Dear Friend,

You COULD be making a lot more money, ya know.

In fact, with just a few simple little tweaks you could experience EXPONENTIAL increases in your income… pretty darn fast, too.

How?

Simple.

Just double your lifetime customer value.

You see, doubling lifetime customer value (LCV) doesn't just double your profits… it causes…

EXPONENTIAL increases in your net!

Getting a new customer is the most expensive and least profitable marketing you do. Many businesses actually LOSE money to get a new customer. So if that customer doesn't stick around very long and buy more products, you wind up making little to no money.

Not exactly the formula for a profitable business, right?

But what if you're able to keep that customer sticking around a lot longer, making more and bigger purchases? That means a LOT more cashola in your pocket.

And lucky for you, I've discovered a few simple and inexpensive things you can start doing right away that can double (or maybe even triple) your LCV.

Let's start with the most important yet overlooked thing that can increase LCV. I'm talking about…

Sincere appreciation!

I'm amazed at how few business owners express their appreciation for their customers. Maybe you didn't realize it but your customer is the reason you're in business. Without him or her you very well may be living in a van down by the river!

Wanna know one of the best ways to show your appreciation? By sending the humble little…

Stick letter!

It’s amazing how well these letters work.

Why?

Actually a few reasons:

1. The stick letter is actually a sales letter. It sells your customer (again) on why they made the purchase in the first place. And THAT helps reduce buyer’s remorse, one of the biggest causes of refunds.

2. It lets the customer know you really care about them and appreciate their business.

3. It offers a special preferred customer deal on a related product ONLY available for a very limited-time. (You'd be shocked at how much money you're letting slip through your fingers by not doing this.)

I'm surprised at how many business owners take their customers for granted and never properly thank them. When you let your customers know you appreciate them… and you do it from the heart… it makes a BIG impact. It also adds one more “touch” they get from you… and the more touches they get from you, the higher your lifetime customer value. (Especially in the “honeymoon” phase… the first 90 days of them becoming a customer.)

Here's how important I think it is to send a stick letter.

I was in such a hurry to travel to Colombia last month I forgot to leave my special stick letter paper and envelopes with my gal Friday who helps with fulfillment for The Doberman Dan Letter.

You see, I absolutely INSIST a specially formatted stick letter goes out to each and every new subscriber to The Doberman Dan Letter. And I insist that it go out the very day we receive the order… or if the order comes in after 5:00 PM then it goes out the very first thing the next morning.

I'm not doing this just to be a nice guy. These stick letters (when done using my special techniques) really make a BIG difference in customer retention and LCV.

Several new subscriptions came in while I was down in South America and my gal Friday didn't have the materials to send out the special stick letters.

What did I do?

Rather than waiting to send the stick letters until I got home (that would have been a costly mistake), I went to Office Depot in Colombia (yeah, they even have those down there) bought a printer, bought my specialty stick letter paper and envelopes… and invested almost $100 EACH to send the stick letters to the U.S. and Canada via UPS international overnight.

Yup, you heard that right. Just to send a simple one-page stick letter…

I spent DOUBLE what the customer paid
for their subscription!

THAT is how important the stick letter is. (And NO, as you'll soon see if you're a "Marketing Camelot" member, you can't get the same results with e-mail.)

Here’s why I think my stick letter is so effective:

Almost NOBODY does anything like this. It hits the customer completely off guard. Sure, they expect you to send the product they ordered… but they sure as hell don’t expect a personal letter from the owner, telling them how much he appreciates their business.

Of course I'm simplifying things a little for the sake of brevity but the stick letter is just one part of my entire LCV-increasing strategy. But it's a really important one.

When all my stick secrets (ESPECIALLY during the "honeymoon phase") are humming along like a finely tuned machine, LCV quickly doubles… and…

Your Profits Go Through The Roof!

I've seen businesses experience a 1,300% increase in sales… in only 5 months when all this stuff was implemented according to my instructions.

