"Do You Close the Bathroom Door
Even When You're the Only One Home?"
This famous headline, which sold subscriptions to Psychology Today magazine to thousands of readers, is from just one of the hundreds of winning direct mail packages written by legendary copywriter Bill Jayme.
In this Special Report you will find 7 little-known—but incredibly potent—copywriting secrets from Bill Jayme that launched more new publications... and created more controls... than perhaps any other copywriter in history.
And now you can own a privately published, limited-edition collection of hundreds of classic Bill Jayme mailings—available to you through exclusive arrangement between Bottom Line Books and the Jayme Estate.
Just click here to claim your Risk-FREE copy.
Dear Reader:
When I began to cut open the dusty boxes of old direct mail packages on my desk, sent to me via insured FedEx by the executor of Bill Jayme's estate...
I felt excitement akin to an archaeologist uncovering vast hordes of gold in a pharaoh's tomb he has just unsealed for the first time.
Those boxes contained something that, as a direct marketer, I considered far more precious than treasures from an Egyptian king's tomb:
The most complete "swipe file" ever of one of the greatest copywriters of all time: The incomparable Bill Jayme.
He's the man who sold more magazine subscriptions than perhaps any direct mail (DM) copywriter in history, writing such classic packages as "DAMN!" for BusinessWeek and "Fed Up?" for Conservative Digest.
Now, if you are a direct marketer, you know that a "swipe file" is a collection of sample promotions.
You also know that a good swipe file can be invaluable to you in your ongoing efforts to create winning marketing campaigns that beat your control packages.
To quote copywriting teacher Milt Pierce: "A good swipe file is better than a college education."
When you have a swipe file of proven winners—like the Bill Jayme letters—it's an invaluable guide to what works in direct mail... and gets prospects to open their wallets.
You can also turn to your swipe file for ideas and inspiration, cleverly borrowing and adapting winning promotional concepts to your own marketing efforts.
Timeless...Even the marketing great David Ogilvy knew the value of having a swipe file. One of Ogilvy & Mathers' most famous advertisements was a print ad for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. The headline read: "At 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock." Now, take a look at this headline from a Pierce-Arrow ad almost 20 years earlier: "The only sound one can hear in the new Pierce-Arrow is the ticking of the electric clock." |
Now, the greatest direct mail swipe file ever assembled for direct marketers is yours to study, learn from—even inspire you—Risk-FREE for a full 30 days.
It's The Bill Jayme Collection: Master of Direct Marketing—new from Bottom Line Books...
... The first and only comprehensive collection of the greatest DM control packages ever written by the late Bill Jayme—dubbed "the magazine industry's master solicitor" by The New York Times Magazine—and designed by his partner, graphic artist Heikki Ratalahti.
With this never-before-published collection of Bill Jayme DM packages in your hands, you'll:
... Master little-known copy and design principles that Jayme innovated for selling more magazine subscriptions—and other mail order products—than perhaps any other copywriter in history.... Possess a swipe file full of offers, headline ideas, and copy lines to crib from—you'll never again struggle for the right word or phrase when Jayme has already said it so much more powerfully and clearly.
... Ignite your creativity and gain inspiration for many years' worth of new promotions for your business as you read through these one-of-a-kind, masterful samples of copywriting genius.
... Start each new copywriting assignment with greater confidence—knowing the perfect idea is as close as your swipe files—and nail the ideal creative approach faster and easier.
"The Bill Jayme Collection is the most valuable collection of direct mail promotions to be published in this century," says copywriter Bob Bly, author of more than 70 books. "Any copywriter or direct marketer who fails to get his or her hands on it immediately is missing an incredible opportunity to take their sales-letter writing to the next level."
Who was Bill Jayme—and why is it so important
to study his winning DM copy?
The late Bill Jayme was one of the greatest direct mail copywriters of the 20th-century.
With his creative partner, Finnish-born graphic designer Heikki Ratalahti, Jayme launched dozens of magazines—and created control-beating direct mail packages for dozens more—including: BusinessWeek... Air & Space... Smithsonian... Southern Living Books... New York... American Health... Eating Well... Food & Wine... Travel & Leisure... Mother Jones... Antiques... and Esquire, to name just a few.
