Siegfried’s ideas pre-date Gary Halbert’s… but they sound a lot alike

Siegfried’s ideas pre-date Gary Halbert’s… but they sound a lot alike

P.S., signature, non justified right hand side….

Gary Halbert preaching to us about getting results from our direct mail? Or part of the results published in German in 1984 by Siegfried Vogele?

I like to think two masters both on top of their games.

After being reintroduced to Siegfried’s material through an article, I decided I had to reread his book called the “Handbook of Direct Mail.” You might want to too. But if you’re short on time, I can sum it up for you.

SILENT DIALOGUE

Unlike most direct mail experts, Siegfried has conducted research where he or people working with him are actually monitoring the people opening mail directly. To gauge what catches their eye. What stops them. What makes them nod ‘yes’ subconsciously.

Very interesting. I actually felt like I was reading more of a textbook than a direct mail course like I’m used to… the translation of the book to English is nearly flawless and it’s not classroom stuffy (which I know well). But the layout and precision and detailing of results is reminiscent of a biology lab book.

In his research he found that people seem to have a silent dialogue with their mail pieces. Where they ask questions (which we of course can’t hear) that flow from their initial reaction to the piece.

A few of them that might pop up:

“Who sent me this?
Can I throw it all away?
Should I even bother to read the letter?
What will I get out of this for myself?
How will it help me?
What would happen if I don’t do anything?
Who can prove that?
Who has bought this before me?
What would my wife say?
What would my family think?
Must I make a decision?
Can I put this off until later?”

Going from the idea of dialogue and silent questions, we’re led to “little yes’s” as amplifiers and “little no’s” as filters.

While reading, the reader makes many predecisions and rejections.

Examples of “little yes’s”

“Carefully opening and unfolding
Reading on
Not letting yourself be distracted
Leaning back
Closer reading
Widening of the pupils
Rereading
Looking for more enclosures”

Looking at this list, I vaguely recall purchasing a performance auto part that may or may not have been a good decision. I read and reread the text. I leaned back in my chair. My pupils were probably as big as saucers. And I reread everything multiple times.

In the end, what I was trying to do is justify my decision and sell it to myself. And I did! More on this later.

“No one is ever prepared to read the individual pages of a brochure and enclosures slowly line by line, beginning with the first line.”

Siegfried then talks about the first 20 seconds which I mentioned in that last post. In it, a person’s eyes tend to scan and only stop at certain points. Headlines, photos, captions, underlining, signature, P.S.

We must use these to guide the reader’s eyes to the biggest benefits.

Important:

“None of us enjoys throwing things away if we sense a benefit in them.”

Back to my impulsive purchase, I was really rereading to convince myself. I was also making sure the information would help justify my buying decision to someone else.

Once someone has decided to buy, very often they still need to have enough details about the benefits that they can defend their decision in the future. Otherwise, they may hesitate to lay down that credit card.

There are a few more stages our offer must run the gamut through. Archiving and putting it to one side.

It was pointed out that a person’s name and the correct target group (through careful list selection) are all pre-amplifiers that improve the odds of success. Of course, we knew that already and never failed to take it into account.

And of course….

Don’t right justify (usually), no sans serifs, write to 12 year olds, and short paragraphs....

He has a nice little diagram and states that by using short sentences, paragraphs, we can ‘indirectly say to the reader, “You can read this letter very quickly and easily. It won’t take long.” ‘

Interesting what he says about PS’s. He says that 90% (!) of readers will take a look at the PS first and actually read it relatively slow, word for word.

The best idea from the whole book:

Siegfried’s dialogue outlining

“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.”

I just sketched out a layout for a test I’m going to be running in early May and Siegfried’s ideas are now remixed in with everything else in my aching head.

Success,

Erik Lukas

P.S. There’s also a few diagrams of ideas for guiding the reader’s eye down the page. I think they’re pretty good. But I’ll try to sum that up too: not too cluttered, not too spread out, clear direction from the top to the bottom. Simple.