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You see, advertising writing needs to be the best writing of
all. It needs to flow from start to finish without a bump or
a bubble.

Now, do you remember how I told you to write out in your own
handwriting good ads and DM pieces written by other people?
You do remember? Good. Well, what I want to tell…

So, the message is clear: Get yourself a collection of good
ads and DM pieces and read them aloud and copy them in your
own handwriting.

So, now what? Here I am stuck again. But not for long. What
happened during my last break is I put together a deal and I
think maybe it would be a good idea…

What I am doing is going through the SRDS list book and
looking for mailing lists that I think will yield a good
profit if exploited properly.

O.K., after I have identified the list I want to go after I
then start thinking about a product to sell to that list. By
the way, I am especially interested in…

"How To Raise Your Child's I.Q. Before It Is Even Born!"

(for expectant mothers)

"How To Fix Your Car To Get 50% More Miles Per Gallon!"

(for owners of gas guzzlers)

"How To Collect From Social Security At Any Age!"

(I already did this one and
made $800,000.00 from it.)

And so on. Well, after I have identified the list and come
up with the idea for the product, I then discuss this
project with one of my bankers. If he likes the project (and
they nearly always do) what they do is they put up roughly
about…

Then what happens is I create the DM promotion and have
Blade put it into the mail. Now then, one of three things
will happen.

1. It will be a decided loser.

2. It will be a decided winner.

3. It will be marginal.

If it is a decided loser my "banker" will have lost his
$5,000.00. If it is a decided winner my banker will then put
up perhaps another $50,000 and we will mail approximately
100,000 pieces to get the ball rolling. Then, after that, we
will finance the rest of the mailing from our cash flow and…

Very clean. Very neat. Very straight.

What if it's marginal? Well, in that case we will discuss
the project again and make a judgment as to whether or not
it makes sense to risk another $5,000 for another test.

Whatever. That's the way it works and it's a nice simple way
of doing business. Well, Bondy, I'm going to stop for now. I
am having a pretty sad day. Don't worry though, I'm O.K.,
just a little heartsick.

Such is life.

Here I am at the top of the hill in the library and once
again I'm stuck for a subject. I think a lot of it is
because I have {word deleted} on my mind.

Right now, it seems to me that I feel like outlining the
steps to direct mail success so that's what…

Step 1 - Find a hot market (mailing list)

Step 2 - Find or create a product (preferably paper and ink)
to sell to that market.

Step 3 - Create a direct mail promotion that describes the
product (or service) and the benefits of owning the same.

Step 4 - Make a test mailing (1,000 to 5,000 pieces)

Step 5 - Analyze results

Step 6 - If results are good, mail 20,000 to 100,000 more
letters

Step 7 - If results are still good, start rolling out and
taking care of business

You know, it's really a simple procedure.

If you use good common sense, your chances of success are
excellent. Where people go wrong is by making it too
complicated. Actually, this is only one of the ways people
go wrong and it occurs to me that it would be helpful to
enumerate the most common reasons for MO & DM…

And, toward this end I'm going to tell you about a little
discussion I had just a couple hours ago. What happened is I
was settling down writing an earlier portion of this letter
when a friend of mine told me he wanted to chat with me in
private. (Chat! Isn't that nifty word to describe a prison…

Anyway, what he wanted to talk about was that a friend of
his had invented a gizmo that lets you make stuff out of
wood the same way a key-making machine lets you make keys
out of blank metal. (Actually, I don't fully understand what
this thing does, but no matter.)

In any case, he wants me to take a look at the papers on
this thing and see if I think it is worth promoting because
the guy who invented this thing isn't following through with
it because he can make so much more money smuggling dope.

Of all things! Oh my! Well, what I told him is I would be
glad to help. However, I also told him that he was making
the single most common mistake made by people who want to
break into the MO business.

What is that mistake? The mistake is finding or developing a
product FIRST and then looking for a market to sell it to.
This is backasswards.

You Must Always

Find A Market First...

And Then Concentrate On A Product!

Products are a dime a dozen. They are important but much
less crucial to success than finding a hot market. I'll tell
you this: A guy with a new product cannot always find a hot
market for that product but a guy who has uncovered a HOT
MARKET can always find a product to fill the needs of that…

# Boron - Chapter 23

The Boron Letters - Chapter 23

Wednesday, 4:24 PM

July 4, 1984

Dear Bond,

Well, here I am in my room trying to avoid the heat. I heard
it is 114 degrees outside right here and 120 in Palm
Springs.