Gun used by William of Orange

    • Elephant Gun of Henry Morton Stanley (as in “Dr. Livingston, I presume.")

 Most of the collection—over 1000 lots—was auctioned off in 1935 following his assuming room temperature. A small number of choice items was bequeathed to the Met.


 


The Crown Jewel of Uncle Charlie's Collection
Below is a pistol especially made to order for the legendary British naval hero, Lord Horatio Nelson.



In the 18th and early 19th century all pistols were single shot. You poured a powder charge down the barrel followed by a lead ball and a plug to keep everything in place. Firing it required two hands—one to hold the gun and pull the trigger and the other to cock it.

     This presented a problem to Lord Nelson who was missing his right arm.


 A Breathtaking Breakthrough Weapon

 The pistol was a world's first—designed and built in 1800—a nine-shot self-loading repeater with a unique lever that enabled Nelson to cock it on a ship’s rail.

 

        From The Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum, October 1935
The pistol which belonged to Lord Nelson is a repeating flintlock of technical as well as historical interest. Within the hollow walnut stock two magazines for powder and round balls respectively, are loaded through a hinged door lever; a third, smaller magazine for priming powder adjoins the rear of the pan. The bullet chamber has a capacity of nine balls. This pistol can be recharged and cocked with one hand, an indispensable feature to Nelson, who lost his right arm in 1797. With the muzzle of the pistol pointed downward, pressure of the hooked lever (pivoted at the left side of the stock) against a support revolves the chamber and so puts a new ball and a fresh charge of powder into the barrel, cocks the hammer, and closes and reprimes the pan. The octagonal barrel is screwed to the breech and may be removed with a wrench and replaced by a reserve barrel, if it becomes heated as a result of rapid firing. Both barrels are provided with an adjustable sight and are of 17/32-inch smooth bore. The inscription "H. W. Mortimer, London, Gun Maker To His Majesty" appears on both barrels and on the lock. On the bottom facet the barrels are stamped E C-1273, possibly an inventory number. The gunsmith's trade card is pasted in the original mahogany box, which contains a bullet mold and a punch as well as the wrench and reserve barrel already mentioned.

The walnut stock is checkered and the steel mountings are engraved with wreaths, trophies, foliation, and an anchor cabled, surmounted by the crown of the King of England. On the stock is a silver shield engraved with the private stamp of Lord Nelson.

 From the Met bulletin:

      Lord Nelson's Repeating Flintlock
     Pistol in Case with Accessories

• Date: ca. 1800

• Geography: London

• Culture: British

• Medium: Steel, wood (walnut), silver

• Dimensions: L. 14 1/2 in. (36.8 cm); barrel L. 6 in. (15.2 cm); Cal. .55 in. (14 mm); Wt., 3 lb. 15 oz. (1.79 kg)

• Classification: Firearms-Pistols-Flintlock

• Credit Line: Bequest of Charles N. Daly, 1934

• Accession Number: 35.81.3a–e

• Not on view

 

                Note the last 3 words: “Not on view.”

Many years ago as a child I saw the pistol on exhibit. Since then, every time I have visited the arms and armor collection I was told the piece was in storage. 

     Imagine! This great historical treasure being consigned in near perpetuity to a padded drawer in the bowels of Fifth Avenue museum!
     Quite simply (in my strong opinion), this is the sad case of the wrong object in the hands of the wrong institution.
     Admiral Horatio Nelson was (and is!) England’s greatest military hero. To the Brits Nelson is equivalent to George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, George Patton, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Admiral Bull Halsey, John F. Kennedy and Douglas MacArthur all rolled into one.

     Along with being a museum nut, I am a British Navy nut, having read (twice) all 20 Aubrey-Maturin novels of Patrick O’Brian plus the Horatio Hornblower series by E.M. Forester. These action tales took place during the Napoleonic era.

    Peggy and I actually took a Mediterranean cruise devoted to the O’Brian novels. In addition, we have visited the spectacular Nelson exhibits at the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich on the Thames and we journeyed to Portsmouth to tour Nelson’s flagship Victory.

     To stand on the orlop deck at the very bottom of Victory where Nelson lay dying 21 October 1805 during battle of Trafalgar is thrilling!

     The Charles Noe Daly pistol is the real deal—no doubt the only one like it in the world—with the cocking lever and engraved with Nelson’s seal. No question exists about the authenticity and provenance.

