Search

Stay close to
your mail box.

P.S.#2

You
might also try getting a celebrity to sign your
letters (ask me how) or maybe using multiple stamps
instead of just one, or, if you are going after a
really big sale, you might try sending telegrams
instead of letters, or how about including a free
standing "polaroid" of whatever…

"Mrs. Jones?
Listen. This is Mr. Smith at ABC Widget Company. Did
you get the letter I just sent you? You'll remember it
if you did; it had a penny attached to the first page.
You do remember? Good. Look, the reason I'm calling is
because..."

Try this. If you
do it right it will multiply your sales…

# aakj veritable orgy

From:

W-A-Y West of Jewfish Creek

Dear Friend & Subscriber,

It was a veritable orgy of ideas!

I'm talking, of course, about the first official Sir Gary of Halbert brainstorming session. Remember how I promised that 13 of the world's best minds would work on ideas and promotions sent in by my subscribers? Well…

It really worked out neat. Paulette and I rented Sheraton Miramar's "conference bungalow" for two days and it turned out to be the absolute perfect place to hold a brainstorming session. For starters, the Sheraton Miramar is a beautiful, stately old hotel by the sea in Santa Monica that has been featured in several movies. And secondly, the conference…

It sure was good of me to spring for all of this, wasn't it?

Actually, it was my pleasure and it was a genuine honor to interact with all those brilliant men and women. And besides, as you already know, I am truly a Prince Of A Guy.

So anyway, here are some thoughts that have stuck in my mind as a result of that two-day conference:

THE MOST COMMON FLAW of all the ads and DM pieces that were submitted is that many of them were difficult (some were borderline impossible!) to read. You wouldn't believe it: over and over we examined submissions that had…

Listen Dammit: Use Black

Type On White Or Yellow

Paper And Don't Mess With

Any Other Color

Combinations!

DON'T SEND A LETTER to do a man's job. Hark unto me: It has been said you can sell anything by direct mail. Well, that's sort of true. But really, when you're selling data processing services or…

Look: One organization sent in a direct mail package designed to sell utility companies on becoming part of an advertising network of syndicated statement stuffer ads. It's a good idea, a darned good idea, but how many utilities are there? Probably only a few hundred in all the U.S. And, since the universe is so small and each…

You know, it seems to me that some organizations are "hiding behind their mail" because they're uncomfortable about making sales calls.

That shouldn't be so. If you've got something good that will really and truly benefit your prospect, he'll welcome a personal visit!

TYPING IS NOT WRITING: It continues to surprise me how many people think owning a persona computer or a word processor is an important ingredient in the success of anything. One subscriber, in fact, wanted us to brainstorm how he could use his PC to start a desk top publishing empire. You know what that's like? It's like…

How about half a brain?

There's a quote I like. It says, "Thought should be a guide to action, not a substitute for it." So it is with computers. Most people who want to write or publish and then get a PC, they end up spending all their time learning how to make it work instead of perfecting their…

Listen up: Of all the ingredients necessary to becoming a good

copywriter, a publisher or to become good at writing anything, a word processor or a personal computer is, by far, the least important ingredient in the entire equation.

I have spoken.

Here's a headline I like:

How To Get All The

Money You Need Even

If Your Bank

Just Turned You Down!

A question: Does anybody know anything about some guy named Duvall and his "Mail Order Matrix"? That was a question that came up during the session and nobody knew anything about it.

Here's another headline I like:

17 Stocks That Are

Going To Die Right

Before Your Eyes!

FAX JUNK MAIL: Someone at the session (I thinks it was my kid, Bond) suggested to one of the supplicants that he should send his ads via FAX. Whoa! There's gonna be some hell raised about this. Just recently, in the L…

Tell you what, friends: we already invade their mailboxes, their phones, their homes and their airwaves but, ads by FAX will not be tolerated. The difference is, when you are receiving a fax ad, your machine is all tied up and can't produce those critical documents you are desperate to receive for which you bought the machine in the…

Back off!

IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL FATHER HALBERT: "I'll show that insufferable egomaniac. I'll send him and his roundtable something that's working like crazy and then reveal what fools he and his "Genius Network" are when they tear my masterpiece apart."

It didn't work, Joe England, Bud Jennings, Don Beaver, Richard Potter, (thanks for coming), Dennis Spake, Russell A. Whitney, Fred Rowe, Tom Liquori, (good having you there), Gary Marguls, Gene Dowdle, Michael Duclos and all you others who tried to pull one over on 'ol Guru Gary.

HOW TO GET A DOCTOR TO read your mail: Nowadays, many doctors sort through their mail before they let their staff touch it. What are they looking for? Letters From Attorneys! They don't want their staff to know about any pending malpractice suits or stuff like that. So, if you are writing to a doctor and you can come…

Dear Dr. Jones,

As an attorney who has filed suit against 300 of your fellow practitioners, I thought maybe you'd......

....then maybe you will at least get your message read.

BERNARD GETZ MASKS? Gary Waltershied thinks they could be sold to people who ride the subway.

AN IMPORTANT SUGGESTION for catalog mailers: your front cover (and probably your back one too) should contain teaser copy instead of graphics. For example:

L.A. Doctor Discovers

New Way to Lose Weight (see page 17)