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"CHOOSE YOUR LOVER"
claims the headline in this full-page ad,
one of the top 100
mail order ads of all time. Taking up almost the entire top half
of this
page are 7 pictures
of
beautiful women's faces. The order form is about 2 inches square in the bottom right hand corner, not big enough to actually fill out. But that won't stop a geek who hasn't had a date in 5 years from ordering book, after he reads the small print. The subheadings read "HOW TO MEET AND DATE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN", "JUST A PART OF THE AMAZING KNOWLEDGE YOU CAN GAIN FROM THISBOOK", "HOW TO SCORE WITH GIRLS", "A SMALL SAMPLE OF WHAT
This is the kind of
stuff that makes money, folks. Real
products, advertised
in real magazines (the ones you find in
bookstores), that
satisfy a burning desire that the reader
had BEFORE he started
flipping through the magazine.
Let's briefly consider
some more of the top 100 mail order
ads of all time:
- "THE LAZY MAN'S WAY TO RICHES". Subheading: "Most
People Are Too Busy
Earning A Living To Make Any Money".
This is the ultra-famous
Joe Karbo ad in which he introduced
the offer to NOT cash
the customer's check for 31 days;
during that time period
the customer had the option of
returning the book
and asking for the check back. The entire
ad except the headline
is small print; the order form is too
small to be filled
in by a human being; there are
testimonials from
people who claim to have made as much as a
half million dollars
in a year following Joe's advice; and
the entire nature
of the book is kept completely secret
throughout the ad
- just a lot of hype, really. (Please note
that one marketing
expert says he heard that Joe's book was
so awful than an alarming
number of people did return it, a
fact which not many
people know (if it's true) and which Joe
seemed to hide pretty
well).
- "OHIO MAN DISCOVERS THE SECRET OF HOW TO ESCAPE THE
AMERICAN RAT RACE".
Subheading: "7 Simple Rules Net This
Working Man Without
Any Money Or Experience $145,000 in First
Year". This follows
in the footsteps of the previous ad.
There was room for
plenty of competition for Mr. Karbo all
those years ago -
the market of North Americans who want to
believe they can get
rich without being productive is
endless, and always
will be. This ad is in small type with a
pointless picture
of a guy on the phone and his family in the
background. Most of
the ad is in a question-and-answer
format. There is no
order form.
- "137 PERFECTLY LEGAL WAYS TO GET A CHECK OUT OF UNCLE
SAM". This one
was written by Gary Halbert, and I don't know
of any American alive
that could possibly read this ad and
not truly believe
that he or she could get previously
unclaimed money from
the government. The copy is very
compelling. The order
form is so small that if you've ever
seen this ad, you
probably wondered why they bothered putting
it in at all. The
belief is that, though it's too small to
use, the "tiny order
form" method is a psychological trigger
that makes people
think of ordering instead of just reading
the ad and then flipping
the page. But I bet a lot of people
DON'T order out of
sheer exasperation that the ad isn't user
friendly. There's
a nice picture of the White House.
- "THE AMAZING DIET SECRET OF A DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE".
Subheadings include
(of course) "No Hunger", "76% More
Energy", "No Exercise",
and other nonsense.
- "MAKES YOUR HOME IMMUNE TO SWARMING ROACHES". I'm not
queasy when it comes
to bugs, folks, but there's a picture of
a couple of huge roaches
in this ad which could make anybody
sick. I'd bet a million
bucks that the emotion of disgust is
the single most important
factor in the success of this ad.
- "HAVE YOU EVER BOWLED A STRIKE AND SAID, "I'VE GOT
IT!"? This ad says
their book will teach you how to hypnotize
yourself and use your
subconscious mind to become a better
bowler.
- "HAVE YOU EVER TAKEN A PRACTICE GOLF SWING AT A
DANDELION?".
Same as the bowling ad, only for golf.
- "HOW TO DEVELOP CHARISMA: THE ART OF ATTRACTING AND
INFLUENCING PEOPLE".
You can order an $8 book or a $25
cassette series.
- "MY FEET WERE KILLING ME ... UNTIL I DISCOVERED THE
MIRACLE IN GERMANY!"
There's a huge picture of a foot with a
series of concentric
circles amanating from a spot that's
obviously supposed
to be in pain. It would be difficult to
flip through a magazine
with this ad in it and not notice it
- and if you're feet
were killing you at the time, you'd
probably ask for more
information about these foot supports
which go into your
shoes (this is a rare full-page ad which
is designed to collect
inquiries instead of make sales
directly).
