Unsolicited Sales Copy

I'm back and I'm not going to bore you all with details of where I've been and what I've done. The first thing most of us have to do when returning to base is sift through all the mail which has been shoved through the letter-box.

Most of it is junk  -  flyers etc.  -  but here's where care must be exercised to ensure that 'the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater.'

All mail should be given at least a cursory look so that those bills  -  unwelcome though they be  -  are afforded due consideration.

Today I want to mention a category of mail which is anathema to most but to me is most entertaining with the result that although it falls into the junk genre, I spend a bit of time absorbing the text.

I'm talking about unsolicited sales copy where the sender is trying to relieve me of my hard won cash. This often falls into two types.

The first is in an envelope with the address typed on a stick on label and a second class stamp  -  also licked and stuck on. Inside is a simple computer generated sheet telling me what's on offer. Often it's about some betting service which the sender says is a well guarded secret which the bookmakers don't want to become common knowledge. This can be safely binned. It's most likely that it is a tipping service which uses tips from the popular racing press.

Many years ago 2 blokes who were in the same football team I played for, were invariably late turning up because they wanted to see a race on TV for which they'd sold a lot of tips.

They told me what I've just told you and also that if they tipped the top 3 favourites in any race they were almost certain to get some satisfied customers who would come again. These lads did this for as long as I knew them so their advertising must have generally paid off.

The second type of sales copy is where I get the entertainment I've just mentioned. This will be in a professional looking  envelope (probably A4 size), the postage will be franked and the address will probably show through a see-through panel.

Yes...all very professional looking  -  especially the contents  -  which will often be in the form of  a glossy printed pamphlet with several pages. As a sales strategy it must work for a required number of prospects as decided by the sender! In other words it must convert to the sender's satisfaction.

Now this type of sales copy I don't bin out of hand and although to me it's just so much more junk, I study the text and file it away for at least a year. Why's this?

I will tell you why in another post, for I've got a lot of opinions on these methods of trying to sell invariably tired and useless products.