Lesson 5:

Two Big Secrets You
Need To Know

The secret to advertising, the secret to marketing, secret to direct mail in specific, secret to both impact and response. If you want impact, if you want response, you must have repetition. The two are inextricably linked. One does not happen without the other. But you cannot do Madison Avenue kind of repetition. You can't afford the time or the money.

You need a guerilla warfare kind of repetition, and that's what I'm going to show you with this example. An example of one type of marketing system, but certainly a very good one that, in any target market you can define, in 45 days or less, for $3 a prospect or less, with no manual labor, penetrates that market, makes you the dominant presence in that market using a particular type of direct mail.

Now, I'm going to show you one example from one business. Got to quickly convince you, you can move the example to any business. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you sell big-ticket items, small-ticket items. It doesn't matter whether you sell to the corporate CEO in the board room or mom and pop at home in the kitchen. It doesn't matter whether you go to them, they come to you. Doesn't matter whether you sell tangibles, intangibles, consumable products or services. None of that matters.

Let me quickly try and prove it to you. These are a few letters about what I'm going to share with  you that crossed my desk recently.

This is from an insurance agent. He says, "I targeted 500 business owner prospects, 174 of them called us to set up appointments. This is the only way I'm prospecting now." I would think so.

This is a computer software company. They sell only to the Fortune 1000. "Your system's the most profitable thing we've done to get new business in 12 years."

This is an automobile salesman. "I'm amazed I sold 11 cars last month to referrals brought into an event by past customers, all thanks to your mailing system. And we sent to only about 100 customers." 100 customers, 11 cars.

This is a certified financial planner. "I went from $13,000 a month to $42,000 a month in fees and commissions, all in a one-month jump, thanks to your system."

This is a children's clothing store owner. "We doubled business last year, even though a big factory closed in our town."

This is an Amway Diamond Direct. "We never thought direct mail would work for us, but in one month we've dominated a neighborhood." Etc., etc., etc.

I've got hundreds of them I could share with you and I have a ton of success stories like these on my website. So whatever business you're in, the model moves.

A Step By Step Example

The example I'm going to show you comes from the restaurant industry. I use it in all my seminars for two reasons. One, if you had an arena full of restaurant owners, they'd all swear it won't work. Restaurant owners pretty much don't do direct mail. And if they do anything, they do Val-Pak. You know the thing you go through, find Baskin-Robbins and throw everything else out.

This is kind of an in-fun example, but don't miss the serious point of how this can take your marketing message, deliver it to a chosen market effectively, efficiently and affordably, and magnetically bring you ready-to-buy customers and clients, and dominate a market in 45 days or less.

So this is letter number one to a geo-demographically-selected list for an Italian restaurant. In real life, where the square is, there's a photograph of the owner of the restaurant. The headline says, "A confidential letter to the husband of the house, from Giorgio, the romance director of Giorgio's Italian Grotto."

I'll read you just two paragraphs.

"Dear husband, women are different than we are. Your loving wife needs, wants and deserves special attention maybe more often than you think you give it to her. You are busy, preoccupied with work, aggravated with that dumb-dumb that you have to deal with every day at the office, tired. Who has the time or the energy to even think about romance? Two-thirds of all marriages end in divorce. And the number one reason given by divorcing women, ‘He just didn't pay enough attention to me anymore.'"

I wrote this while I was watching Oprah.

It goes on to present a solution to the problem, which in this case is a pre-packaged evening of romance, one-priced table in a special section, five-course meal, strolling violinist, rose in a bud vase, heart-shaped box of candy to take home, souvenir photograph. That's called an offer, by the way. And it's useful to know how to do one of those, although it's not our point.

My point is what happens to everybody that gets this letter and does not respond? 15 days later, they get a second one. This one, too, has a picture of Giorgio in real life. Where the circles are, there are three pennies glued to the letter. The headline says, "Three coins in the fountain." For the sake of time, I'll just cut to the chase. The second paragraph says, "You see, this is your second notice. Your romance wakeup call from me, Giorgio, the romance director. My bell tolls. Does it toll for thee?"

This letter goes on to restate the problem, restate the solution, remake the offer. And it works and gets response. That's not what's important to our conversation. What's important is what happens to everybody that gets letter number one, letter number two, does not respond? 10 days later, they get letter number three.

Letter number three has a picture of Giorgio. The headline says, "Hear that lonesome whippoorwill? He sounds too blue to cry. Dear husband. This is Giorgio, too blue to cry. Disappointed. Attached are copies of the two letters I previously sent you." And the real stubborn ones that don't respond to that soon get a postcard that looks like this. And it says, "Can this marriage be saved?"

Here's what you have to ask yourself seriously for just a second. Do you have any doubt that any household that gets the three letters, and if necessary the postcard, he's not the topic of conversation? It doesn't matter who opens the mail. They're showing it to each other, they're showing it to their neighbors. "Are you getting this guy's mail?" Some are, some aren't.

Giorgio walks into a 7/11, drycleaners in the community, people gather around and tell him how much they enjoy getting his mail, when they've got reservations at the restaurant, and ask for his autograph. For the price of three letters and a postcard, he is the dominant presence in his category of business in 45 days or less, in his chosen target market. You can't do it more efficiently than that.

The Magic Is In The Structure

Now, a few people are saying, "Wait a minute! I sell very sophisticated stuff to very sophisticated people and never did anything like that. It's unprofessional."

Well, you can separate style from structure. I want you to know, this works even better in business-to-business than it does in consumer, because everything else they get in business-to-business mail is deadly, dull, institutional and boring. But if you like, you can separate style from structure.

What’s most important is the structure. Let me show you. This is a business-to-business market. It almost does

n't matter what they sell. But they were at a seminar just like you, went home and applied this idea. "We used the three-letter system to sell our coupon books." They have to get to the business owner. He buys in bulk. "Our response was letter number one seven percent, letter number two eight percent, letter number three three percent. Total response, 18 percent."

Now, there's two things you've got to know. Number one, nobody gets 18 percent response from direct mail; 1.8 maybe, but not 18. My people, but nobody else does. But what's more important, if they stopped where everybody stops, with letter number one, in their case they'd leave 11 percent behind. They don't get it, they don't know it was there to get. Maybe they have an unsuccessful instead of a successful experience. There's magic in the structure itself. I stole that, too.

Almost 30 years ago, in one year, I managed to have two cars repossessed and go personally and corporately bankrupt, all in the same year. During that year, I got it all over with at once. During that year, I became intimately familiar with the collection industry. And I noticed a pattern that probably none of you have ever seen, so I'll describe it to you.
It looks like this: first notice, second notice, third notice.

They're roughly 15 days apart. There's no mystery. They're writing to you repeatedly. It's technically called linkage. Each letter refers to the previous letter. Generally, the last one has copies of everything they've sent you before, with "Final Notice" rubberstamped all over it, stuffed in the envelope. I saw it over and over and over again.

I said, "If this will get money from people who haven't got any, offering them nothing, I wonder what would happen if we tried it on people who've got some and offered them something?" It has since become one of my most reliable Magnetic Marketing models of the 49 that I teach. And I commend it to you highly for you to try.

Now, in lesson 6, I'm going to tell you a closing story. This story keeps promises I made to you at the beginning of this course.

Click here to go to lesson 6