-"HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE". The famous
Dale Carnegie book
was one of the hottest mail order ads
ever. You get the
book free and if you decide to keep it,
it's just $1.96 (God,
this ad is OLD! Also, people must have
been a lot more honest
back then - these days people ordering
stuff on credit simply
refuse to pay for it.)
-"THEY LAUGHED WHEN I SAT DOWN AT THE PIANO BUT WHEN I
STARTED TO PLAY! -".
This ad was a runaway success. It
promises to teach
you how to learn to play any instrument
very quickly, and
gives away a free booklet and demonstration
lesson; the package
they send in reply also offered to sell
the instrument, to
those who didn't own one. Obviously the
secret of this ad
may have been the nice profit margin that
musical instruments
are sold at.
What I hope you've
been learning from these successful ads
is:
1) the importance of the headline. All the best ads have
headlines at least
a half-inch tall and they make it CLEAR
just what is being
offered. Trickiness and humor do NOT work,
unless it is the sort
of trickiness or humor that
simultaneously tells
the reader what the ad is about.
2) the importance of claiming to solve a problem or
fulfill an intense
desire shared by a huge number of people -
the desire for more
sex, the need for more money, the desire
to lose weight, increase
beauty, ease your aching feet, etc.
* * * *
TRAP YOURSELF INTO BEING SUCCESSFUL
Overcoming procrastination
is no small matter - each of us
would get everything
we want out of life if we took enough
action. Obviously,
we don't always do this. Overcoming
procrastination is
a matter of pleasure and pain. While at
your assembly line
job you may be bristling with frustration
at your boss. You
may be bored with the meaninglessness of
your task. While standing
there perhaps you are full of
desire to make it
big by moonlighting with your own mail
order business. But
when you get home you crush the pain with
the instant gratification
of a baseball game on the
television and a mind
numbing cold beer. Needless to say,
you've just blown
it. Willpower is a nifty concept but a
lousy reality. Is
there a way to achieve success in spite of
this? I'm glad you
asked ...
ADVERTISE AHEAD OF TIME
If you are working
on a new product or service, your
advertisements should
be prepared as soon as you know what
the major benefits
of the final offer will be. With the ads
just waiting to be
presented to your market, you will begin
to work harder at
finalizing your offer so you can RUN those
ads and make money.
Even more important, order your
advertising before
the offer is completed. You'll know when
your ads are going
to appear, and that's the date that people
are going to start
pestering you to buy your widget or
service or to get
more information. If that fact doesn't give
you the kick in the
pants you need to get things done fast,
then you don't belong
in business. Consider a job with the
government instead.
WRITTEN CONTRACTS
There's nothing like
the pressure of legal obligation (and
the possibility of
legal prosecution) to force you into
action and complete
a project which involves another business
party. 'Nuff said.
VERBAL CONTRACTS
Interpersonal pressure
is a leading human motivating force.
All through school
I performed meaningless unenjoyable tasks,
went without sleep
and nearly lost my mind because some
stupid professor told
me to. I would never work that hard for
myself (I don't hate
myself). The important distinction is
that humans will very
often put off a task if the only
pressure comes from
themselves. It's often more productive to
enter an agreement
with someone else and then let your
natural desires take
over - like saving face, appearing like
a winner, not disappointing
people, getting off on the right
foot, etc. Just don't
give yourself the option of saying
"I'll do it tomorrow",
or you probably will never do it at
all.
SPECIAL "TIMING TRAPS"
In September 1991 I
decided it was time to put all the
information I had
gathered and composed to that date into 3
information products.
I knew that I was going to visit my
brother at Christmas
and work with him on his publishing
equipment to make
these products ready for the printer.
There was absolutely
no way in this world that I could have
escaped the necessity
of getting everything ready before
visiting him. God,
what an exhausting week that was for both
of us! It's
amazing what you can do - when you have no
choice!
* * * *
THE CUSTOMER VALUE APPROACH TO MAIL ORDER WEALTH
A direct mail campaign
sent to people who have bought
something from you
will usually generate at least twice and
sometimes ten times
or more revenue than a mailing sent to
people who have NOT
bought anything from you. Because of this
fact, you should concentrate
your up-front marketing dollars
on turning inquirers
into customers at a LOW PURCHASE LEVEL,
then have the patience
to let the REAL money come in slowly
and surely during
the weeks and months and years AFTER the
original purchase,
which turned the curious and skeptical
inquirer into a satisfied
customer.
How can you increase the prospect-to-customer conversion?
1) CHEAP OFFERS. Your attempt to get a first-time
purchase should always
involve a low purchase level, $20 or
less. Quite simply,
people are almost never willing to spend
a significant amount
of money on a company that they have no
experience buying
from.