"Jayme is one of the best junk-mail writers in America," wrote Randy Rothenberg in an article for The New York Times.
Before you complain to me about the use of the term "junk mail," let me defend it by noting that Jayme himself preferred it to the more formal direct marketing. "It should be called junk mail," said Jayme, "because we are invading people's homes."
"I've long admired Bill Jayme's work," says copywriter David Deutsch. "The way he had of making friends with the reader, of respecting the reader's intelligence, of always being fascinating, and of selling ever so gently yet powerfully."
"Bill Jayme's genius placed him on a plateau well above the rest of us," says copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis. "Bill set a torrid pace, invariably 'tuning' his unique blend of psychology and words to be a perfect match with his targets."
"I have an unusual gift for empathy," Jayme admitted. "I am an actor manqué."
"Bill was easily the most creative copywriter," adds copywriter Milt Pierce. "His headline for Psychology Today, 'Do you close the bathroom door even when you're the only one home?' challenged the reader and sold many, many magazines."
"I don't think anyone could match his record of control packages in the magazine field," says copywriter Gary Bencivenga. "He had such an erudite flair for capturing the essence of a magazine and making you want to be part of its magical circle."
In their October 2000 cover story, Target Marketing called Bill Jayme and Heikki Ratalahti the "creative team of the century," saying that the two had "changed direct mail forever."
The New York Times wrote that Bill Jayme "elevated magazine subscription solicitations to an art form." Jayme was the recipient of the Direct Marketing Association's Irving Wunderman Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Unfortunately, Jayme—for the most part—shunned publicity. He had clients waiting in line to hire him, no need to market himself, and consequently wrote virtually nothing about his direct marketing secrets for industry trade publications, as many of his contemporaries did.
That's a problem that Boardroom is about to correct, with the publication of the most comprehensive collection of Bill Jayme mailings ever available.
And to give you a preview of what awaits you in The Bill Jayme Collection, here are just 7 of the many DM copywriting techniques demonstrated in this amazing swipe file collection...
Jayme DM Technique #1:
Create a sense of mystery or intrigue that arouses curiosity—and compels the prospect to read further.
By "mystery," I'm not referring to the technique of mailing "blind" envelopes that look like personal mail.
Bill Jayme rarely hid the fact that you were getting a direct mail promotion—specifically a direct mail package selling you a magazine subscription.
The logo and name of the publication almost always appeared on the envelope flap. The teaser on the address side often used words like "complimentary issue." Envelopes were usually oversized, colorful, and clearly promotional, not personal mail.
"Your outer envelope is the come-on," said Jayme, "the dust jacket on the book, the display window outside the store, the hot pants on the hooker."
Yet Jayme's economical teaser copy—almost always only a few words—consistently compelled his readers to rip open the envelope and start reading the warm, folksy letter inside.
One of his favorite techniques for getting the envelope opened was to arouse curiosity to a level where the reader simply had to read the material inside to find out what the writer was talking about.
In a launch mailing for the magazine Antiques, the outer envelope reads:
The problem was
that Mrs. Whitehead
was no bigger than a minute...
We don't know who Mrs. Whitehead is or what "bigger than a minute" really means. But it's the promise of an oddly intriguing story that makes us unable to resist reading further.
As with many great copywriters, Jayme's creative ideas came not through inspiration or contemplating his navel, but through dogged research.
In the Antiques mailing, it turns out that Mrs. Whitehead is a real person: A tiny woman married to a wealthy man, Ralph Whitehead.
To make his wife appear taller when descending the stairs in their home to greet guests, he had the architects design the steps so shallow that an average-size person today finds them all but impossible to go up or down normally.
The story, of course, supports a key selling point of Antiques magazine: Learning little-known facts that make art, architecture, and artifacts come brilliantly alive.
"The problem was Mrs. Whitehead..." mailing for Antiques magazine is one of dozens of classic Jayme DM packages painstakingly digitized and preserved on CD in The Bill Jayme Collection—the first-ever collection of this 20th-century direct mail master's greatest promotions of all time.
Read on for details and how you can examine this valuable collection of direct marketing classic control mailings Risk-FREE in the privacy of your home or office for 30 days.
Or for immediate delivery, click below now:
Jayme DM Technique #2:
Get the reader actively involved.
