John Hostler :: Renegade Blog

I consider myself a pretty tough customer.

Having been marketing online and off for many years now I have seen pretty much every tactic, trick, technique, secret, and everything else imaginable.

So, shit rarely surprises me or grabs my attention.  This did though…

Check out this envelope I got in the mail today… small… handwritten address, no return address, and a regular stamp.

Because it was small and hand addressed I thought it was a personal letter and not Direct Mail, which I can usually spot a mile away.

Don’t get me wrong — I am on a lot of DM lists because I love Direct Mail.  I love to see what people are doing and the kind of copy that goes into their DM sales letters.

When I opened this, I was excited because here is what I saw…

Here’s the flipside of that hundy…

But much to my surprise, this is what I saw when I inspected that $100 bill a little closer…

So, yeah.   This was no dollar bill — instead it was a very realistic looking piece of direct mail that actually got me through the steps it wanted me to take.

And yep… I even checked out the web site.

Now, that didn’t do much for me at all.  But, kudos to the guy running it for getting me to open his direct mail piece and actually driving me to the sales page!

Just to recap why this was effective:

1) Small envelope

2) Hand addressed

3) Regular stamp

4) No return address

These made me think this was a personal letter or something for me.  I did not think this was direct mail.

5) A realistic looking folded $100 bill

How could I not pull that out and at least check it out?

I was definitely surprised when I saw a sales message.  I was also intrigued enough to take a closer look and see who or what these guys were all about.

Again, I’m a pretty tough sale so when something makes me go through even part of the sales process, I take notice, and reflect on it.

I may try this out with something and if I do I’ll come back and report on results.

If you think you might like to give this a run, here’s a site where you can get these kinds of cash cards made…

Till next time,

John Hostler