2) INTRODUCTORY DISCOUNTS. It's not enough to simply
make the cheap introductory
offer. You need to make a big
production out of
it, preferrably a long salesletter. My
introductory "Killer
Salesletters" wind up with an offer a
fraction of the cost
of the typical sort of offer made with
a four-page salesletter.
3) MAKE IT URGENT. Put a time-limit on your offer. It's
bad enough that there
are so many other people besides you
who are trying to
sell one thing or another to your
prospect. If you don't
make it seem urgent that he or she
order from YOU and
do it SOON, you're only decreasing the
chances of turning
her into a customer.
The sort of direct
marketing that I and most other companies
do breaks down into
2 types: "customer creation direct
marketing" and "customer
squeezing direct marketing". The
former is often a
pain in the ass, but always necessary. It
is sometimes profitable,
sometimes not. Customer creation
direct marketing is
your attempt to turn as many prospects
(some of which are
really in the market and some of which are
curiosity seekers)
as possible into customers - TO GET THEM
TO BUY SOMETHING -
ANYTHING. Something that costs at least $5
and not more than
$19.95. Your goal here is simple: to build
your customer list.
"Customer squeezing
direct marketing" is ultra-enjoyable. It
is a simple matter
of enjoying the fruits of your labor - the
customer database
you have created. You should be able to
make a large profit
when you mail offers to your list of
recent customers.
The only barrier to mail order wealth,
therefore, is that
we all start with a customer database of
zero size, and it
grows much more slowly than we'd like.
That's life.
* * * *
HOW TO GET PROSPECTS TO REMEMBER
YOU SO THAT THEY BECOME CUSTOMERS
DON'T SELL JUNK. People
don't have time to create a space for
you in their brain
unless you have something useful and
honest to offer them.
USE MEANINGFUL MESSAGES.
Meaningful messages are learned
more than meaningless
ones. Ie., "15 Steps To Buying And
Selling Real Estate
With No Money Down To Become A
Millionaire In 1 Year"
is more meaningful than "Fabulous
Money Maker". Even
your company name is a message; some
company names are
meaningless, some are meaningful.
CONTACT THEM REPEATEDLY.
Contact your prospect just once,
and they probably
won't remember you at all, at least not
consciously. Unless
your message is very unique and in huge
demand, you can't
afford NOT to contact your prospects at
least 5 or 6 times
in as short a time frame as possible.
EMPHASIZE BENEFITS
AT THE START AND END OF EVERY PIECE OF
ADVERTISING MATERIAL.
Remember the psychological phenomena of
primacy and recency.
People remember the first and last more
than they remember
the middle.
USE UNIQUE AND UNUSUAL
MESSAGES. But make sure that the
reader still knows
right from the start what you are
offering. Originality
is OK only if it is directly relevant
and is somehow beneficial
- simply using clever phrases and
jokes does not work.
REWARD THE PROSPECT
FOR PAYING ATTENTION TO YOU. People will
tend to enjoy doing
something if they are rewarded for it.
Let's say your prospect
gets halfway through a long
salesletter and you
reward them for reading that far by
saying "To show my
appreciation for reading this far, call my
toll-free number,
state the code word "Cowabunga" and leave
your address. I'll
send my free report on selling to
Eskimoes". That prospect
will likely remember you, especially
if he takes you up
on your special offer.
BE A MANIPULATIVE S.O.B.
Just after getting your prospects
into an emotional
state is a good time to present the message
that you want to stick
in your prospect's mind. This message
may be that you have
a new product, that you are having a
sale, or whatever.
How do you get your prospect emotionally
elevated? Remind them
of the painfulness of not having what
you are selling. Remind
them of the joy of having what you
are selling. Bring
up sensitive issues and assure them that
your shared viewpoint
on the matter is the "right" one.
Sensitive issues include
abortion, business ethics, capital
punishment, etc.
SIMPLER MESSAGES ARE LEARNED EASIER. Self-explanatory.
* * * *
ARE YOU A BUSINESSPERSON OR A HOBBYIST?
There are 2 clearly
definable sets of people in the mail
order industry - hobbyists
and businesspeople. This isn't
exactly the inner
circle, outer circle distinction I
discussed last month;
there are hobbyists and businesspeople
in both the inner
and outer circles. The outer circle, being
the real business
world, is much more quick to chew hobbyists
up and spit them out
- so you don't see them around so much.
In the inner circle,
people are active hobbyists for decades.
I feel that one of
the central reasons why so many people who
get into mail order
quit so quickly is that they didn't learn
to make the key distinction
between these 2 types of people.
