Was it really just a $2 BILLION DOLLAR lie?
In 1974 a man named Martin Conroy flicked through his swipe file of old 1920’s era ads, and then wrote what some have called...
"THE GREATEST SALES LETTER OF ALL TIME"
In case you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the famous Wall Street Journal sales letter about two men who took different paths in life.
It ran *uncontested from 1975 all the way up until 2003, sucking in $2 billion dollars for the Wall Street Journal.
But others seem to say it was meant for the trash bin.
What gives?
How on earth could it be possible that a sales letter that made $2 BILLION DOLLARS be considered... trash?
You would be right to ask that question.
I plan to explain (mathematically) why, they are wrong.
Let me catch you up on the drama…
But first, in case you’re reading my stuff for the first time ever, allow me just 3 sentences to introduce myself and credentials around this subject.
1. My name is Justin Brooke, former employee for the billion-dollar publishing giant Agora.
2. I’ve been writing copy and running ads online for 20yrs with 10’s of millions spent successfully.
3. Today, I am the founder of adskills where I’ve taught over 13,000 businesses how to profitably advertise their products.
Doesn't make me the royal high priest, but I'm no schlub...
🤬 COMPLAINT #1:
"It was stolen!"
As I said above, Martin Conroy was flicking through his swipe file when he wrote this sales letter.
The ad he stopped on was an ad from 1919 by Bruce Barton for The Alexander Hamilton Institute which read...
"From a certain little town in Massachusetts two men went to the Civil War. Each of them had enjoyed the same educational advantage, and so far as anyone could judge, their prospects for success were equally good. One man accumulated a fortune. The other spent his last years almost entirely dependent upon his children for support."
Stolen???
The two pieces wouldn't even trip up a free online plagiarism checker.
But to hear copywriters posture like this is stealing, well the only thing stupider would be if they said it while wearing their
#FunnelHacker shirt.
Swipe files are an important tool for any copywriter.
We don't steal anything; we use them for ideas. Bruce Barton had a great idea with his ad, and Martin Conroy used the idea but with all of his own words and story.
Using a swipe file didn't make Martin Conroy stupid, it made him a professional. Every competent marketer should have a swipe file of the greatest ads ever run.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
Scientists have done this for years with their research and it's how the biggest scientific findings in the world were reached.
One man learning from another man and making it just a little better each time.
That's called progress, not theft.
Martin seems to have done a pretty good job.
You know, $2 billion being made an all.
I'm sure his client was happy about it, and he probably got to raise his rates a bit afterwards.
🤬 COMPLAINT #2:
"It only converted at 0.3%!"
In a rare book about direct mail, Gordon Grossman, said that the offer wasn't that good, converted at only 0.3%, and only made that much because they ran it for 30 years without testing it.
Before we even get to Gordon, let's address the 64-foot-tall pink elephant (the 0.3% conversion rate).
Copywriters have loooong praised Agora and the Agora copywriters. They say that Agora copywriters are the best of the best and flaunt any training they might have received by one of them.
But Agora offers don't always convert as high as you might think.
As someone who has personally worked for Agora, I can tell you that some of their biggest promotions only converted at 0.5%.
You might be able to convert at 13% to your warm little in-house list, but when it comes to mass market campaigns it's common to convert at 1% or even less.
These offers don't work because of their conversion rate, they work because of their funnel math.
On the promotion I helped with that did over $1mil/mo in sales, the average CR% was 0.5%.
The reason this offer could scale was because we were earning more than $200 on average per customer while spending $120-$150 to acquire them.
Not even counting future backend high ticket sales.
Some of you are throwing out absolute winners, just because they didn't live up to an arbitrarily defined CR% goal. Meanwhile, all along what you should have been focused on was optimizing earnings instead.
AOV > CPA is what we've taught in AdSkills
That's the metric.
That's the whole game.
CR% will lead you astray if you chase it, I guarantee it.
In fact, if I were a betting man I would bet you could increase your earnings with a little less converting offer.
That's because converting TOO HIGH (yes, it's a thing) actually brings in unqualified customers or leads. Ultimately leading to wasted spend and reduced earnings.
There are customers who buy upsells and customers who ask for refunds, you only want more of the first type though.
Finally, could it be possible that Gordon was a little salty? Surely, never has a copywriter spread rumors about another copywriter trying to win clients. 🤷♂️
I don't know, I've not had a conversation with him.
But I do know this one thing...
If I ever write a piece that pulls in $2 billion dollars, my client is so happy they never test it, and they run it for 30 years straight - I'm not gunna be mad about that!
But I know a few salty copywriters on the Internet that will be!
If you liked this post, consider following
@IMJustinBrooke , I write about stuff like this every week.
✌️❤️
P.S. Any copywriter can pick apart a sales letter after the fact. But not every copywriter can write a letter that pulls in $2 billion dollars. The best way to show the world that you can beat a $2 billion dollar winner, is to write a $3 billion dollar winner.