     It absolutely belongs as a permanent centerpiece in either one of the two massive Lord Nelson collections mentioned above—Greenwich or Portsmouth—where Nelson-adoring Brits can be inspired by it.

     Instead it reposes in perpetual obscurity.

                                           

Her Majesty savors the Nelson Collection at Greenwich.

 

I wrote the British Museum people and Met Museum people and pointed out this serious wrong. From the Brits to me:

Dear Denny (if I may), RE: A Royal Navy Treasure Buried in the Metropolitan Museum. Thank you for your email on the 12th January. Your enquiry has been forwarded on to the Registration team, we are responsible for loans and acquisitions. Thank you for the information you have included on the pistol, this has been forwarded on to our Curator responsible for firearms. With regards to borrowing the firearm for a display at the National Maritime Museum, this Curator would consider objects from other institutions for our exhibitions. We rarely take on new ‘permanent loans’ for our displays as our galleries are rotated at intervals which are planned several months in advance. We would borrow objects from other institutions for a set period of time (usually three years maximum) or for a specific upcoming exhibition. This is to ensure there is a ready and available place for the object on display. As our Curator is aware of this object and the Metropolitan Museum loan objects, this can be considered for any relevant future project. I can also see from the webpage that the pistol is on display at the Metropolitan Museum. I hope this information is of some use. Kind regards,
Moll

Molly Tillett

Registration Assistant (Trainee)
 

 

Takeaways to Consider

• Jeez. Maybe I should petition the Met to rename Gallery 763 “The Alfrederic Smith Hatch Gallery of 19th Century American Painting."

 

• Hey, why not call the whole shooting match "The Alfrederic Smith Hatch American Wing?"

 

• Just kidding…

 

###


Word count:1831


You Are Invited to Meet Denny Hatch: http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/03/87-geezer-fast-yoga.html

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 email 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… Email Me!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment Section. If you do not have a Google account — or if you find it too damn complicated — contact me directly and I will happily post your comment with a note that this is per your permission. 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
215-644-9526 (rings on my desk).
You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!

Thursday, December 10, 2020

#116 Freemiums

#116 Blog Post – Thursday, December 10, 2020

 

http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/12/116-freemiums.html

 

Posted by Denny Hatch

 

The Downside of Digital Marketing:
Exactly Who Are Our Customers?



Direct marketers sell all over the country and around the world. Unlike retailers we seldom—if ever—talk to our customers face-to-face.

 

Who are they? What do they look like? How do they dress. What car do they drive? Do they come off as upbeat or downtrodden?

 

Operating in the world of the one-line address (e.g. dennyhatch@yahoo.com) I could be anywhere in the country—from a shack in the hills of West Virginia to a mansion in the Hollywood hills to being a scammer in Russia.

 

Above is a mythical direct mail 6”x9” envelope for a non-existent non-profit organization going out to a fictional couple in Atlanta.

 

In the oversized left-hand window is the freemium—a free premium gift in a mailing to the Grayson family. It’s a sheet of 84 return self-stick personalized return labels that can be affixed to upper left corner of the mythical Graysons’ outgoing household envelopes—their paid bills, personal letters, business reply mail.

 

 

When recipients see their names and addresses multiple times showing through an envelope window it’s (1) an instant attention-getter and (2) immediately obvious as time savers. No more pain-in-the-ass writing their name and address in the “From” section in the upper left hand corner of these stupid envelopes! (3) The guilt element: if I'm going to use Pine Tree Conservancy stickers on my envelopes, I really should send them a thank-you gift.

 

Freemiums may not guarantee a sale. But they get folks past the first step—opening the envelope (and hopefully being attracted by the offer).

 

Back in the 80s, 90s and early 00s, these label freemiums were widely used by direct mailers. Among the marketers who blanketed the country with these free goodies: Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Guideposts magazine and World Wildlife fund with its darling little panda logo.

 

The Wizard of Time-Life Books and Music, Joan Manley

 



 During its heyday, Time-Life Books sold tens of millions of copies of books marketed entirely via direct mail in series that ranged from Gunfighters of the Old West (its bestselling series, selling three million copies in the U.S. alone) to the Great Ages of Man.
—Jim Milliot, Publisher’s Weekly, Jan 10, 2014

 

In 1970, Joan Manley became Publisher of Time-Life Books. She grabbed the reins of this most profitable arm of the Time-Life empire and sent it into orbit. Under her aegis, for a while it was one of the top five publishers in the world.