And it just so happens that in the October and November issues of The Doberman Dan Letter I'm revealing many of the secrets that caused that kind of exponential growth in one of my businesses. In addition, the November issue includes numerous examples of the kind of LCV-doubling stick secrets (and a couple stick letter "swipes") I've been talking about.

Look, you're investing a LOT of time and money to get new customers… so doesn't it make sense to invest a tiny bit more to maximize LCV and KEEP those customers as long as possible?

It can make the difference of just having an "OK" business that just pays the bills… to having…

An insanely profitable "money machine" that brings in
the cashola faster than you can possibly spend it!

THAT is when business is fun.

So let me help you make more cashola and have more fun doing it, too.

All the best,

Dear Friend,

Did you check out my Just do the work, dammit! post the other day?

I just had to reread it for myself. "Do the work" is the LAST thing I feel like doing today.

I've got some kind of severe allergy/sinus thing going on that is making me absolutely miserable. (It happens every Fall when the temperature changes. BTW… this is my favorite time of the year here in Florida… in spite of feeling like complete doo-doo.)

But, short of being comatose in a hospital, a professional keeps his commitments.

Plus, I'd look like a complete schlemiel (learned that word from a Harlan Ellison story) if I blew off my commitment less than 48 hours after writing that "Just do the work, dammit!" post, wouldn't I?

But alas… a DobermanDan.com blog subscriber sensed I needed help today and sent me what Gary Halbert used to call "fodder material" for today's post.

Here's to you, Raja:

May your muse always alight gently upon your shoulder and whisper her sweet inspiration in your ear… and may you always be in tune to her subtle inspiration.

Hey… that ain't too bad! In fact, I like my little DD blessing so much I'll extend it to you, too.

Here's Raja's question:

Hi Dan,

You write a wickedly helpful and immensely insightful blog.

I've a question for you:

In your How To Start A "Kitchen Table" Direct Response Business, you mentioned that you'd do things a little differently now than when you first rolled your formula out in 1995, and not go the classified ad route until you tested it via Google Adwords.

My question is what kind of Google ad response numbers would give you the green-light-go-ahead to trot the thing out via a classified ad?

Oopsy… another question.. (how did that sneak in there?)

When you bring people to a squeeze/landing page via the google ad, would you send the report/sales letter, via email or snail mail?

Cheers Dan!

Raja

Thanks for the kudos on my blog, Raja.

Let me clear one thing up. Except for the very start of that business when I was messing things up, I never used classified ads. After I got myself on the right track, I only used fractional page display lead generation ads and full page ads.

…what kind of Google ad response numbers would give you the green-light-go-ahead to trot the thing out?

"Trot the thing out"… I like that. Since I currently live in the horse capital of the world I think I'm going to start using that phrase.

Anyhoo… as far as rules about number of responses determining when I trot things out, I usually evaluate that on a case by case basis since there can be a lot of variables.

I learned a few cool formulas from working in direct mail and several of those have worked out exceptionally well when applied to my online testing. If it's a go-for-the-sale promotion, I like to see anywhere from 14 to 86 conversions before I make a decision on my next step.

The higher the number of conversions, the higher my confidence level and the more statistically accurate I can be with my roll-out predictions.

Is that set in stone?

Not always.

A few times I had less conversions but a good gut feeling… so I started scaling up… and that put a good amount of cashola in my pocket.

A few times I was wrong and I lost money. I probably could have avoided losing money if I would have stuck to my formula and not jumped the gun on the roll-out.

Live and learn.

When you bring people to a squeeze/landing page via the google ad, would you send the report/sales letter, via email or snail mail?

Before the wonderful folks at Google cancelled my Adwords account, I very rarely did the squeeze page thang when testing. My whole philosophy was to get BUYERS, not waste time and money building a list of 90%+ freebie seekers. In the end, it was usually much more expensive to send traffic to a squeeze page… and then invest months and months culling out the 10% (or less) who would eventually become buyers… than just target the buyers in the first place.

