http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2023/03/183-method-mktg.html

#183 Blog Post        Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Posted by Denny Hatch

“Written in a Fun and Conversational

Tone, This Book Was Hard to Put Down.”

                — Business Insider

Stories of Entrepreneurs Who StartedHuge Businesses

by Writing Powerful, Persuasive Pitchesto People

Who Responded by Sending Pots of Money

TheFirst Two Paragraphs of the Most Unbelievable Letter

                            Friday, 10:40 PM

Dear Friend,

   A lady should never get this dirty, she said.

   She stoodthere with a quiet, proud dignity. She was incomparably dirty, her face and hands smeared, her clothestorn and soiled.The lady was 11.

The“Dirty Lady” letter was written by a Franciscan

Priestwith Absolutely No Copywriting Experience.

His name was Fr. BruceRitter who presided over a small church in New York City’s impoverished LowerEast Side. Every day a gaggle of grimy, scrawny teen-age children rang his bellto plead for something to eat and a place to sleep. HE HAD TO DO SOMETHING!

Ritter’s passionatetwo-page typed letter asked for donations to Covenant House — a safe refuge forrunaway children who were existing and being abused on the city streets. The letter was instantlyprofitable and brought in an average of $10 million dollars a year for the next16 years.

After SomeCatastrophic Bumps in the Road,
Covenant House Is a Brilliant Achievement!

Fromthe 2023 Covenant House Annual Report

• We are in 34 cities across 6 countries,working every day to help rescue, care for and protect homeless kids. LGBTQ,gay, and homeless shelters for youth. No one is ever turned away withoutsupport of some kind. 

• 2022 Annual Revenue $320 Million Dollars.
• More than 2,000 children sleep in a Covenant House bedevery night.

Other Entrepreneurs WhoStarted Huge Businesses

BasedPurely on the Power of Their Persuasive Copy

Quite simply they started with anidea and sent out a letter — or placed a small ad.  People sent them money and they were suddenlyawash in cash. In these pages you will meet:

• Bill Bonner sent out a letter offering apublication — International Living — about how to retire in luxuryoverseas at a fraction what it costs to live in the U.S. People sent him money.He was profitable from day one. Today Bonner owns two magnificent 17^thcentury chateaux in France and real estate all over the world.  AgoraMarketing is a billion-dollar corporation. You can read the actual letter thatlaunched his empire.

• Marty Edelston held a dozen jobs before hefounded Boardroom, his $125-million-dollar newsletter empire. Included is therevolutionary copy and design of copywriting genius, Mel Martin, thatlaunched Boardroom.

• All his life Curt Strohacker’s passion was (andis) restoring old cars. Early in his career he invested $500 in a simpleblack-and-white 8-page catalog from a quick-print store and started theEastwood company. Today he sends out a million full-color catalogs a year todo-it-yourself antique car buffs. Curt is living the American dream. He turnedhis hobby into a hugely profitable business! Remember, if you do what you loveyou’ll never work a day in your life!

• In Method Marketing you will meet these marketinggeniuses along with Bob Shnayerson, who wrote his first and only salesletter — based on anger and salvation — that brought in 600,000 payingcustomers for Quest/77, a magazine that did not exist.

And John Peterman bought a highly unusualcowboy’s raincoat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So many people back East tried tobuy the distinctive duster off his back that he formed a small company and rana tiny ad. John  sold 2,500 dusters that first year. The J. Petermancatalog was born. An added bonus to receiving the Peterman catalog: thegloriously whimsical copy by Donald Staley could easily run as a seriesof short pieces in The New Yorker. An aside: John Peterman (played by JohnO’ Hurley) was a memorable character on Seinfeld for years.

Donald Staley/John Peterman Catalog Page

The stories of these start-up businesses will amuse you,delight you and, hopefully, inspire you to create wealth beyond the dreams ofavarice. Remember, like these entrepreneurs, if you do at your job what youtruly love doing, you will never work a day in your life!

A Personal Note from an OldBlogger

Dear Reader,

When I launched DennyHatch’s Marketing Blog in April 2018 I decided not to charge for it. “Free is amagic word,” proclaimed my mentor, Dick Benson.

Sendingout an e-blogcosts virtually nothing. After 50+ years of 12-hour days it was time to have some fun for a change. I did not want to get into the weeds of paidsubscriptions – renewals and billing series, dunning, business bank account, payingtaxes, etc. Been there, done that over 20 years with the WHO’S MAILING WHAT!newsletter and archive service plus feature articles and seemingly endless travel as editor and publisher of Target Marketing Magazine.

