2005 - 07-13-05

# 2005 - 07-13-05

From:

North of Jewfish Creek

Dear Friend & Subscriber,

I have received an enormous amount of e-mails from people trying to guess why each of the three letters I recently put on my website were so successful. (The letters in Parts I, II and II of "Can You Guess?") Today, I'm going to talk about the first of those letters which was written for the Eye Centers of Tennessee.

As I mentioned before, out of all the replies I received regarding those newsletters (Parts I, II and III), a small percentage of my subscribers hit the answer right on the head, another small percentage didn't have a clue, and most of the guesses fell somewhere in the middle (meaning they were partially right about what made those letters successful).

A lot of you attributed the excellence of the letter written for the Eye Centers of Tennessee to the dollar bill attached as a grabber. Let me explain something: Attaching a dollar bill to the top of a letter to get someone's attention is what I call a "multiplier". In other words, it is very likely to multiply the effectiveness of the letter. But if the letter isn't already effective, just sticking a dollar bill on the first page won't make it profitable. Know this:

You Can't Multiply Zeros!

Other subscribers wrote saying the letter was effective because it was mailed to people with the proper demographics which made them most likely to need the service. Well, as near as possible, the letter will be mailed (hopefully for years to come) to people with the proper demographics. However, any profitable promotion has to be mailed to people who are real prospects for what you are selling if it is to have a chance of making it work. So, if it a profitable sales letter, it's pretty much a given the letter is already being mailed to the people who are actually prospects for what you are selling.

The REAL reason the Eye Centers' letter worked... the really "stand out" feature of this letter over most other letters... can be summed up in one word:

Proof!

Specific, detailed proof.

Ray Mays, the Director of the Eye Centers of Tennessee, gave me substantial help with that letter. How so? He provided me with an enormous amount of detailed information. Information which went a long way to prove the extraordinary lengths Dr. Patterson goes through to provide all his patients with the best possible care... and... the extraordinary lengths Dr. Patterson goes through to ensure all his operations are as safe as possible. I used a great deal of what Ray Mays had already written about the specifics of how Dr. Patterson conducts his medical practice, word-for-word. I used most of it unchanged. And Ray Mays deserves as much credit for the success of that letter as I do. He provided me with nearly all the "ammunition" I needed to write the letter. My primary job was to properly sequence and "showcase" this ammunition so that it would get noticed and read by the target audience.