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Famous Last Words : Dumb It Down!

April 2009 By Denny Hatch

  • “If you love camping in the wild—or know someone who does …”
  • “If you know someone—a friend or family member—who suffers from arthritis …”

One of the great direct mail letters of all time was the late Ed McLean’s masterpiece for Newsweek. It began:

Dear Reader,

If the list upon which I found your name is any indication, this is not the first—nor will it be the last—subscription letter you receive.

Quite frankly, your education and income set you apart from the general population and make you a highly rated prospect for everything from magazines to mutual funds.

It was an offbeat approach—one that both flattered the reader and, at the same time, let prospects in on how they came to receive the solicitations. Newsweek rented a list—no big deal.

Many people wrote in to ask what list they were on. A few complained. Many more responded by subscribing to the magazine. It was a control for many years (1960-1975) and was mailed in the hundreds of millions.

This effort is certainly one of the top 10 direct mail letters of all time, along with Martin Conroy’s “Two Young Men …” effort for The Wall Street Journal that was a control for 20-plus years and brought in more than $1 billion in subscription income.

Today, McLean’s mailing would never fly. In fact, McLean’s rule was: You’ve got to dumb down what you know.

In other words, you may have a great deal of personal and intimate information about your prospect, but that knowledge must operate behind the copy. You cannot reel off in-your-face information to a person that you got from an outside source. It is eerie. It is creepy. It is disrespectful.

It will hurt response and hurt the reputation of the marketer.

Denny Hatch is a freelance direct marketing consultant and copywriter, and author of the online newsletter, Denny Hatch’s Business Common Sense. Visit him at www.businesscommonsense.com or www.dennyhatch.com, or contact him via e-mail at dennyhatch@yahoo.com.


 

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