One of the most powerful DM copywriting techniques is to get your readers active and involved. Getting them to think about doing something can lift response, and getting them to actually do it can lift it even higher.
Jayme is perhaps best known for his Psychology Today headline:
Do you close the bathroom door when you're the only one home?
What most direct marketers don't know is the headline was taken from an involvement device he created for his Psychology Today DM package.
The device was a 2-page "psychological profile." It contained 42 "yes" or "no" questions "to help determine whether you'll find our magazine a bore or a boon."
Other questions included: "Do you ever go to the movies alone?"... "Can you remember what you were wearing the day before last?"... and "Do you feel awkward talking on the telephone when you're naked?"
Jayme even convinced the publisher to enclose a pencil the recipient could use to take the test—a once-popular DM technique almost never used today.
It was a lot of fun. And it sold lots of magazines for the publisher.
The easiest application of the "active involvement" technique is when selling books or magazines with recipes.
Jayme would often begin his sales letter with a recipe. For a package for the Southern Living 1983 Annual Recipes collection, he put a recipe for barbecue sauce right on the outer envelope!
Jayme DM Technique #3:
Always create a sense of urgency.
The biggest category of promotions in The Bill Jayme Collection is magazine subscriptions—more specifically, "bill-me" subscription promotions in which the offer was a free sample issue.
Jayme's favorite technique for creating urgency was to create the impression that if you didn't order immediately, the publisher might run out of free issues—and therefore you wouldn't get one.
"The concept of 'hurry' should be part of every mailing package," said Jayme.
His classic line for communicating a sense of urgency in free issue offers—variations of which appear in dozens of his letters—was:
"Only so many copies are printed each month—no more."
Here's the complete "act-now" close from his promotion for Antiques magazine:
ANTIQUES is costly to publish. Expensive papers. Expensive color plates. Only so many copies are printed each month—no more. First come, first served for the free issue according to postmark. Avoid disappointment. Mail the card as quickly as convenient. If possible, today. Thank you—and welcome!
At Boardroom, we've used the "sense of urgency" technique to help us generate millions of dollars in orders for our books and newsletters—both online and off.
Jayme DM Technique #4:
"Transubstantiation."
"Transubstantiation" is a copywriting principle elevating the status of a product to something more than it is through words.
Here's a great example of transubstantiation applied to selling: The outer envelope from a mailing Bill Jayme wrote for Personal Computing magazine, with the teaser reading:
THE BOSS'S DAUGHTER:
How to Keep from Having to Marry Her.
Most copywriters would focus their copy on saving time or money, or increasing productivity, by learning more about PCs.
But in Jayme's "Boss's Daughter" package, mailed in the days where personal computing was in its infancy, the letter equated mastery of personal computing to success in business.
Jayme's letter begins:
You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it.If you're planning to succeed in business over the coming decade, you've now got just two choices left.
You can come to terms with the computer. Or you can marry the boss's daughter.
Instead of talking about RAM and ROM, bits and bytes, or coding and programming, Jayme's winning package focused on the deeper benefits of PC mastery: Success.
He promised the magazine would help you "forever change your life"... "climb to the top of life's ladder"... and "give your family everything you promised you would."
Notice that he's not selling features or facts... or articles or information. He is selling the reader a whole new life.
That's transubstantiation in action, and in The Bill Jayme Collection, you'll see dozens of examples of the technique in action... in mailings that broke old sales records, set new ones, and made his clients rich.
Jayme DM Technique #5:
Stress your FREE offer.
I'm often asked by colleagues and the curious: "Brian, in today's sophisticated marketplace, and with so much free content on the Internet, does the word 'FREE' still work?"
Yes, and we use it today at Boardroom, the multi-million-dollar direct marketing publishing company we built almost entirely with free offers.
"When something is free, say it six ways to Sunday," advised Jayme. "For example: 'Free gift comes to you with our compliments gratis—on the house. It's yours to keep as an outright present without cost or charge—not a penny!'"
When the Library of Congress launched the magazine Civilization, Jayme sold it as one of the multiple benefits to a membership. When you mailed the enrollment form, you'd get the "Free Premiere Issue" offered on the outer envelope.
The beginning of this sales letter is classic Jayme, having a field day offering a free magazine:
Dear Invitee:
On a sunny weekend not long from now...
