First, a quick announcement:

My products page has been cleaned up and organized. It is much easier to navigate and it’s now categorized. You can see it for yourself, right here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/products/

And now on to today’s tip:

I have piles of papers all over the house. Magazines, books, letters, hundreds of pages and pages of material I’ve printed from things I picked up online.

They’re everywhere.

Some small piles towards the back of the dinner table where no one really sits… another medium-sized stash on the chair in the dining room where no one notices too much… on top of every desk in my office… on the floor in the bathrooms next to the toilet (But not in my teenaged sons bathrooms — even I won’t venture into that place.)… and scattered around my desk on the floor in my office I have several piles as well.

Occasionally I get through one or two of the piles, or if I take a long plane flight I’ll scoop them up and stuff ‘em in my briefcase and they’ll tend to disappear for a while, but then… within a few weeks, they magically reappear like some sort of weed in your garden that you could swear you just pulled out last week, and the last week before that.

The thing is, while most of the stuff I’ve printed out contains good information, most of the direct mail I receive, is pure crap. No matter how much I try and find even one good idea I could use and run with, I just keep turning up empty-handed.

The other day, however, I received a very interesting piece in the mail, which I can use and actually improve on.

It was a crumpled up piece of paper, that was a cover letter to a sales piece. The letter had scrawled across it, in handwriting, something to the effect of, “I figured since you threw out the last two pieces of mail I sent you, I’d give you a head start on this one.”

This was pretty clever, I thought.

Not that the copy was sales brilliance, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It was supposed to get me to stop and notice the piece, and then I’d look at the sales piece, which I did. (The sales piece was awful unfortunately. They could have sent me the Hope Diamond as a gift, and I wouldn’t have been able to read through it.)

There are a few changes I would have made, however. I would have used yellow paper, and I probably would have written the note in blue ink instead of black. I also may have included my picture on this lift note as well. Each of these things, I believe, would have lifted response.

I also would have sent the entire thing in a garbage can mailer. These are small garbage cans you can mail out — several of my clients have used them successfully. It’s kind of hard NOT to read something that’s so unusual like that, isn’t it?

The big problem with all this is that I typically can’t find good ideas like this in even 1 out of every 100 pieces of mail I get, but that’s O.K., because… one good idea… is worth it’s weight… in gold.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. Only a few more days left to get your hands on this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter. Inside this issue you’ll find TWELVE PAGES of marketing examples, including a famous sales letter for a book, TWO press releases, and a drag queen! Get all this and more along with FIFTEEN free gifts, including now TWO Free marketing critiques, at http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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