The Admiral Byrd Expedition Letter -

The $10,000 Letter Every Serious Copywriter Should Read

And Why I’m Giving You the Letter PLUS Two Detailed “X-Ray Reports” of the Copy… For $1

Dear Copywriter,

On September 3, 1968, a letter went into the mail.

And right near the beginning, it told the reader something most copywriters would probably try to hide until much later:

This is going to cost you $10,000.

Remember…

This was 1968.

Ten thousand dollars was serious money.

And that wasn’t the only problem.

The reader would also have to give up 26 days of his time.

There would be discomfort.

There could even be danger.

In fact, the letter came right out and admitted it.

So what was being sold?

A business opportunity?

Nope.

A piece of real estate?

No.

Some fabulous new investment?

Not that either.

They were selling…

A trip.

But calling it a “trip” is like calling the Indianapolis 500 a Sunday drive.

Because the people who said yes would fly around the world…

LONGITUDINALLY.

They would cross BOTH the North and South Poles.

They would visit Antarctica.

They would meet important political and public figures.

They would become Founding Trustees of the Admiral Richard E. Byrd Polar Center.

Their biographies would be preserved in its archives.

Their names would be inscribed on a bronze memorial tablet.

And they would become members of a very small club of human beings who had crossed the South Pole.

This was the…

ADMIRAL BYRD TRANSPOLAR EXPEDITION

And the sales letter promoting it has become a fascinating piece of direct-response history.

Copywriter Hank Burnett is credited with the letter.

And one published account associated with this promotion reports 72 buyers at approximately $10,000 apiece.

Do the arithmetic.

That’s approximately…

$720,000!

From a high-priced offer…

Sold through the mail…

More than half a century ago.

But here’s the strange thing.

The result isn’t the most interesting part of this letter.

Not to a copywriter, anyway.

Because when you actually READ the letter…

Something starts happening.

You begin noticing things.

Little things at first.

And then BIG things.

Things that explain why a wealthy businessman sitting safely behind his desk might suddenly begin imagining himself standing at the bottom of the world…

Breathing air he’d never breathed before…

Staring across a black Antarctic ocean…

And thinking:

“I want to go.”

Let me show you what I mean.

One Of The Gutsiest Openings I’ve Ever Seen

Imagine you’re trying to sell a $10,000 expedition in 1968.

How do you start?

Do you tease the prospect?

Warm him up?

Hide the price?

Spend two pages building value before revealing the unpleasant stuff?

Hank Burnett’s letter doesn’t.

Instead, after briefly introducing the expedition, it essentially tells the prospect:

It costs $10,000.

It takes 26 days.

You’ll be uncomfortable.

And you might face danger.

Think about that.

The letter practically puts the objections on the table before the prospect has time to raise them.

Then comes the turn.

Yes, there may be discomfort.

Yes, there may be danger.

On the other hand…

You may get to participate in something that has never been done before.

Suddenly the very things that might have killed the sale begin making the expedition seem MORE desirable.

Because this isn’t a vacation anymore.

It’s an adventure.

A test.

A privilege.

A chance to participate in history.

And then Burnett starts piling on detail.

Not vague promises.

Specifics.

You’ll cross the North Pole.

You’ll lose your normal day-night orientation.

You’ll visit Antarctica.

You’ll see the Ross Ice Shelf.

You’ll see Mt. Erebus.

You’ll see the old huts associated with Shackleton and Scott.

You’ll meet people living and working in this alien landscape.

And you’ll cross the South Pole—something the letter says fewer than 200 people in history had done.

By the time Burnett is finished describing Antarctica, you can almost feel the cold coming off the page.

And THAT is when something important happens.

The prospect isn’t reading about an expedition anymore.

He’s mentally ON the expedition.

And That’s Where This Gets REALLY Interesting For Copywriters

You could read the Admiral Byrd letter and say:

“Boy, that’s good copy.”

You could underline a few passages.

Save a few phrases.

Maybe swipe an idea or two.

And then move on to the next classic sales letter.

That’s what most people do.

But there’s a problem.

“That’s good copy” doesn’t teach you very much.

WHY is it good?

Where exactly is the persuasion happening?

What promises are being made?

What proof supports those promises?

Where is curiosity being created?

What objections—or Constraints—does the copy deal with?

Which ones does it FAIL to deal with?

