Found: A Lost Treasure by Bill Jayme
Bill
Jayme Heikki Ratalahti
Be My Guest!
When I founded the newsletter and archive service, WHO'S MAILING WHAT! I was always open to publishing the ideas and writing of other direct marketers. Like WMW!
this new blog is always open to marketing experts who have something
intuitive, informative or inane to say. I am delighted to welcome this
entry by Michael Feldstein—formerly a valued member of Marty Edelston's Boardroom
team. To all marketers and direct marketers, this is your invitation to
participate whenever you have something you want to share. I am: dennyhatch@gmail.com. Thank you for subscribing... and thank you Michael Feldstein! —DH
By
Michael Feldstein
One of the things I’ve
had more time for since being hunkered down at home during
the coronavirus outbreak is cleaning out some old files.
And while I was tossing material in the garbage can, I
was lucky to come across a gem from the early 1990’s – a little-known
giveaway from legendary copywriter Bill Jayme that was published by Boardroom
Inc. called “20 Opinionated Answers to 20 Questions Nobody Asked.”
If I recall correctly, it was given away to prospective mailers
by Boardroom’s list management group to help introduce them to Boardroom’s
mailing list. And it’s a gem … filled with useful tips and written in Jayme’s
inimitable style.
For those who don’t know, Bill Jayme wrote the copy for the
direct mail packages of dozens of magazine that launched their products in the
1970s and 1980s, including New York Magazine, Mother Jones, Bon Appetit,
Smithsonian, Food and Wine, The Harvard Health Letters, and a legion of others.
His most famous envelope teaser was probably the one he wrote for
Psychology Today: “Do you close the bathroom door even when you’re the only one
at home?”
Psychology Today
Anyway, my strong guess is that virtually no one still
has this report, and no one saved its contents online. So as a public
service to direct marketers, copywriters, and others, I’m sharing Jayme’s
wisdom:
1) Pay little heed to
talk about America becoming illiterate. First off, today’s
illiterates aren’t your market (unless you sell reading courses). Second,
if cockroaches, fruitcakes, and opera can survive so will the written
word.
Esquire
Fortune
3) Get your copywriter
together with your art director at the outset. The era is over when an
art director is handed a ream of finished copy with the instructions, “Here –
do something with this.”
Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine
5) Always talk up to your prospects,
not down. When flattered, people almost always rise to the occasion. When
insulted, they rise to walk over to the wastebasket.
6) Must sweepstakes prizes
inevitably be a trip to Hawaii or a Winnebago camper? Why not prizes that
reflect your product? Two decades ago, we created a sweepstakes that
launched New York Magazine. First prize was dinner at Gracie Mansion so
you could tell the mayor how you’d run the city. Last prize was
a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.
New York Magazine
The Prize List Above
(In Easy-to-Read Type)
The Prize List Above
(In Easy-to-Read Type)
What have you won?
A week at the Plaza?
An evening with Mayor Lindsay
at Gracie Mansion telling him
how to run the city?
A Broadway opening night
with critic Harold Clurman?
Your own park bench?
A sidewalk or penthouse tree?
Here’s the claim check
that finds out for you
All you do is mail it back.
A Charter Subscription Offering
7) Always read your copy aloud
to someone who enjoys finding fault with everything you do.
8) Your outer envelope is
where your prospect decides whether to stop, look, and listen. It’s the come-on
– the headline on the ad, the dust jacket on the book, the display window
outside the store, the hot pants on the hooker.
9) Express savings in terms
of money, not in percentages. The only percentage people really
understand is 50%, and even then, you’d better add, Half Off!”
10)
Check the signature on your letter. If it looks like the
handwriting of an eleven-year-old, and you’re selling financial, medical, or
insurance services, consult your art director.
11)
To carry the reader over to page two, end page one in
mid-sentence, not at the conclusion of a paragraph. The ideal page break?
“They then began to remove their (continued on next page)”
12)
Photographs almost always sell better than drawings.
13)
Personalize indiscriminately at your peril. Do you
really want as a customer some boob who gets turned on by seeing his own name
repeated nine times in a single page?
14)
No matter how chic sans serif type looks, never use it for body
copy. It’s unreadable
15)
So are body copy set in reverse, copy overprinted on art, and
all headlines that run sideways.
16)
Never use the word “pizzazz” in a mailing. We once
headlined an outer envelope, “Put more pizzazz in your love life.” People
thought we were selling pizzas.
17)
When someone tells you that long copy outpulls short,
that 6x9 envelopes outpull #10s, and that brochures no longer pay for
themselves, don’t believe a word of it. No one opens up an envelope
because it’s a 6x9, or reads a letter because it’s long. People open what
interests them. They read what interests them. They respond to what
interests them
18)
Nothing more than seven words should ever be written by hand. So
there, Carolyn Davis and Carol Wright.
19)
If junk mail were more fun to read and look at, fewer people
might complain. Comic books, pornography, Bibles, and Kleenex all probably
destroy more forests, and there’s nary a whimper.
20)
The phrase “junk mail” is here to stay. Think of it as a
term of resigned endearment, like cops and metermaids, grease monkeys and
talking heads, coffin nails, the flicks, the idiot box, and my old lady. Just
because you call your dog a mutt doesn’t mean that you don’t love him.
Before he was at Boardroom, he worked at MBI Incl in its Danbury Mint and Postal Commemorative Society Division. He is currently on the Advisory Board of Target Marketing Magazine. In 2017 he was honored with the Founder's Award by the Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association, and in 2008, he received the DMA Insert Council's annual award. He has spoken at numerous industry events about direct marketing. You can visit his website at www.mgfmarketing.com and he can be reached at michaelfeldstein@gmail.com
About Michael Feldstein
Michael Feldstein is the owner and founder of MGF Marketing, a direct marketing consulting firm. He worked at Boardroom Inc. for 25 years in its marketing department, where he was part of an infomercial team that sold more than $150 million of its health book products on television. He also helped grow the circulation of Bottom Line Health from 35,000 to more than 300,000 and launched a new division selling the company's health books in Spanish, generating about 200,000 Spanish-speaking bookbuyers.Before he was at Boardroom, he worked at MBI Incl in its Danbury Mint and Postal Commemorative Society Division. He is currently on the Advisory Board of Target Marketing Magazine. In 2017 he was honored with the Founder's Award by the Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association, and in 2008, he received the DMA Insert Council's annual award. He has spoken at numerous industry events about direct marketing. You can visit his website at www.mgfmarketing.com and he can be reached at michaelfeldstein@gmail.com
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