976 Numbers

In
The N E X T 90 - Days!

Expert
Reveals Amazing Secret.

Call
(2 1 2) 9 7 6 - C A S H

For
Amazing Details.

$2.00
Plus Toll, If Any.

Etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera.

Whatever.
The point of all this is that there is now a relatively new and
exciting way to get people to actually pay to hear your sales pitch!

But,
let me offer a word of caution: When you promise an inside secret,
you must deliver. Don't ask them to call you at another number to get
what they have already paid for. That's sleazy. And besides, it will
turn people off. It will make them less receptive to dealing with
you. Instead, if you are a real estate broker, give a really valuable
tip on your recorded message. Maybe you could tell the caller where
and how to get a daily list of new foreclosures. Tell him what to do,
where to go, what to say, what forms he needs and whatever else would
be helpful. Then, after you have delivered, you can tell him to call
your personal number if he needs more info.

Listen:
Advertising can work two ways. If you really are not a real estate or
marketing expert, don't promote yourself. Hell, all you're going to
do is spend thousands of dollars to let people in on the fact that
you're an idiot. (There's a couple of marketing newsletters out there
that I'm sure glad I don't have to sign my name to.)

But
look, if you got some really good valid info you can deliver in a
recorded message, you'll position yourself as a person who delivers
and you'll whet their appetite for more of the same.

Onward.
I started this month's issue on the subject of sex and, now that
you've got me going, I think I'll rave on a little more. You know, I
very seldom use sex in the advertising I create. I don't know why
exactly, I just never have. But darn it, it sure seems to work. It
sure seems to be the number one subject that occupies all of our
"Enquiring Minds." Remember, in my issue on
Haldeman-Julius' Little Blue Books how, back in the 1920s, the number
one subject people wanted to read about was sex?

Well,
it's the same today. Go to any big city magazine stand. Look at all
those hundreds of magazines and you'll soon discover you can divide
them into two, approximately equal categories:

SEX
And Then.... Everything Else