One of the most successful direct response marketing legends doesn’t use email and insists people call or fax him to get his response.
I’m talking about the great Dan Kennedy.
But don’t be confused for one minute – Mr. Kennedy’s one of the sharpest and up to date marketers there is, and he refuses to deal with email inquiries as a principle.
Why?
Because he values his time.
See, he knows people won’t give half as much thought to write an email as they do to writing a real physical letter, fax, or what they’ll say on the phone.
There’s a certain level of dedication and seriousness in the way people perceive a physical letter these days.
But that’s not how it always used to be, and the most important reason for this is… you guessed it – emails.
Think about it – 20 years ago, almost nobody used emails, so our mailbox was full (Millennials reading this – I suggest you go look up “Physical Mailbox” in the dictionary), so all the junk mail came in that medium, and therefore mail was less “important”.
Today, rarely do we get junk physical mail (usually just junk flyers and promos) so you take more time to go through your less crowded mailbox, making physical mail a much more “prestige” type of communication., contrary to what most online “experts” would like to believe.
And when it comes to physical mail, there’s no greater master alive today than Mr. Dan Kennedy, who uses it as the lifeblood of his business, and that’s exactly why you should consider this new-old medium for your business too.
Like everything in direct response – I suggest you test interweaving it with your online stuff –
Get physical addresses from your leads and once they turn to customers send them upsells and high ticket product promotions in physical mail.
Two insanely awesome features that physical mail has and emails don’t –
Lumpy mail – how exciting is it to get some big rattling box in the mail? I mean your heart literally pounds harder just by guessing what’s inside! The great direct response marketers know this and use that enthusiasm to grab attention and create a special kind of buzz around their sales letters.
Grabbers – used to immense success by the late great Gary Halbert (and by Mr. Kennedy of course), grabbers are things you’d attach to your physical letter that create an unmatched level of curiosity in your reader. Mr Halbert’s classic example – if your sales letter pitches real estate property you’d want a little plastic bag filled with some dirt in it and speak about it in the letter and tie it in what you’re selling, or attach a 1$ bill to the top of the letter when speaking of the financial markets, and so on.
When it comes to grabbing attention and standing out of the crowd, you shouldn’t pull any stops in today’s busy markets, and there’s nothing like curiosity driving physical mail to really stand out like a nun in a brothel.
