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How To Write Letters That Win

by Herbert Watson, The System Company

The Little-Known Copy-Writing Library That Turned a Shy and Retiring ROBERT COLLIER Into One of the Most Powerful and Effective
Copy Writers of All Time!!!

Here I was at the United Nations for a luncheon engagement.

I had just been invited to join The Magnificent Seven, a rather elite group of advertising writers — or copywriters as we call ourselves.

Milt Pierce, a fellow copywriter who writes for Direct Marketing magazine, yanked at my sleeve, “Hey, isn’t that Steven Spielberg?” “Yeah it is,” he answered before I could render an opinion. “What’s he doing here?  Scouting the location for a movie?”  No one knew for sure. We just sat down at our table and began our meeting.

When it got to my turn to introduce myself as a new member, the subject of Robert Collier came up and I guess I said something to the effect that he was one of the best sales copy writers there ever was. No one argued otherwise.

That’s when I met Robert Collier’s cousin. Marybeth came up to me after the lunch and introduced herself. She confessed that she was related. Unfortunately, when Collier was alive she was too young to get any copywriting advice from him but she did remember that he was kind of a shy fellow, even at family gatherings, and pretty much stayed in the background.

I was intrigued.

How did such a person get to be one of the most powerful sales copy writers of all time?

With Marybeth’s help and a little detective work I discovered that Collier learned most of what he knew about writing sales copy from just three books…

Those three books were so powerful in relating the knowledge of how to write effective sales copy that even a shy and retiring Robert Collier, by applying the principles he learned from them, was able to scale the heights of fame and fortune in the direct mail/mail order business.

Those three books made him a legend in his own time. And today his reputation is bigger than ever, more than sixty-five years after his death.

I had to have those three books. Thus began one of the most interesting searches of my life. I won’t get into the details here. It would fill a book. Let’s just say that after searching thousands of book shelves throughout the country, I was finally able to locate what I thought might be the only surviving copies of the books.

I read each and every word of each and every one of the three books, savoring the new insights being revealed. When I finished, I had to sit back and try to integrate the vast store of knowledge I had just absorbed.

This book, How To Write Letters That Win, is the first of the three that I got my hands on. I devoured it and learned a lot.

Then I began to use what I had just learned. Immediately I saw the results of my new found knowledge.

One letter sent out to 300 people, most of whom had never bought anything from me before, produced $36,000.00. Another soon joined it and produced $14,900.00 from just 36 people. And then another produced $35,000.00 in ONE DAY after a distribution of only 400.

Since then my copy has gone on to sell millions of dollars worth of products and services. I give a lot of credit to this book for much of what I learned in those days and it still serves me in the copy I write for use on the Internet.

Anyone who wants to write the words that make people buy should read this book.

Carl Galletti

Copywriter

This book is called “How To Write LETTERS That Win” but it could have just as easily been called “How To Write Copy That Gets Results.” Whatever you’re writing, whether it’s a sales page for the web, a direct response letter, a magazine ad, a newspaper ad, a TV commercial…whatever has words that need to sell…this book will serve you well.

Here are some of the things you will learn:

  •   How To Write The Kind Of Copy That Draws The Eye, Grips, Sways And Convinces.
  •   The Little-Known Source Of Strong Copy.
  •   How To Make Your Copy Magnetic—Make Them Stand Out—Make Them Dominate Your Reader’s Mail.
  •   How To Create A Desire For The Product You Sell.
  •   The Most Important Factor In The Transaction Of Your Business.
  •   Why The Personal Sales Letter Is, In Many Respects, A Better Medium Than A Personal Representative.
  •   How Any Business Can Use Sales Copy To Increase Business.
  •   What You Must Do If You Have Tried Writing Copy And Failed.
  •   Your Biggest Opportunity For Expansion That You Have Today.
  •   How To Use Sales Copy To Find Customers, Sell Your Products, And Make Your Name Widely Known.
  •   What Sales Copy Must Do To Persuade.
  •   What Your Sales Copy Must Do To Be Convincing.
  •   What Your Sales Copy Must Do If Your Appeal For Action Is To Get Results
  •   The Quality That Makes Copy Stand Out And Be Remembered Amidst The Hundreds That Are Forgotten.
  •   The Certain Basic Principles Upon Which Every Successful Business Promotion Must Be Built, If It Is To Take The Place Of A Salesman And Do What A Good Salesman Would Do.
  •   What Every Sentence And Paragraph That Goes Into Your Copy Should Have.
  •   What the Sole Aim Of All Your Copy Must Be, If It Is To Get Results.
  •   The Definite End Goal That A Good Copy Writer Must Keep In Mind.
  •   How To Prepare To Write Copy.
  •   The 6 Steps Good Sales Copy Must Proceed Through To Achieve Profitable Sales.
  •   How To Win The Reader’s Attention.
  •   How To Get The Reader Of Your Copy To Read The Entire Copy.
  •   How To Gain The Reader’s Interest.
  •   How To Draw The Reader To Your Way Of Thinking.
  •   How To Make It Easy For The Reader To Order.
  •   How To Get The Reader To Act At Once.
  •   The Sales Medium That Plays The Greatest Part In Selling Your Products.
  •   The Essential Elements Of Sales Copy Which Must Be There If It Is To Carry The Right Impression To The Reader’s Mind.
  •   The Little-Known Technique That Makes Writing Copy Simple To Write.
  •   An Element That Is Absolutely Essential To The Success Of Your Copy—Without It Your Efforts Will Be Lost.
  •   The Key Element That Goes Beyond Giving Your Prospect An Idea Of The Nature Or Make-Up Or Working Principles Of The Thing You Are Selling Him And Creates Desire For Your Product.
  •   How To Intensify Desire And Bring Action.
  •   The Secret Of Making It So Easy To Order That The Reader Cannot Resist The Temptation To Reply.
  •   How To Arouse The Curiosity Of Any Reader.
  •   The Only Sure Method Of Learning The Functions, Value And Proper Use Of The Elements Of Creating Effective Sales Copy.
  •   The Most Important Part Of Every Sales Piece.
  •   How To Start Your Copy.
  •   What You Must Do If Your Copy Does Not Bring Results.
  •   The One Thing That Will Kill An Otherwise Passable Sales Piece And How To Avoid It.
  •   The One Thing You Must Study Very Carefully.
  •   A Grave Danger That You Are Liable To Lapse Into And How To Avoid It.
  •   How Best To Attract Attention In Different Types Of Copy.
  •   How To Make The Reader Feel As If You Yourself Were At His Desk.
  •   How To Keep Your Copy From Being Overlooked.
  •   The Easiest And Best Way To Start Your Sales Piece.
  •   The Two Methods That Are So Critical To Making The Sale.
  •   How To Solve The Problem Of Gaining Attention.
  •   A Little-Known Technique That Virtually Compels The Reader To Continue Into The Second Paragraph Of Your Copy.
  •   Why Some Very Effective Methods Must Be Used Sparingly And Only When Other Means Fail.
  •   What The Most Important Thing To A Reader Is‑And How To Use It To Your Advantage.
  •   The Secret “Open Sesame” To Every Reader’s Attention And Why, At All Times, It Should Be Carefully Guarded And Sparingly Used.
  •   How To Lead A Reader To A New Interest, Change His Point Of View Or Alter His Past Convictions.
  •   The Three Views A Person Has Before He Reads Your Copy And Why It Is So Critical To Know.
  •   Why You Must Respect Your Reader’s Opinion Even Though You Are Writing In An Endeavor To Alter It.
  •   The Second Most Important Word In The Vocabulary (And The Second Oldest).
  •   The Only Sure Guide For Writing Sincere And Effective Copy.
  •   The Three Points Upon Which You Are Sure To Gain Instant Attention.
  •   How To Transform Your Reader’s Attention Into Personal, Undivided Interest In What You Have To Offer.
  •   The Most Treacherous Pitfall Of The Writer Of Sales Copy And How To Overcome It.
  •   How To Arouse Interest.
  •   The Element Which Forms The Basis Of Nine-Tenths Of All Successful Sales Copy.
  •   The Easiest And Quickest Way To Arrive At An Understanding With Your Reader.
  •   How To Tap Into A Primitive Passion.
  •   What Every Successful Sales Plan Must Be Given.
  •   The Danger That Lies In An Appeal To Technical Interest.
  •   How To Create Real Interest—The Kind That Will Carry The Reader Through Your Descriptive Paragraphs And Lead Him To Placing An Order.
  •   The Common Error That Will Kill The Sale.
  •   What To Do When You Have Your Prospect’s Attention And How To Do It.
  •   How To Put Your Reader In A Frame Of Mind To Say “Yes” When He Reads Your Offer.
  •   How To Hold Your Reader’s Interest.
  •   The Theory Of Successful Copy Writing And How To Learn It Easily.
  •   How To Explain A New Proposition To One Who Knows Nothing Of It.
  •   What Should Be The Central Selling Idea Of Every Sales Piece.
  •   How To Create Desire.
  •   What You Must Do Immediately After Explaining Your Proposition.
  •   How To Prove That A Product Is All That You Say And Claim It Is.
  •   What The Average Person Wants First, Of The Values You Offer.
  •   The One Word That Is The Foundation-Stone Of All Success In Selling.
  •   How To Create A Testimonial That Is Perceived As Genuine.
  •   How To Get Profitable Results Even When It Is Irredeemably Bad In Construction and Grammar.
  •   The Best Way To Persuade A Prospect.
  •   A Subtle Form In Which To Apply The Art Of Suggestion.
  •   The Hardest Lesson In Copy Writing And How It Was Solved.
  •   An Inducement That Will Always Win Sales.

How To Write Letters That Win