So when testing, I almost always used Adwords to send people directly to a sales page with an offer for my front end product.

That's not the typical "funnel" all the IM gurus have been teaching… but it has worked killer for me.

In fact, I recently did a video for my Doberman Dan Letter subscribers showing them the difference between a freebie seekers list and buyers list in two different markets.

Long story short: The buyers lists are 10 to 20 times more responsive (and profitable) than the freebie seekers list.

There are a lot more moving parts to this equation than I have time to cover here… because there are several factors I consider when deciding to do a lead gen campaign versus going immediately for a sale. Several times I've done both at the same time, lead gen AND a "go for the sale" promotion… and other times I've combined them both into the SAME promotion. (Hmmmm… that sounds like a good topic for a future issue or subscriber bonus video for The Doberman Dan Letter subscribers.)

Here’s something interesting I discovered from testing lead generation ads in magazines. I've found OFFLINE lead generation in magazine ads to be much more profitable with less "mooch factor" than online lead gen.

When I tested a call to action driving people to an opt-in website vs. calling a toll free number to request a free report in hard copy via snail mail, I converted almost 50% more of the snail mail prospects. AND… they had a higher lifetime customer value than the customers I got by driving prospects to an opt-in website.

I don't exactly know why that is but the reason may be something Gary Halbert said at his Root Canal seminar in Orlando, Florida back in 2005:

"People are cheap bastards on the Internet!"

Halbert… what a master wordsmith.

But a word of warning:

Be careful you don’t step in anybody’s dogma… including mine.

This is what MY testing revealed in MY business back in 2006/2007. That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it’s gonna work out today in YOUR business. The only way to know for sure is to do your own test.

Hey, I actually feel a little less crappy right now. It's amazing what diving in and getting to work, no matter how bad you feel, can do for you.

I hope all this helps in some way.

All the best,

Dear Friend,

What will you do when the Internet is under attack?

When hundreds of thousands or MILLIONS of websites are down… including all YOUR webites?

Your sole method of doing business taken away.

And it lasts days, weeks… or months.

What will you do?

Fear mongering, you say?

Not at all.

Over 700,000 websites have been down since 4:00 AM September 25, 2011 due to an attack on the ENTIRE InMotion Hosting company.

And amongst those 700,000 sites, guess who has ALL their websites hosted there?

Yup… moi'.

DobermanDan.com is back up, obviously. (Duh!)

But the other 15 or so sites… the ones I rely on for REAL businesses that support my family have been down for almost 26 hours… and continue to be down.

Nowadays for most people, an attack like this means they're out of business.

But not me.

See, I've been expecting this… and I've been prepared. (Not as prepared as I SHOULD have been… but that will soon be corrected.)

But as far as this not affecting my income an awful lot, I've been prepared.

How?

1. I still send direct mail to my entire customer list.

2. I've been set up since the very beginning to accept orders by phone.

3. AND… I can process credit card orders by phone if there's a problem with my merchant account provider's website.

Soooo… if this little act of Internet terrorism continues much longer…

I'm switching to 100% OFFLINE!

…and my income will not be affected very much.

(Actually, based on my 17 years experience with direct mail, my income will probably go UP!)

If you do business with just a website and a Paypal account, how many days can you afford to be down like this and still feed your family?

Something to think about, huh?

Look… history, human nature and current events seem to show this won't be the last time something like this happens… so a prudent person will be prepared.

I've learned several things from this incident and so will InMotion Hosting. They will probably improve their security based on what they learned from all this.

Ya know who else learned something?

The hacker community.

And they will be much better equipped for their next attack.

Look… if you have a 100% online business… and you depend on that business to support the same bad habits I have (sleeping indoors and eating regularly)… you might want to give some thought to all this.

Just in case you think I'm making all this up… click here to read about the attack.

All the best,

P.S. Compared to other things I've been through, this one is a walk in the park.

