> By the way, Erik, thanks for alerting us to
> Siegfried Vogele's research results. I had
> never heard of him, but his research seems
> incredibly important if you plan to do any
> kind of advertising at all....

I wouldn't have ever heard of him either. It was just one of those browsing the bookshelves accidents. He's not really a publicized direct mail guy I guess. More interested in his research. Maybe he's more well known in Europe. Not sure.

> Just 11 seconds! In that 11 seconds, you
> have to get their attention, or blam! all
> your hard work drafting that letter gets
> thrown in the trash.

The trash bin mail sort. I think we all know it well.

> This helps to explain possibly why Gary
> Halbert puts so much emphasis on
> "grabbers"

I agree. I also think that grabbers are probably very overlooked as a tool, even after Gary Halbert, Peter Sun, and other direct mail experts tell us how well they work. Maybe I should get it through my thick head that I need to do more testing of them.

I had purchased about a 1,000 foreign banknotes from the educational coin company a few months back and was ready to roll. But then my order was delayed, slow to get here, sent back once or twice, and finally I just got fed up and asked them to cancel my order.

I went with another grabber type idea I used and that produced a 200% ROI.... BUT with intensely personalized pieces. And it wasn't worth my time to continue, as crazy as that sounds. Even if I streamlined the process and cut down.

Besides, I wasn't overly enthusiastic about that project like some of the other things I'm working on.

(I know I just found lumpymail.com where Jon Goldman advocates the usage of grabbers. He sells a $500ish package on them and also sells the actual novelties. He has that message in a bottle we were both searching for. If I recall, it was around $2.25 per piece.)

> Another important thing to consider are
> highlighted words.

I think so too. But then there's the Gordon Pope pieces that go overboard (maybe I'm just not his exact target market).

> Another important point is that people read
> the PS first, even before they read the
> start of the letter! The P.S. is the real
> start of your letter! This is true with
> letters printed on paper and sent through
> the mail -

> I suspect it is probably less
> true online.... (But I guess that's
> something which would be good to test!)

I wonder...

> Anyhow, Erik, thanks for those articles -
> there were a plethora of fascinating and
> useful ideas there. :)

I think some of them have a lot of possibility.

> I thought this was a very important thing to
> point out.... Joe Sugarman says it is
> important to "anticipate
> objections", which seems similar. Then,
> of course, you must resolve them in your
> advertising. Unlike selling face-to-face, in
> direct response marketing people cannot ask
> you questions. So you have to anticipate
> what these questions will be beforehand....
> That way, you can make more sales. I agree
> - I think this is a great idea.... And I
> don't recall having seen it elsewhere.

I need to check out some of those Joe Sugarman books.

Talk to you more soon, Dien,

Erik

I'd like to re- emphasize this for anyone reading this thread.

“Read your letter, using only pictures, headlines, underlining, signature and PS, and ask yourself, critically, whether the benefit is clear for the reader to see.”