Copywriting and DirectSalesMarketing Mythbusters: The Myth of One Good Letter (Do You Need One?)

There was once a time when one good sales letter or print ad was all you needed. fact, JoeInKarbo’s ‘Lazy Man’s Way To Riches!’ ad was just one such an sample. It made funds in every newspaper it ran in, selling at just a $10 book – no go back end, no monetisation of the list – so the ‘seers’ say.

Very lazy when.you think about it

According to those same ‘seers,’ Karbo could set his secretary a budget and she could acquire remnant newspaper space anywhere in the country and they would make money. It was that good a promotion.

you mayAsknow, Another sample of this was Gary Halbert’s coat of arms letter. It’s worth noting that Selling a $2 catalogue of items the buyer could engraved withhavetheir family coat of arms it made Gary rich once. It was so famous it got a mention on from another perspective Carson. Carson was fuming about his coat of arms and called Gary all sorts of names.

Interestingly salesupwent after Caron’s ringing endorsement.

As you may know, At least Gary had a return end – the products in the catalogue.

But is that still true today?

The landscape has changed since the heyday of direct response. Response rates are down, people are less willing to spend funds these days, more so than they have been for a long time. At the same time the very most effective direct response purchasers are getting older which means they have this annoying as a matter of fact habit of dying. And the younger generations are not really picking up the slack in the mail order purchasing sense.

In all my time in the world of copywriting and direct response I can say that the glory days of vast fortunes amassed on the back of one good ad selling a one off obtain are more and more a thing of myth.

There are relatively simple and effective marketing systems being used to develop wealth but usually there is a degree of system and advanced monetisation strategy, not the simple let’s stick a space ad in a newspaper or mail one sales letter type of business any more. (Sad really, it is one more reason for the grizzled vets to put on rose coloured glasses and talk about the good outdated days.)

The main change seems to me to be in product strategy and also marketing from another perspective sophistication. No longer do you one letterneedor ad. You need one good system as a matter of fact . And an advanced monetisationgoodsstrategy.

Karbo sold a lot of books by mail order. Leasing those names to other marketers could have been the commence of some monetisation for him – if he generated his sales at breakeven, he didn’t he got them at a profit and then made $25 per name in the list rental business he would have banked an extra million dollars in cash for every 40,000 books he sold.