Isn't it best to be prepared for the absolute worst… and if it turns out it ain't that bad you're still ahead of the poor, clueless and unprepared suckers?

Hell, being prepared for the worst is the only reason I'm still alive today… when statistically I shouldn't be.

It ain't paranoia… it's just plain smart.

Dear Friend,

There are a few changes in the works for DobermanDan.com over the next month or so.

Some people are going to be thrilled because they're going to get a lot more hard core advanced marketing techniques and secrets… and even some personal attention.

Others… not so thrilled.

Such is life, I suppose. You can never make EVERYBODY happy.

The reality is, my little website and subscriber list is growing exponentially… and there's only one Doberman Dan and only 24 hours in a day.

And that's all I have to say about that for now.

Now I'm going to share something that will be famously successful if you ever need to get the attention of a V.I.P., big shot or any person surrounded by a bunch of gatekeepers.

And if you're smart enough to adapt these secrets to your direct mail promotions, you'll enjoy HUGE response rates and make a small fortune fast… while all the exclusively online marketers are crying about declining sales from their e-mail lists.

This will also soon be the ONLY way you can communicate with me if you want to propose any kind of joint venture, project idea or mentoring.

But first, I'll tell you a surefire way of NOT getting a V.I.P.'s attention…

Send your message by e-mail!

E-mail is the very WORST way to initially contact and communicate with a V.I.P. and will probably never get past the gatekeeper.

And it shows you've put very little thought and planning into your initial contact and presentation.

You see, any idiot can fire off an e-mail… and many do. There's hardly any thought, planning or creativity required to do that.

So your worthless e-mail will be deleted unread, along with the 200 other worthless e-mails received that day.

The very BEST way to get a V.I.P.'s attention is to stop being such a cheap bastard and invest $12 to send your message by a cool little service called…

Fed Ex!

That's the BEST option…

(Well, actually, there's an even BETTER one than that… and it will be responded to IMMEDIATELY… but I don't think you're ready for the really high level stuff yet.)

The next "pretty good" option is USPS Priority Mail. It doesn't make as big an impact as a FedEx package or envelope… but it makes a helluva lot better impact than an e-mail. And it only costs $5 bucks or so.

The next best option is a good old fashioned snail mail letter sent 1st class.

And here's a little direct mail tip most people don't know…

A 9×12 or 6×9 envelope makes a bigger splash, gets more attention and is more likely to be opened FIRST than a #10 envelope.

Want another jealously guarded secret of a direct mail master? (That's lil' ole humble me, in case you didn't know.)

You've heard me say mail that looks personal almost always gets opened first, right? Ya know… the old "A pile/B pile" Gary Halbert schtick?

Well, a #10 envelope is not what's used to send personal mail. That's for business mail… and business mail is usually bills.

And who wants to open bills? I sure don't. (I let the Colombiana do that.)

Back in the day, personal letters were written on Monarch size stationary and mailed in a Monarch envelope.

A Monarch envelope is 7 1/2 x 3 7/8…. and Monarch paper is 7 1/4 x 10 1/2.

Yes, they still exist and you can get nice-looking Monarch paper and envelope sets at Staples or Office Depot.

How often do you get hand addressed Monarch envelopes nowadays? I'd be willing to bet never.

When you send a hand addressed Monarch envelope which contains your personalized Monarch stationery on a nice cream colored stock… with maybe a gold border… and a HAND WRITTEN letter… you have just set yourself head and shoulders above any and all other people vying for your V.I.P.'s attention.

Why?

Because almost NOBODY cares enough about their recipient and message nowadays to go through all that effort.

It is a MUCH more intimate form of communication and it elegantly says…

"You are important to me!"

Just ask the handful of people who recently received letters like this from me.

I even think this form of communication is possibly even better than standing belly to belly, looking in their eyes and speaking your message.

A spoken message can easily be misinterpreted, is much more easily forgotten… or worse, the meaning can get twisted and changed over time. (If you've ever played the "telephone game" at a party then you know what I mean.)