What is the underlying structure holding the whole sales argument together?

And perhaps most useful of all…

What could YOU take from that structure and use in the copy you’re writing tomorrow morning?

THAT is what I wanted to know.

So instead of merely rereading great sales letters…

I started dissecting them.

Taking them apart.

Looking at the machinery underneath.

And that’s why I want to give you something unusual today.

Not just a copy of the famous…

ADMIRAL BYRD EXPEDITION LETTER

…but TWO separate analyses of it.

For only $1.

Think of them as two different ways of putting this famous promotion under an X-ray machine.

REPORT #1:

The Admiral Byrd COPY BLOCKS Analysis

Here’s something fascinating.

Successful copy may look infinitely complicated on the surface.

Different markets.

Different offers.

Different media.

Different writers.

But underneath, the persuasion can be examined through a surprisingly small number of structural elements.

I call them Copy Blocks.

They include:

PAIN — What does the prospect want to escape or avoid?

PROMISE — What desirable result or experience is being offered?

PROOF — Why should the prospect believe any of it?

CONSTRAINTS — What stands between the prospect and saying yes?

CURIOSITY — What keeps him reading and makes the opportunity feel new and interesting?

And CONDITIONS — The scarcity, urgency, guarantee and offer structure surrounding the deal.

Now here’s where this gets fun.

I took the Admiral Byrd letter and pulled these elements out of the copy.

Line by line.

And suddenly you don’t merely see a great sales letter.

You see its SKELETON.

For example…

The analysis identifies 24 Promise elements.

Things such as becoming a Founding Trustee…

Having your biography preserved for future historians…

Joining the tiny group of people who had crossed the South Pole…

Receiving expedition memorabilia…

Meeting world leaders…

And returning with a genuine once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Then there is the Proof.

The analysis identifies 25 Proof elements.

Names.

Credentials.

Historical facts.

Locations.

Equipment.

Logistical details.

An experienced polar expedition leader.

A former Air Force One pilot.

Even the fact that the prospect’s money would be held in escrow.

Then comes Curiosity.

And this letter is loaded with it.

The analysis identifies 31 Curiosity elements.

The strange phenomenon of sunrise and sunset occurring within minutes…

A 13,000-foot volcano of fire and ice…

The Ross Ice Shelf…

The old huts of Antarctic explorers…

A piece of fabric from Admiral Byrd’s original airplane…

The bizarre effects of crossing the poles…

And on and on.

But here’s my favorite part.

The analysis doesn’t merely tell you what Burnett did RIGHT.

It also exposes what could potentially have been stronger.

And that is where studying great copy becomes much more useful.

Because you stop worshipping the copy.

You start THINKING like a copywriter.

The Copy Blocks analysis, for example, rates the Proof extraordinarily highly but finds more room for improvement in the Constraints.

It identifies objections that could have received more attention.

Could the prospect physically handle the expedition?

Would his family approve?

What if he became ill?

Was $10,000 simply too much?

Could he really disappear from his business for 26 days?

Those questions give you another way of studying the letter:

Not merely…

“What did this great copywriter do?”

But…

“WHAT WOULD I DO IF THIS ASSIGNMENT LANDED ON MY DESK TODAY?”

That’s a much more useful question.

And that’s only the FIRST analysis.

REPORT #2:

The Admiral Byrd BRIEFING Analysis

Now we turn the letter around…

And look at it from another direction.

The Briefing Analysis is designed to reverse-engineer the persuasive architecture of the promotion.

Who is the target market?

What exactly is the offer?

What are the hooks?

Where are the fascinations?

What creates credibility?

What’s the core argument?

What mechanisms are present?

What’s absent?

What could potentially make the argument stronger?

In the Admiral Byrd Briefing, for example, you quickly see that this is NOT a traditional problem/solution promotion.

Burnett isn’t saying:

“You have this terrible problem and here’s how we fix it.”

He’s presenting an…

OPPORTUNITY.

An invitation.

An experience available to very few people.

And that changes the entire structure of the sales argument.

The likely prospect is affluent.

Adventurous.

Interested in status, significance and history.

Someone attracted to experiences other people simply cannot have.

Once you understand THAT…

Suddenly dozens of decisions in the letter make more sense.

Why mention world leaders?

Why make the prospect a Founding Trustee?

Why preserve his biography?