... a number of your neighbors and friends will spend part of their Saturday or Sunday enjoying a complimentary copy of the Volume I, Number One issue of a new magazine that promises to provide caviar for the mind and the eye.
With your permission, I'd also like to send you a free copy of the historic Premier Issue. There is no cost. There is no obligation.
Here's the bold outer envelope teaser—a simple and straightforward free offer—from a DM package Jayme wrote for Sesame Street magazine:
5 FREE GOODIES FROM SESAME STREET!
The complete Sesame Street and Library of Congress mailings—outer envelopes, sales letters, color circulars, response elements—are just 2 of the hundreds of Jayme mailings you get in your copy of The Bill Jayme Collection.
Not just the copy, but the entire layout reproduced in full, vibrant color—exactly as it was mailed to thousands of prospects. To inspect the entire collection for 30 days on a no-risk basis, click below now:
Jayme DM Technique #6:
Be provocative.
You can't bore people into buying. And a Jayme mailing was never boring.
For instance, take a look at this outer envelope copy and layout from a direct mail package Jayme wrote for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine:
The tantalizing teaser promises:
CELEBRITIES: COME SEE THEM BARE ALL.
When you read that, did your blood pressure become elevated—and your pulse rate quicken a bit—as you visualized your favorite hot male or female celebrity in the buff?
Inside, you'll discover that celebrities DO in fact "bare all" about themselves in the magazine's pages—but in interviews, not pictures.
Or read Jayme's lead for a sales letter selling subscriptions to Money magazine, in which he challenges the widely preached belief that money can't buy happiness:
Dear Reader:
Let's be honest about it. Money can buy happiness.
It can get you the house you've always wanted. Put your kids through college. Give you vacations in the sun. Let you start your own business. Retire early. Travel abroad. Be creative. Live more enjoyably. More securely.
The bold promise on the outer envelope?
Get more of everything you want in life.
You'll find full text and graphics for all elements of both the Interview and the Money magazine mailings, of course, in The Bill Jayme Collection (more about that in a minute).
Jayme DM Technique #7:
Target your audience.
Jayme found that consumers were confused about which magazines to subscribe to. So given limited time and money, they passed over many subscription offers they might otherwise have accepted.
To solve this problem, he developed a knack for identifying the audience... and the reason why the magazine was ideally suited to them... in his copy, right up front.
For instance, the outer envelope for a promotion for Coastal Living simply showed the front cover of the premiere issue:
The teaser copy above the magazine cover straightforwardly says:
If you love the shore, this new magazine will do you a world of good.
Just a simple 5-word positioning statement—"If you love the shore"—immediately told you whether Coastal Living was for you.
Of course, the free offer is never neglected in a Jayme mailing, and the text under the magazine cover reads:
CHARTER INVITATION. Free First Issue.
And here's how Jayme enabled readers to identify themselves as likely to enjoy MARIAH:
If all the outdoors is where your secret soul resides—mountains, seas, meadows, deserts, forests, grottoes, rivers, ice floes, jungles, streams, islands, atolls, clouds...
... then I think you'll like MARIAH, the complete magazine of the outdoors.
I could go on and on.
But rather than tease you with dribs and drabs from the lifetime success stories of a modern DM master...
I'd like to explain what's in the entire collection—and how it can be yours forever for a minuscule fraction of what Jayme's clients paid for these mailings.
Introducing the Bill Jayme direct mail
swipe file collection...
OK. Let's say you want to take a look at the life's work of the most successful direct response copywriter of the 20th-century.
Here's what you get when you order The Bill Jayme Collection on a no-risk 30-day trial basis:
- 11-CD Swipe Files... the complete components of 210 direct mail promotions Jayme and Ratalahti created for 138 different publications including Science... GEO... New West... Atlanta... M... California Magazine... Money... Technology Illustrated... The Sciences... Eating Well... Learning... and dozens more.
- Complete promotions... copy and graphics for outer envelopes... sales letters... lift notes... circulars... reply elements—each mailing piece is presented in its entirety.
- High-resolution digital images—each page of each promotion is shown as a clear, easy-to-view image on CD—pages can also be printed as hard copy at the click of a mouse.
- Bill Jayme on Direct Marketing... the 12th is a special bonus DVD: A video recording of Jayme giving a lecture on direct mail principles.