Unlike a spoken message, a hand written letter on nice Monarch stationery is much less likely to be misinterpreted and will probably be kept for a long time and re-read every now and then.

Now if you've never had the experience of holding an 8-track tape in your hands… or God forbid, you don't even know what an LP is… I realize this might sound like old fogey talk from the Great Depression era. (The FIRST one… not the one we're in now.)

But this stuff WORKS!

Like gangbusters.

And you'd do very well… and make a LOT more money… if you paid more attention to your elders (especially all the dead mail order guys) than worshiping at the feet of the young Internet Marketing gurus.

They did OK in a booming economy but now many of them are dropping like flies… because they never studied the tried and true principles of the dead mail order guys.

Look, I know a LOT more successful techniques for getting your message to numero uno and getting somebody's attention… including the one I used to get Gary Halbert's attention and led to mentoring with him for a year and a half.

But this post has already run a lot longer than I planned… and I've given away a LOT more valuable secrets than you deserve.

So let me close by saying this…

My address is:

Doberman Dan Gallapoo
c/o Arango Direct, LLC
3101 SW 34th Ave Suite 905-262
Ocala, FL 34474

The only gatekeeper at the present is the Colombiana… and all she does is pick up the mail and give it to me. So a FedEx or snail mail letter is going to get directly to me within a few days.

If you feel you have something important to share with me or want to pitch me on an idea, JV or whatever… you now know what you have to do. And don't get mad if I don't respond to your e-mail.

(If you're in my Inner Circle you know this doesn't apply to you. YOUR e-mails get priority over ALL others.)

I sure hope this doesn't make me sound like a dick. It's being done out of necessity because time constraints have FORCED me to prioritize my attention on the most important and highest ROI items.

The bottom line?

If what you have to tell me is truly important and you want to get my full attention… it deserves some time, thought and a little creativity on your part.

That's how I've always done it with the people most important to me… and continue to do it today.

And so should you.

All the best,

P.S. By saying this, I'll be letting the cat out of the bag about one of the changes coming for DobermanDan.com… but here goes:

If you have a desire to post a comment in response to any of my posts… or have been putting it off for some reason… you better do it pretty darn soon.

Dear Friend,

I kinda freaked out at the doctor's office this morning.

I don't think their air conditioning was working very well because my eyeballs started to sweat… and in the heat of the moment I used some "colorful metaphors".

Yeah, the same kind of words that seem to get everybody's panties in a bind when I've occasionally used them here on the blog.

The nurses were pretty nice, caring and understanding… and didn't seem offended. But I immediately felt really bad afterward.

Still do.

Everybody has their limits… and this has been a bitch of a year.

I've only shared about 10% of it with you… and actually regretted that after the fact. You've got your own problems to deal with and I shouldn't burden you with mine.

Sorry about that.

Anyhoo… my most pressing issue this year turned out fine, like I told you about here.

It's the other half of the family this time… but she specifically asked me not to talk about it.

So I won't. I'll just say this…

The purpose of the appointment this morning was to get results from tests to find out if the surgeon who did her surgery a few weeks ago made a big whoopsey daisy.

It's inconclusive… but we certainly didn't get the results expected.

Now this surgeon is world famous… literally. He has a frickin' surgical technique named after him for crying out loud!

But let's be adults and live in reality…

NOBODY bats 1,000%!

And since we're all fallible human beings (except possibly Allan Holdsworth, my favorite guitarist… that guy HAS to be more than a mere mortal)… we're ALL going to screw up from time to time.

Successful entrepreneurs, honest and ethical service providers, world class copywriters… and God forbid, every so often, even world class surgeons don't get things 100% right.

It's called reality. Deal with it.

I'm not sure if you know this but I'm a big proponent of direct mail.

I've worked with a bunch of different lettershops (companies that print and do all the service to prepare and send direct mail for you) and it has been an invaluable learning experience.

Some lettershops were pretty good, some just plain incompetent… and others just outright dirty, stinking lying thieves.

