How do you get a penthouse on New York’s Park Avenue, a world famous art collection, and an all-around very good life?
Ask copywriter Gene Schwartz, because he had all three.
Gene paid for it all with his direct mail copywriting, both for clients and for his own publishing business.
Gene’s secret to success?
Hard work.
How hard?
“I work three hours a day,” Gene said, “every single day for five days a week. That’s all I work.”
I don’t know about you, but I feel three hours a day is something even I could manage.
But enough chop licking.
The real reason I bring up Gene Schwartz is because I re-watched an old presentation he gave at Rodale Press.
The presentation was interesting through and through. But what really caught my eye was one of the questions asked at the end.
It was very much connected to an issue I’m seeing with the ecommerce emails I write a lot of. I’ll talk about that another time. For now, here’s the question Gene faced:
Back in the 90s when this all happened, Rodale was running 2-minute TV commercials to sell its books. People bought these books in good numbers. But they didn’t buy very many books after, which is where all the profits are made in direct response.
So the question to Gene was, why do these TV customers not continue to buy as well as those who get one of Gene’s monster direct mail packages?
Gene responded:
“Think of what the person has committed who buys your book. If I send them this monster [holds up one direct mail package] or this monster [holds up another], well, this person really and honestly spends 15 minutes to a half hour on this thing. He really devotes a great deal of time to it. So what he’s not doing is just sending you a check for $29. He’s sending you 30 minutes. When you get a person who gets two minutes, he’s not doing anything like that.”
Gene summed it up by saying, “Different type of person. Different type of commitment.”
Here’s what I get out of this:
One of the most common questions by marketing normies is, “Why are those sales letters so long? Nobody will read that.”
The typical answer is that some people do in fact read it, and that’s how long it takes to convince 2% of them to buy.
That’s part of the answer, but it’s obviously not the whole answer. After all, Rodale sold the same books through 2-minute TV ads and 25-page direct mail pieces.
The other part is there in Gene’s response. Different marketing selects different groups of people as your customers. And it actually changes the psychology of those customers, not just in the moment when they order your product, but for the future as well.
You’re not just pushing benefits. You’re training people to be better customers. So if anybody asks you why you write those ridiculously long sales letters (or all those stupid email) that nobody ever reads, tell them the truth:
Because it’s the only way to pay for a Park Avenue penthouse, working just 3 hours a day.
Speaking of stupid emails — I write a daily email newsletter. Since you’ve just spent two minutes reading something I’ve written, you might be committed enough to get on it. If that’s the case, here’s where to go.