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

from direct response marketing.

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....

For those who may not know, Erik also linked to two important articles in a couple of his posts further down the forum... The links to those articles are

http://www.cdmdirect.com/eyestudy1.htm

and

http://www.cdmdirect.com/eyestudy2.htm

One thing Vogele's research shows is that, when considering whether to read direct mail or throw it in the wastebasket, only 11 seconds of preview are used to make this decision. 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.

This helps to explain possibly why Gary Halbert puts so much emphasis on "grabbers" (I think he calls them).... Things which can be taped to the top corner of the letter. Here are some examples.

It could be a coin such as a penny, or it could be a dime. It could be a dollar bill. It could even be a foreign coin. It could be a piece of plastic that changes color with temperature. Whatever it is - something unusual like that in the top corner of your letter will help influence your prospect in that vital 11-second window. It will determine whether they actually READ your letter, or throw it in the trash.

Thanks for pointing this out, Erik! I find it's always better to understand WHY things work, and this part of the article really helps to explain why the "grabber" idea works!

Another important thing to consider are highlighted words. The reason why is this helps you make people read what you're writing. Especially if you underline the benefits. That's how you can get your writings read, and not thrown in the trash.

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!)

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

In your post, you also wrote....

> 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?”

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.

> 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 agree - I think this is a great idea.... And I don't recall having seen it elsewhere.

Thanks Erik, I really value your posts on Vogele. As I said, I had never heard of him before - but I agree with you, his studies are important for us to learn from, if we want to improve our response rates in direct response marketing. :)

- Dien Rice