But I found a good one four years ago and have been working with them ever since.

Wanna know why I've been working with this same lettershop the past four years?

Yes, they do a good job, they understand my business, my rep is nice and they have good prices.

But there are a lot of lettershops like that.

Here's why I haven't bothered looking around for a better deal…

It's How They Handle Their Mistakes!

My lettershop has only screwed up once in the four years I've been using them. They accidentally re-mailed the April issue of a newsletter in May instead of the May issue I sent them.

Here's what they did as soon as they discovered the error:

1. The rep took responsibility for the error (even though it really wasn't his fault) and apologized profusely…

2. They IMMEDIATELY mailed the May issue… the correct one… and didn't charge me for it…

3. They gave me an additional mailing to the same number of names (several thousand) of ANYTHING I wanted (another newsletter, sales letter… whatever) for absolutely NO charge.

The reason I found these guys in the first place was because of a screw-up from the previous lettershop I was using. They forgot to mail a 5,000 piece test mailing that was season-related and very time sensitive. It sat there completed yet unmailed for almost three months.

When there was no response after about 10 days, I just figured my piece bombed. But since ZERO response was so highly improbable, I started investigating… and that's when I found out what happened.

Here's how THEY handled it when I finally figured out the screw-up and brought it to their attention:

1. The owner didn't return any of my calls for four weeks…

2. He also ignored all e-mails for 4 weeks…

3. When I finally pulled a fast one and TRICKED him into taking my call, (I pulled a "Doctor Feingold" on him… an old Gary Halbert technique) his only response was that he would go ahead and mail the piece.

That was it!

No apology, no offer of a refund… no attempt whatsoever to at least TRY and make things right.

And mailing the piece they were SUPPOSED to mail three months earlier was completely futile. It was a season-related golf offer… and the season was long gone by then.

You know what's really sad?

It's been my experience from 15+ years in this direct response game that this schmuck's handling of his screw-up is the norm.

Sad, isn't it?

Now you see why I'm more than happy to do business with my current lettershop… and feel confident recommending them.

Look, we ALL screw up from time to time. But the true measure of a man or woman is how they handle their "whoopsy-daisies".

That's why I like to surround myself with "salt of the earth" people. I hold onto them like precious gems… because in some cases it has taken me over 15 years to find them.

My private "rolodex" of people and vendors like this is more valuable than gold… no doubt about it.

Hey, ya know what? I just realized I feel a little better.

Writing this blog post just saved me another $200 in shrink fees.

Thanks for listening… and giving me a chance to vent.

I gotta run. We'll talk again soon.

All the best,

P.S. Speaking of direct mail, I'm doing a FREE teleseminar about using direct mail to DOUBLE sales for online marketers.

To register for this free event, click this link now:

http://dobermandan.com/dmcoaching/

"Kick Gluteus Bootyus-Maximus" copywriter, Ben Settle will be interviewing me about all my secrets for making money with direct mail.

Like all the teleseminars I've ever done for you, I'll be giving you actionable, immediately usable, profit-generating ideas… not just teasing you for 45 minutes and then hitting you up with a sales pitch for the REAL info.

No… I'll be delivering actual content.

Hey, I gotta bounce.

I hope to see you soon on on my FREE teleseminar.

Again, click the link below to reserve your spot and get all the details:

http://dobermandan.com/dmcoaching/

P.P.S. One more quick thing…

I've discovered that you can get pretty good at predicting the future by studying current trends AND understanding history.

If you're not currently using direct mail, don't know HOW to use it… and/or don't take the time to figure out how to make it work for you…

…based on current events, lessons from direct response history… and even some insider secrets that have been disclosed to me on the "down low" from my contacts in various looting "gummint" agencies…

…a lot of online businesses will NOT survive over the next two years if they continue to neglect offline media… ESPECIALLY direct mail.

If you own a business, are thinking of starting one, or handle marketing for clients… you really can't afford to miss this teleseminar.