     Joan was a creature of direct marketing. She lived, breathed and loved it! Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, the T-L warehousing and fulfillment operations were in Chicago—middle of the country, strategically equidistant from both coasts.

     Joan told me that periodically she was called to the Chicago operation. Oh sure, she had to oversee things. But also it was an emotional pull; she had to get her hands on raw orders.

     "It gave me a big belt at the time," she said to me after she retired, "and it would now. Direct marketing distances you from your customer, so for many reasons it is desirable to read the raw mail, as well as letters—good and bad—from readers."

     She also loved the high of going to the direct mail printer and standing under the great presses as they churned out giant bed sheet circulars, the hallmark of the Time-Life mailings.

 

Happiness Is Bags of Incoming Mail

    I fully grasped Manley’s delirium of burrowing through raw orders. As I wrote about the Peter Possum Book Club in Blog Post #43— http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2019/02/43-how-successful-direct-marketing.html:

 

“Test mailings went out and I discovered the orgiastic thrill of direct mail success. Every day giant canvas bags of business reply mail from the Post Office—filled with hundreds of book orders. Mountains of cash—piled into the mailroom.

      Many of the orders contained hand-written raves from deliriously happy teachers. Peter Possum was an unequivocal, raging success!

     The four partners, my editor Roberta Sewell, designer Gil Evans, the production team—indeed everyone in the company—were positively giddy.

 

Fast Forward to Around 2000

At some point in the early 2000s I attended a Direct Marketing conference in New York City. At a break-out session one of the panelists was the Boy Scouts of America development chief.

     For over a year he had urged his team to test a mailing featuring personal return label freemiums. The copywriters turned their noses up at the idea. These things were tacky and not worthy of the elegance and glorious history of scouting.

      This guy recounted how one day he wandered into the mail room and grabbed bag of Business Reply Envelopes just to see what was in his raw orders. To his astonishment, a huge percentage of these BREs had little personal return labels in the upper left corners—labels with logos from MADD and WWF and a bunch of other non-profit mailers.

     DING! DING! DING! went the bells in his brain. It was suddenly obvious a large percentage of his donors had responded to mailings featuring these label freemiums. He called a marketing meeting and ordered his crew to test this concept. The test blew the prior control out of the water. The confirming retest did better than the test.

    The result: BSA had created long term control that brought in tons of money!

 

Takeaways to Consider

• Joan Manley raised an interesting problem all direct marketers deal with: we seldom if ever meet, greet, talk to or interact with our prospects and customers face-to-face.

 

• In the good old days of direct mail, you knew your customers by their street address and zip codes. You knew customers who lived on Fisher’s Island, Florida, were among the richest people in the land. North of 96th Street in New York City was another story. 

 

• List rental is a huge profit center for all direct marketers. To get our business they supply detailed data cards loaded with demographics and psychographics.

 

• We also had raw mail to paw through and open.

 

• Operating in the world of the one-line address (e.g. dennyhatch@yahoo.com) I could be anywhere in the country—from a shack in the hills of West Virginia to a mansion in the Hollywood hills to being a scammer in Russia.

 

• How can direct marketers meet their customers face-to-face and learn from them—their ideas, know their wants and fulfill their dreams? It’s a challenge.

 

• It’s the subject of a future blog post.

 

###

 

Word Count:  1053



You Are Invited to Meet Denny Hatch: http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/03/87-geezer-fast-yoga.html

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 email 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… Email Me!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment Section. If you do not have a Google account — or if you find it too damn complicated — contact me directly and I will happily post your comment with a note that this is per your permission. 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
215-644-9526 (rings on my desk).
You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

#115 Teaser Copy for Emails

 

 http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/12/115-teaser-copy-for-emails.html

 

#115 Blog Post – Tuesday, December 1, 2020

 

Posted by Denny Hatch

 

Dramatically Boost Your Email Open Rates:

No “Subject Lines.” Think “Teaser Copy!”

 

An Invitation:  At the end of this post, you are invited to steal from a collection of 169 winning envelope teasers that could well work wonders when adapted for email subject lines.


                About Envelope Teaser Copy
You are looking at eight teasers from direct mail envelopes. Attention grabbers. Mini-headlines that pique curiosity. Intriguing.

 

Not just any teasers.