The Bill Jayme Collection: Master of Direct Mail Marketing
| |
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Disc 1. Arts & Entertainment The Agatha Christie Mystery Collection Antiques Arts & Antiques Attenzione Book-Of-The-Month Club Connoisseur Darkroom Photography Entertainment Weekly Esquire (2) Horizon Interview (2) The Library of Congress (3) Memories National Trust for Historic Preservation (3) New York (5) The New Yorker (5) Sherman Clay & Co. Smithsonian (8) View Wigwag
Disc 2. Business & Money
Disc 3. Education
Disc 4. Fashion & Consumer
Disc 5. Food & Home
Disc 6. Gardening & |
House & Garden National Audubon Society (3) New York Botanical Garden The Outdoor Magazine Plants Alive!
Disc 7. Health
Disc 8. News & Politics
Disc 9. Regional Living
Disc 10. Technology
Disc 11. Travel Disc 12. Bill Jayme Interview on Direct Marketing (lecture) |
Own millions of dollars worth of brilliant
DM packages—for pennies on the dollar!
Back in their day, before anyone ever heard of royalties or seven-figure copywriters, Bill Jayme and Heikki Ratalahti were just about the most expensive marketing team you could hire.
Copywriter Jayme and his partner, graphic designer Ratalahti, charged a then unheard-of $20,000 to $40,000 for a simple #10 or 6"x 9" DM package—a fortune in its day.
Yet clients paid it gladly, because a Jayme/Ratalahti package gave them the greatest chance of success—whether launching a new magazine or beating a current control.
Jayme's copy made him—and his clients—extremely wealthy. Owen Lipstein, for instance, asked Jayme to write a letter for his start-up magazine American Health.
The letter began with the headline—"Does orange juice really do any good?"
It generated 250,000 paid subscriptions... and enabled Lipstein to sell his magazine to the Reader's Digest Association in 1990 for $29 million.
If we conservatively estimate $20,000 per package for copy and art, then Jayme's clients paid him and Heikki something close to $4.18 million in creative fees to write and design the 210 mailings you get in The Bill Jayme Collection.
But, of course, we're not charging you $4.18 million... or $20,000... or even $2,000 to get your hands on The Bill Jayme Collection... that in my humble opinion, based on 50 years in the industry, is far more valuable than any high-priced DM course, seminar, or boot camp you can attend these days.
Order today, and you can own The Bill Jayme Collection... a compendium of the most powerful and profitable direct mail promotions of all time... for under $400. That's hundreds of pages of brilliant, proven DM copy—yours for less than you'd pay a top copywriter today to write just one page of sales copy.
Use it Risk-FREE for 30 days!
I am so convinced that The Bill Jayme Collection is the most valuable collection of sample direct mail winners ever offered, I want to send you a copy with absolutely no commitment or obligation of any kind.
That's right. Click below now, and I'll rush you a copy of The Bill Jayme Collection—all 12 CDs/DVD—to your home or office to inspect Risk-FREE for a full month.
When your copy arrives, skim through it. Show it to your marketing directors and product managers. Even use some of the proven direct mail strategies to boost your response rates by 25%... 50%... even 100% or more.
If you do not want to keep The Bill Jayme Collection, simply return it to us within 30 days for a prompt and full refund—no questions asked.
That way, you risk nothing.
But I urge you to hurry. We've produced only a limited number of sets—and (as Bill Jayme would say) no more than that.
To order your Risk-FREE copy of The Bill Jayme Collection: Master of Direct Mail Marketing, click below now:
I can't think of a fairer, cheaper, or more convenient way for you to immediately profit from Bill Jayme's million-dollar mailing ideas.
Sincerely,
Brian Kurtz, Vice President
Boardroom Inc.
P.S. Recently, I was honored by Target Marketing magazine—the monthly trade publication of the direct marketing industry—as their Direct Marketer of the Year... just as Jayme and Ratalahti were many years ago.
By working with my team at Boardroom to publish The Bill Jayme Collection, I am able to give something back to the industry that has treated us so well... and help you succeed in your direct marketing efforts the way Bill Jayme helped us succeed in ours. To order your no-risk copy of The Bill Jayme Collection... just click below now: