World Wildlife Fund forgoes the glitz, but the results still shine.

By Denny Hatch

The Direct-mail Package: Malcolm Decker’s Principle

The direct mail package — especially a full-dress package — is a sales team. First the envelope knocks on the door to see if anyone’s home. Then the major letter — the salesman — takes over. Once the envelope is opened, the letter is the most important member of the team. It sells soft or it sells hard. It spins yarns or it spouts facts. It’s long (but never long-winded) or it’s pithy. However it comes on, it’s loaded with customer benefits.

Then the demonstrator — the folder or brochure — goes to work. Like the letter, it can stand on its own. But it’s most effective when it demonstrates in graphics what the letter can only say in words. It should convince the reader in images and copy that everything the letter said is true.

The lift letter is yet another voice backing up the key salesman; its job is to convince the waverer and salvage the skeptics.

The order device restates the offer in the pithiest, most unambiguous language possible. And the BRE brings the order home.

Finally, it’s important to remember that in direct mail, the word is king. Copy is the architect of the sale. Design and art are strongly supportive interior designers that often set up the sale. Because lookers are shoppers while readers are buyers, if you can firmly engage your prospect — and keep him engaged — through reading, you’re on your way to a [donation].— From “2,239 Tested Secrets for Direct Marketing Success” by Denny Hatch and Don Jackson

In the last issue, we examined the masterful “thank-you” mailing from Disabled American Veterans that featured patriotism and guilt as the copy drivers. This time, let us look at a long-running control from the World Wildlife Fund that sticks five sharp knives in the reader’s gut — fear, guilt, anger, greed and salvation.

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Denny Hatch Author's page

Denny Hatch is the author of six books on marketing and four novels, and is a direct marketing writer, designer and consultant. His latest book is “Write Everything Right!” Visit him at dennyhatch.com.

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