And if you know any other business owners… online or traditional brick & mortar… you'll probably save them from a WORLD of heartache by passing along the info about this free teleseminar.

Click the link below to reserve your spot and get all the details:

http://dobermandan.com/dmcoaching/

Dear Friend,

I spoke with two really smart online marketers last week.

These guys are exceptionally good at what they do. I consider them my "go to" guys for anything internet marketing related… the few guys I trust to give me the most successful stuff that is working best right NOW online.

And both are completely clueless about direct mail.

They both tried it for themselves or clients and claimed it didn't work for them.

Interesting… because I know several people in the exact same niches who have made (and are making) MILLIONS with direct mail.

So why can't two highly intelligent and successful online marketers make direct work?

That's simple…

They did EVERYTHING wrong!

You may THINK you can simply apply what you're doing online to direct mail and make it work… but you're going to learn a very expensive lesson.

How do I know?

Well, first of all, direct mail is how I started way back in the pre-Internet days.

And believe you me… I've made ALL the mistakes.

By the way… it still amuses me all the people who claim they want an "Internet business" because of the lifestyle it can offer them.

I had that kind of lifestyle while most of the current IM gurus were still in diapers… all done with direct mail and space ads! Nobody had even heard of the Internet back then.

The Internet is not a business… it's just another form of media we direct marketers use. We are actually "direct response marketers"… NOT Internet Marketers. The Internet is just the media used.

Geez, that's a pet peeve of mine!

Don't get me wrong… it's a great media… but it's just brain-dead STUPID to ignore other media that could be equally successful.

Did the introduction of radio kill off newspapers and magazines?

Did the introduction of TV kill off radio?

Has the Internet killed off radio and TV like many "experts" predicted?

No! They're going as strong as ever!

And all those people who predicted the death of direct mail with the advent of e-mail look like mouth-breathing morons right now.

A new media almost never kills off an old one.

But here's what DOES happen with the advent of a new media…

1. A few forward thinking people jump on it and make a fortune while it is still new.
2. When word of that success gets out, thousands of other marketers jump on the band wagon… and that starts slowly killing off the golden goose.
3. Then the looters get involved… the government and worthless bureaucrats who couldn't make it in the real world if their lives depended on it… and they start regulating it out of existence. (Can you say broadcast fax?)

The Internet has been in stage 2 for quite a while now.

Stage 3 has already started… and it's only going to get worse. We've got over 100 years of history to back me up on that.

(We've also got 100+ years of history showing that "God-fearing, freedom-loving" Americans are going to react to Stage 3 just like they have reacted to the abrogation of all their other civil rights… sitting on their collective asses, cowering in fear and doing NOTHING. But that's a story for another time.)

Wanna know the only existing media that has NOT been squeezed to death by Stage 3?

Good old fashioned snail mail!

Actually, thanks to all the clueless marketers only focusing on the Internet, it's better than ever.

For all those underprivileged young'uns who have have grown up in the Internet age, direct mail is like an email… but it's printed on a piece of paper, folded, inserted in an envelope, addressed with an actual postal address, a stamp stuck on it and relegated to the United States Postal Service for delivery to the recipient at an actual home or business.

Frickin' brilliant, isn't it?

Why is that better than e-mail?

Well, for a lot of reasons…

Just look at the declining open rates of e-mail over the past 3 years… and consequently declining sales.

In one of my businesses we are down to getting 10% of the sales from e-mail than we used to get just three years ago… and our e-mail list is FOUR times bigger now!

I've asked around and this is a pretty typical problem.

There are a lot of reasons for the declining response to e-mail but the biggest problem is that we're in Stage 2.

Here's something esle you may find interesting:

A key finding from an International Communications Research study is that despite today’s digital world and plethora of electronic media, consumers clearly prefer mail to all other communication vehicles, notably including e-mail… especially for receiving product and service offers.