Thousands of people
seriously commit time and money each year
to learning the mail
order industry via the inner circle,
looking for something
to sell, experimenting with
advertising, free
publicity, direct marketing, telemarketing,
learning new computer
skills, etc.
Out of every
few thousand people that do this, a handful
"stick" and
become inner circle hobbyists. Maybe they
publish a single
page adsheet, and that's all they've been
doing for the
past 30 years and that's all they'll ever do.
Some mail chain
letters and nothing else. There are, believe
it or not, chain
letter addicts in the U.S.A. and Canada who
actually believe
that one day they will find or create a
chain letter
that they will mail and get rich from. Really,
I'm not making
this up.
Am I knocking
hobbyists? Yes and no. On the one hand, we all
need friends
in this world. We need something to do with our
time, since
the human brain quickly becomes bored if not
given a meaningful
and time-consuming task. Humans have a
never-ending
need to achieve greater understanding and try
new things,
to read, to talk to people. "Hobbymail" fills
all these needs
for some people. And when it comes right
down to it,
not everyone is meant to be a businessperson!
The problem with
hobby mail is when it gets mixed up with
bona-fide money-making
mail order businesses and confuses
the life out
of sincere newcomers who just want to get down
to the business
of making money. So if you're just beginning
and you're confused
by the conflicting messages you are
receiving from
a combination of businesspeople and
hobbyists, and
you are intent on being a SERIOUS
BUSINESSPERSON
who MAKES MONEY, here are a few things to
remember.
BUSINESSPEOPLE MUST OWN A COMPUTER
You can run a
hobby mail enterprise without a computer, but
you must have
one if you want to be a businessperson. At the
very least you
will be word processing and doing mailing
list management
on too big a scale to be able to make do
without one
eventually.
"MONEY-MAKING" IS NOT A BUSINESS!
Mail order hobbyists
often publish circulars and
salesletters
which make "money making" sound as if it were a
business in
itself, like selling shoes, brewing beer,
dusting crops
or making T-shirts. But you can't just "make
money". You
must earn it by providing something that people
want. Money
comes as a byproduct of doing that.
DON'T HARRASS YOUR CUSTOMERS!
Does your local
grocery store demand you bring your own
bags? Does a
barbershop demand an admittance fee before you
even decide
whether you're going to get your hair cut there?
Do movie theatre
owners charge you for a percentage of their
heating or air
conditioning costs on top of what they're
charging for
the movie? MOST CERTAINLY NOT. Yet many mail
order dealers
do exactly that - they charge the customer for
their costs
of doing business.
The ONLY sensible
reason to use a 1-900 number or to ask for
a dollar or
a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) is to
qualify prospects
- to make sure the inquirer is serious
enough about
your offer to at least go to the trouble of
coughing up
a stamp or a buck or pay for a phonecall. But as
far as the "But
I Need To Cover My Costs" philosophy goes,
this is just
a case of incredible short-sightedness and
possibly a lack
of start-up capital. You'll save money in
the short term
because your envelopes and stamps will be
free. But in
the long run your customers will see you as a
person who cannot
even afford stamps, as a miserly or un-
generous person
who asks them to help you pay your costs of
doing business.
Your long-term
profit potential from a secured and happy
customer SHOULD
BE hundreds of dollars of clear profit (if
it isn't, it
might be a good idea for you to give me a phone
call or write
me a letter so we can discuss your marketing
plan). If someone's
on your list for several months and they
don't become
a customer, you should kick them off your list
anyway. The
lesson? ESTABLISH A VERY COMFORTABLE PROFIT
MARGIN AND DON'T
ENGAGE IN PRICE WARS. You'll be able to pay
for your own
stamps, envelopes, and everything else, because
of the profits
from sales. Price warriors have an alarming
tendency to
either go out of business fast or just never get
anywhere because
(surprise, surprise) without a profit
margin, they
never make any money. Businesspeople (not
hobbyists) who
sell quality merchandise for what it's worth
have a much
EASIER time of making money IN THE LONG RUN.
There's a growing
place for "bargain basement" selling in
North America
but it's still far smaller than the rest of
the business
world. In fact, they're kind of a novelty -
factory seconds
stores with no sales people to help you,
grocery stores
that charge extra for bags, etc. It's a
little disappointing
to see this, in my opinion. Our
business world
in North America is eating itself up because
of these standards-lowering
practices, when it could be
employing sales
personnel, interior decorators, etc. Thank
God there will
always be a place for the provider of quality
merchandise
and service who isn't afraid to make some money.
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