Why put his name on a bronze tablet?

Why repeatedly emphasize how few people have ever done what he’s being invited to do?

These aren’t random flourishes.

They’re part of the architecture.

And once the architecture becomes visible…

You can study it.

Question it.

Borrow from it.

Adapt the underlying ideas.

And use what you learn in markets that have absolutely nothing to do with polar expeditions.

That’s the value of a Briefing.

Someone else has already done the heavy analytical work…

So YOU can concentrate on understanding the persuasion.

Now Let Me Give You The Whole Thing for Just $1

Here’s what I’d like you to do.

Download this package.

Inside you’ll get:

1. The Admiral Byrd Transpolar Expedition Letter

Read the original promotion for yourself.

2. The Complete Copy Blocks Analysis

See its Pain, Promise, Proof, Constraints, Curiosity and Conditions broken apart so you can examine the individual pieces.

3. The Complete Briefing Analysis

See the target market, offer, hooks, fascinations, credibility, persuasive structure and improvement opportunities laid out separately.

And I suggest you read them in exactly that order.

First, read the original letter.

Don’t analyze it too much.

Just let Burnett sell you.

Notice where your attention increases.

Notice what you picture.

Notice which statements make the expedition seem more credible.

Notice where you start wanting to know what comes next.

THEN…

Open the Copy Blocks Analysis.

And read the letter again.

This time, watch the machinery.

Finally…

Read the Briefing.

Step away from the individual sentences and look at the architecture of the entire sales argument.

I think you’ll find something rather interesting happens.

You’ll Never Read The Admiral Byrd Letter The Same Way Again.

But there’s another reason I’m giving you these analyses.

And this is where this little download becomes part of something much bigger.

What If We Did This To 93 Of The Greatest Sales Letters Ever Written?

Think about that for a moment.

There is a book called:

The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time.

It contains 93 sales letters.

Ninety-three examples of direct-response copy worth studying.

Now, you could simply read those letters.

That’s useful.

But imagine having something sitting beside you while you read them.

Something showing you:

Here’s the Pain.

Here’s the Promise.

Here’s the Proof.

Here’s the Curiosity.

Here are the Constraints.

Here’s the offer architecture.

Here’s the target prospect.

Here are the hooks and fascinations.

Here’s where the letter is unusually strong.

Here’s where there may be a hole.

And here’s how the argument might be strengthened.

Not for one letter.

Not for ten.

For…

ALL 93.

That’s what I’ve been building.

It’s called:

THE MILLION-DOLLAR COPY DOMINATION SUITE

And the Admiral Byrd package you’re about to download is your sample.

I could write another 20 pages telling you how useful these analyses might be.

But why?

You’re a copywriter.

You know what a demonstration is worth.

So I’d rather let you judge for yourself.

Here’s My Proposition…

Just click the link below.

I’ll give you the Admiral Byrd Expedition Letter…

PLUS the Copy Blocks Analysis…

PLUS the separate Briefing Analysis.

For only $1.

No need to wonder whether this approach to studying classic copy is useful.

Try it.

Read the letter.

Read the analyses.

Then ask yourself one question:

“If I Can Learn This Much From ONE Letter… What Could I Learn From 93?”

That’s all.

Because if the answer is…

“A helluva lot.”

…then you’ll understand exactly why I’m creating the Million-Dollar Copy Domination Suite.

And if it isn’t?

You’ve still got a fascinating classic sales letter and two detailed copywriting analyses without paying a dime.

Fair enough?

Then click below.

YES! GIVE ME THE ADMIRAL BYRD LETTER + BOTH ANALYSES for Only $1

Get the original letter, the Copy Blocks Analysis and the Briefing Analysis.

Read the letter first.

Then look underneath the hood.

I suspect you’ll find there’s a LOT more going on in those pages than you noticed the first time through.

And that’s the whole point.

P.S. Don’t skip the original letter and jump straight to the analyses. You’ll get much more from this exercise if you let the copy work on you FIRST. Read it like a prospect. Then go back with the Copy Blocks report and see how the persuasion was assembled.

P.P.S. Remember, this is only one of the 93 letters planned for The Million-Dollar Copy Domination Suite. Your Admiral Byrd package gives you a chance to see the concept in action before the full collection becomes available.

Download it and dissect one of direct mail’s most fascinating sales letters for yourself.