• 73% prefer mail for receiving new product and service announcements, promotions, offers and other information from companies they do business with versus only 18% who prefer receiving the same content by e-mail.
• For confidential information such as invoices, statements, bank statements, financial reports, the preference is 86% mail, only 10% e-mail.
• 70% prefer mail for receiving information from companies they are NOT currently doing business with.  This makes new customer acquisition by all other means tough… and getting tougher.
• Below 10% prefer e-mail for receiving information from companies they are NOT currently doing business with.
• Only 31% of consumers say they frequently discard mail unopened identified as commercial in nature, but 53.2% say they frequently delete such e-mail unopened.

Now keep in mind this is a general population survey.  My own informal survey of busy entrepreneurs suggests 80%+ routinely delete unopened e-mail versus under 40% for mail.

Pretty interesting, huh?

Would you like to know WHY consumers prefer snail mail?

Well, they asked them. And they said:

• 45.3% – less intrusive, doesn’t interrupt other activities.
• 40.2% – more convenient, can easily be saved and considered at choice of times.
• 30.2% – less high-pressured, lets me arrive at a decision intelligently.
• 22.7% – more descriptive, provides better information.

The bottom line is pretty obvious…

Your customers prefer receiving
your info via direct mail!

And with the MOUNTAINS of evidence proving it, here are the BIGGEST reasons only a drooling moron would rely exclusively on e-mail and online marketing for customer acquisition and back end sales…

First of all, USPS's deliverability issues are pretty much a thing of the past. (In fact, if you know the secrets, you can get damn near close to 100% deliverability with direct mail.)

But let's look at a WORST case direct mail scenario:

If 900 out of 1,000 pieces of direct mail arrive, less 31% discarded unopened, that’s 621 little salesmen with a chance at making a sale.

But if only 200 out of 1,000 e-mails get delivered (which is a pretty good delivery rate nowadays)… less 53% deleted (typical)… that’s only 94 with a shot at making a sale.

Which do you think has a better chance at bringing in more sales?

Look, I could literally speak for DAYS about the intelligent use of direct mail and the various ways you can harness its power to make a LOT of money.

Today I'm just trying to show you that NOT using it is hurting your bottom line… BIG time!

Speaking of me speaking for days about direct mail, I recently mailed (yes, with direct mail) an offer to an exclusive group of direct response marketers for a small coaching program I'm doing on direct mail.

Not only am I revealing many of my best secrets for making money with direct mail, I'm offering a lot of one-on-one attention. And because of that, the program is NOT cheap.

It's in the $2,400 to $3,000 range.

And honestly, I think it's under-priced. You could easily make back your investment (and more) within a just a few short weeks… unless you're suffering from a recent head injury.

A lot of people expressed interest in the program but the price tag was a little too high for them.

So I'm thinking about offering the exact same coaching program… without the personal attention and without also giving away the DVDs of the webinars (I'll post them on a password-protected site instead), CDs of the audio… and without the written transcripts… but at a MUCH lower price.

See, the personal attention is the most time-consuming part, hence the high price.

But without that component, I think I can get the price down to about $700.

If there's enough interest, I'm planning on doing this coaching program for six straight days in October some time.

If you would be sincerely interested in my direct mail coaching program, please let me know by entering your first name and e-mail in the box below.

That will opt you into a special list and you'll get all the info about this as soon as it's ready… probably in another week or so.

Thanks!

Here's the box to opt in:

Dear Friend,

Here's something you can use right away to bring in a quick cash flow surge.

Click here to download a PDF of the mailing piece featured in the video.

All the best,

Dear Friend,

Some very enlightening facts about the power of direct mail.

Dear Friend,

Here's how to mine your mailbox for gold and find out what's working right now in direct mail.

Dear Friend,

There's been some weird stuff going on with YouTube tonight.

It looks like they've been doing some upgrades and making changes but it wasn't allowing you to upload videos for a while.

It looks like it's fixed now… so heeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr'es the next video from my YouTube 30-Day Challenge.