 

These are from the WHO’S MAILING WHAT! Archive of 1,639 Grand Control mailings—direct mail packages that were received over three or more consecutive years. Some of the mailings in my Archive were tracked over five, 10, 15 or more consecutive years.

 

These mailings were raging successes, all of them bringing in millions of dollars in revenue.

 

Let Me Share With You a Story…

In 1993—the year Peggy and I were hired to save Target Marketing magazine—I got a call from the lawyers at Rodale Press looking for an expert witness. It seems this bastion of good health and human decency was being sued by a very pissed-off photographer for theft of copyright. Rodale had used a photograph in a direct mail package without paying for it. The plaintiff was not only suing for the use fee; he wanted recompense for the entire cost of the mailing (including postage) plus the entire profits of the book.

         It was a tiny picture—four b&w shots of a skinny, naked old man—that appeared deep in the brochure. (The case was settled out of court. It seems Rodale paid the use fee for the test and simply dropped the ball by forgetting to pay the use fee for the huge rollout.)

         Rodale’s request of me: figure out what percentage of the entire mailing did this little photo represent so Rodale could offer him a reasonable settlement.

         As the world’s (then) foremost expert on junk mail, I had to come up with relative percentages of importance of the various elements: envelope, letter, brochure, lift pieces, order mechanism and reply envelope.

 

   The Outer Envelope: 100% Importance

I sat down and immediately realized that the envelope—when it arrives in the mail—represents 100% of the value of the mailing. If the envelope is not opened and immediately trashed, the percentage value of the other elements—letter, circular, lift pieces, freemiums and other goodies—is moot.

 

When Peggy and I started WHO’S MAILING WHAT! in 1984, direct mail was the aristocrat of advertising. More money was spent on direct mail than on TV, radio, space ads, telemarketing, point-of-purchase, product placement and sky writing combined!

 

What’s more, direct mail was (and is) expensive a hell. Paper, printing, inserting, sorting/prioritizing and—most costly of all—postage! Today the average direct mail package can run 75¢ to a buck apiece.

 

Copywriters, designers, copy chiefs, account supervisors and clients spend hours on the envelope design and teaser copy to get them just right. Because if the envelope does not get opened, the mailer loses a ton of money—the massive costs of the mailing PLUS the projected revenue and profit.

 

Same Thing with Email: Your “From Line” 
And “Subject Line” Must Overpower the Inbox!

 

Think about it. When an email arrives in the in-box, the writer has just two elements to generate a click-to-open:

 

“From” Line
Is the sender recognizable? If your best friend is Linda Jones, her name in the From Line will result in an immediate click-to-open.

     If it's from Mutual of Omaha, the odds of a positive response are severely diminished.

     With the From Line, you have max maybe 25 characters of type with spaces to make a positive, clickable impression.

 

• “Subject” Line
Is your Subject Line as powerful as the teaser below. It would be even more powerful today in this cash-strapped epoch rife with Covid-19 worries, high unemployment and two-mile-long lines at food banks:

 


When the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote and designed this mailing, he used a #10 envelope with oodles of space to grab the CSP (Cash-Strapped-Prospect) by the collar and pound this stupendous offer home.

 


Notice the blank upper left corner. No sender’s name and address to distract from the overpowering message below.

 

Quite simply Herschell reasoned the ADVANCED FINANCIAL SERVICES logo and address in the upper left corner (cornercard) would (1) distract from the powerful offer ("Who the hell are these people?") and (2) might even be an instant deal killer.

 

Here’s How Herschell’s Offer Would Look in Email Today
(See item #3 below)



 

CONGRATULATIONS! Your valuable home equity makes you eligible for up to $100,000 Cash! 

 

This teaser copy by Herschell Gordon Lewis is 85 characters (with spaces) and is the outer length for the size of a subject line in an email inbox.

 

In comparison with the other three subject lines, this one (in my opinion) stands out.

 

Takeaways to Consider

• About direct mail, Herschell Gordon Lewis wrote: “The outer envelope has two purposes: (1) to get itself opened and (2) keep the contents from spilling onto the street.”

 

• With email, the From Line and Subject Line have just one purpose: to get clicked-on.

 

• The email inbox does not allow for illustrations, design, varying type faces and envelope sizes—all the direct mail bells and whistles that make your offer stand out, generate excitement and create desire to see what’s inside.

 

• In short, a full email inbox is lines and lines of boring little black words. Your message looks like all the other messages.