So… after five years and182 blog posts the folks at Echo Point Books & Media offered to bring MethodMarketing back into print. Not only was this a nice stroke for this oldego, it was a chance to maybe make a little money.

I’m told by the publisher themodern way to get a book noticed is to generate online sales on Amazon and/orBarnes & Noble and then hopefully get positive customer reviews.

Game on.

Asking a Favor of You, My Reader...

That You Kindly Order a Copy of Method Marketing from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and then jot down your thoughts in a "Customer Review" on That Website.

Reviews on Amazon andBarnes & Noble from readers who like a book can give it traction in themarketplace. So I thank you in advance.

I think you’ll really likethe paperback edition at $29.95. 

Easy to 0rder on Amazon. The Link: 

https://www.amazon.com/Method-Marketing-Denison-Hatch/dp/1648372759/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3BIGET7CI0CIR&keywords=method+marketing+hatch&qid=1679225013&sprefix=%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-2

To Write a Review on Amazon. The Link:

 https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=1648372759

 Easy to Order on Barnes & Noble. The Link:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/method-marketing-denison-hatch/1100485178?ean=9781648372766

To Write a Review on Barnes & Noble. The Link:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/method-marketing-denison-hatch/1100485178?ean=9781648372766

Below are some originalreviews of Method Marketing from the 1999 edition.

In closing… thank you,thank you for continuing to receive this blog and thank you in advance forbuying Method Marketing.

I guarantee MethodMarketing won’t disappoint.

Cheers.

Reviews of Method Marketing

There is a hidden lesson in Hatch's latest paeanto modern direct-mail methodologies: do not be too quick to pick successfulcompanies to feature as examples in business books, because the minute they areselected, chances are 50-50 that their profits will start dropping. Despite thehighlighting of J. Peterman Company, the examples chosen here are powerful--andmore important, their workings are explained in detail. Best letters aredissected and parsed down to individual words, with statistics and researchsupporting the results. Hatch's colloquial tone attracts even readers otherwisenot used to advertising matters; eloquent stories such as the fall and rise ofCovenant House, for instance, will not fail to mesmerize.         
                            —BarbaraJacobs, Booklist

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Denny Hatch is a direct mail writer who coined the phrase MethodMarketing, meaning magic and “delight” to the customer. Hatch tells the storyof five entrepreneurs who built huge businesses on the power of copy alone.Three other successes (or temporary success) used other unique methods of 1:1contact. Sprinkled throughout his book are a few short vignettes aboutbusiness, direct mail facts, figures, and do’s and don’ts.
     Marty Edelston held a dozen jobs before he founded Boardroom, his $125million–dollar newsletter business. Along the way Marty (what his 80 employeescall him) met copywriter Mel Martin, who became his “secret weapon.” Martin isfamous for his creation of “fascinations," or teaser copy found on theoutside of envelopes, but he filled entire pages with fascinations. Martin’scopy sold the Boardroom newsletters. Hatch feels Martin’s copy was even betterthan the newsletters.
     Written in a fun and conversational tone, this book was hard to putdown. As founder of the newsletter “Who’s Mailing What!” Hatch owns the largestprivate collection of direct mail. At one time, advertisers were sending him3,000 to 4,000 mailers a month. He’s a direct mail expert indeed.
                        —Katherine Kay, Inside Business

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Denny Hatch is the historian of theDirect Response Marketing industry.
     According to Denny Hatch, a key trait of thecopywriters who write successful advertising is the ability to get inside thehead of the customer - to understand the wants, needs, fears, etc. that drivethe customer's buying decision. He calls this approach "MethodMarketing." The analogy is to "method acting", the Stanislavskytechnique for actors to understand how the human mind works - what causes theemotions of exclusivity, flattery, fear, greed, guilt, anger, salvation - sothe actor can get inside the head of a character and become the character soconvincingly the audience will experience suspension of disbelief and acceptthe performance as real.
     In MethodMarketing, Hatch tells the stories of the use and abuse of this ability,including the actual sales letters that initially persuaded prospectivecustomers to take action and create some extraordinary companies ororganizations. Along the way, he also explains other important factors forsuccess in direct response marketing, including the mathematics required torealize net profits.
     MethodMarketing is a worthwhile addition to your marketing library for its ideasand examples to achieve success in direct response marketing.
              —Michael C. Gray, CPA, ProfitAdvisors

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