 

FORGET THE TERM “SUBJECT LINE!” Wipe it out of your mind. This is cold academic jargon dreamed up by some dreary dweeb with an MBA who first wrote about the Internet in terms of business and personal correspondence only.

 

THINK “TEASER COPY.”

 

FORGET THE TERM “PREHEADER TEXT.”
   THINK “JOHNSON BOX.

With direct mail, the preheader text is equivalent to the headline of the letter. The great copywriter Frank Johnson—a lovely gent—formalized the use of headlines on typed sales letters such as this one:

 


• The five-line paragraph centered over the salutation is known as the “Johnson Box.”

 

• The dumbest thing the writer of emails can do is spend hours perfecting the message and then bang out the first “subject line” that comes to mind and click SEND.

 

I spend ample time getting my Teaser Copy just right. It represents 100% of the effectiveness of my email. (If the recipient doesn't click on it, all my work is deader than Kelsey's nuts.)

 

• Before I send out an important email, I send a test email to myself.

 

• And then go to lunch. After the time lapse of a lunch break, I will see it in a fresh light.

 

• When I open it on my desktop/iPad/smartphone, I analyze how it compares with all the other email Teasers above and below.

 

• Does it stand out from the others. Is it exciting? Does it grab you by the throat?

 

• If not, I go back to the drawing boards.

 

• I rework and retest over and over again until I'm absolutely satisfied it is the very best I can do.

 

• Remember this: testing teaser copy in email is a helluva lot cheaper than testing it in horrendously expensive direct mail. Email is damn near free compared to mail. 

 

• If you find winning teaser copy in email, test it on your direct mail. 

 

About the 169 Email Teasers That Follow:

As I mentioned early in this post, we have scads of scans of—1,639 Grand Controls in 127 categories—direct mailings that were received a minimum of three consecutive years. These are colossal winners that generated millions of dollars in revenue.

     For this exercise, I looked at 561 envelopes and picked Teasers from 169 that I felt could be adapted for email teasers. 

     The categories I chose from: consumer and business magazines, newspapers, newsletters, books and collectibles. Waiting to be looked at: Travel, Insurance, Baby & Child Oriented, Fundraising, Financial Services, Investments, Misc. Merchandise, Legal and Medical Services, Home Study Courses and a bunch more.

     If you find this exercise useful, give a shout and I’ll schedule more for an upcoming post.

     You can reach me at: dennyhatch@yahoo.com or 215-644-9626.

     Thank you.

 

YOU ARE INVITED TO STEAL…
From the following collection of 169 guaranteed winning
subject lines that might work well when adapted as Email teasers.
Every one of these was on the envelope of a
Grand Control mailing that was received over three or more consecutive years (some over 5 and 10 years or more.)

 

Your table is ready.

Utne Reader

 

[John] Which Products Would You Choose?

Consumer Reports

 

4 FREE GIFTS just for telling us what you think.

Harlequin Books  

 

Build your body with your brain.

Men’s Health

 

You can defy the diseases of aging!

The Tufts Heart – Brain Diet Report

 

We’d like to send you this valuable FREE BOOK!

Webster’s Unified

 

Claim a FREE GIFT PACKAGE!

Wildlife Explorer Program

 

Add an hour of productivity to your day GUARANTEED

Planner Pads Co.

 

Spend a minute. Save an Hour.

Day-Timers

 

PROTECT YOUR RETIREMENT DREAMS

Consumer Reports

 

NATURAL HEALING SECRETS DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU!

Parker Publishing

 

Keep your hands warm in winter without gloves

Restore colors to faded fabric

Yankee Magazine

 

Instant burglarproofing for pennies

Yankee Magazine

 

The champion cancer-FIGHTING foods on earth!

University of California

 

TEST FLIGHT! Explore the magic of flight, the mystery of space, as you’ve never seen them before!

AIR & SPACE

 

Inside: An exclusive offer from Smithsonian.

Smithsonian Institution

 

Please don’t tell your friends we have a special offer

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 You Are Invited to Meet Denny Hatch: http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2020/03/87-geezer-fast-yoga.html

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 email 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… Email Me!
Google owns Blogspot.com and this Comment Section. If you do not have a Google account — or if you find it too damn complicated — contact me directly and I will happily post your comment with a note that this is per your permission. 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
215-644-9526 (rings on my desk).
You Are Invited to Join the Discussion!