How Not to Write a Direct-Mail Package (Or, Their Mistake Is Your Gain)
I'm a direct-mail junkie. It's not that I admire those who kill trees and fund the U.S. Postal Service in order to sell magazines no one in his right mind would read and that future historians will not even bother to reference in a footnote.
No, it's a pragmatic kind of addiction. It's my job, you see, to comb over the letters and reply cards and mailing envelopes that are developed by professional copywriters at four or five grand a pop, to ferret out ideas that might help us in our own direct-mail campaigns for Chronicles. Because, sadly, even the best magazine in the United States (and one of the best in the Western world) loses subscribers over time. And even in this age of electronic communications (at least until the promised Singularity arrives), the most efficient (though admittedly expensive) way to replace those lost subscribers (not to mention increase subscriptions) is to send out our own direct mail.
(You didn't think the readers of this website kept us in business, did you? By their own account, a majority of them are allergic to both the paper Chronicles is printed on and the paper used to print checks. But that's another story for a different day.)
Unlike most junkies, I'm rather disciplined about my addiction. As various direct-mail packages arrive at the office, I let them pile up on my desk. About once per month, a day or two after we send the latest issue of Chronicles to press, I clear away the last round of page proofs and settle in for a long afternoon of direct-mail bliss.
This month, I've been anticipating opening one particularly interesting piece of direct mail. There's nothing fancy about the plain white envelope, and, unlike many direct-mail packages, it doesn't rely on an additional ink color to catch the recipient's eye. The bold black sans-serif font provides a certain weight to the short message, presented in all caps:
DO YOU SUPPORT A WAR WITH IRAN?
IF SO, THROW AWAY THIS ENVELOPE.
Clever, that. In the guise of weeding out recipients who might not be interested in the contents of the envelope, that message really whets the appetite of the type of reader the publication—in this case, our good friends at The American Conservative—wants to attract. There's a lesson to be learned there, and I thank The American Conservative's well-paid copywriters for teaching it to me, free of charge.
Before I got around to opening the envelope to see what other lessons I might learn, however, one of our board members sent us a copy of the letter inside. And it turns out that, despite the promising outer envelope, The American Conservative severely overpaid its copywriters.
After all, what publication spends money on a direct-mail package to promote its competition? As any reader of our magazine (or even just of this website) will immediately realize, the following lines clearly describe Chronicles:
Only one magazine on the Right warned against the Iraq War before it started. (And warned about the housing bubble as well.) Only one magazine on the Right opposes war in Iran and empire-building around the world.
The only thing The American Conservative's copywriters forgot to mention was how to subscribe to the magazine that Patrick J. Buchanan, a subscriber to Chronicles since 1981 and a founding editor of The American Conservative, described as "the toughest, best-written, and most insightful journal in America." But their oversight is your gain:
For a limited time, you can receive 12 issues of Chronicles at the special low introductory rate of $19.95 by calling (800) 877-5459 and mentioning the code "AMCON."
That's over 65 percent off of the newsstand rate of $59.40—the equivalent of seven free issues. Have your credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover) ready when you call—and remember, this offer won't last forever!
P.S. It turns out there was one final lesson that The American Conservative's copywriters could teach us, though I'm afraid it was one they didn't intend: Remember that some of the people who receive your direct mail have long memories, and don't try to pull the wool over their eyes. You see, The American Conservative's direct-mail letter was signed by Wick Allison, the president of the American Ideas Institute, which underwrites The American Conservative. Back in 1991, when Chronicles and Pat Buchanan were opposing the first Gulf War, Wick, of course, was the publisher of National Review, which was beating the war drums for it.
Entries(RSS)
On target. I hope Wick Allison sees this.
Okay, okay. Please make it stop. I'll renew.
A most amusing formulation! Mr. Richert is wise to highlight Chronicles prescience in the matter of Middle Eastern wars (not to mention Balkan ones!)
It still pains me to read that a majority of folks online don't subscribe! C'mon folks!
Okay, I'm a subscriber, and that won't change any time soon, but Anthony Weiner, Glen Beck, Whitney Houston & Samuel Jackson, Hilary Clinton, Newt Gingrich & Obama . . . what do they all have in common? They've all been Chronicles covers over the past several months! I know controversy sells and one should not judge magazines by their covers or whatnot, but would it kill you guys to, once in a blue moon, pick a cover image that doesn't make me gag?
It's the only niggling complaint I can justly lodge.
Will the $19.95 rate apply for a current subscriber who buys an unsolicited subscription for a family member or two?
I second Mr. Colin's remark about non-subscribers. Paper Chronicles isn't just a longer version of online Chronicles. You actually get more and different stuff!
Admittedly, you do miss out on the highly informative and (often) entertaining exchanges that follow each entry. But at least you can enjoy it from the safety of your easy chair and never risk being banished to the Pending File.
Speaking of Chronicles subscriptions, I want to thank a Mr. Richard L Oliver, a name I cannot recall, for gifting me a Chronicles subscription, presumably after he read my exchange with Fleming about having to drop all of my magazines for financial reasons.
Dom, if you (or any other readers) want to give gift subs, we'll give you that rate. But instead of calling the 800 number in the post, call (800) 383-0680, and ask for Cindy Link. Give her the code "AMCON," and you can purchase as many gift subs as you'd like for $19.95 each.
I was about to renew anyway, so I guess I can take advantage of this, even though I really hate doing anything over the phone since I'm antisocial and all.
Really now, those who post regularly here should subscribe and actually read the magazine. Come on, people! Twenty dollars? Come on! Less than a cheap bottle of wine or close to a case of beer. Forego the beer if you have to, your gut wont get any bigger if you do!
Reading it will cause your synapses to fire in synchronous timing and tune-up your cortex. It'll make your frontal lobes feel warm and fuzzy, but somehow sharpened and honed. You can feel it!
I cant help but second Mr Cornell. Though the cover art is humorous at times and always good quality, make us gag less, please!!
So the very next day after I made my above complaint about the Chronicles covers I receive the latest issue adorned with good ole Texan cowboys! Talk about customer service! I don't know what kind of strange psychic powers you have up there in Illinois, but with a response time like that I might should just go ahead and extend my subscription for the next 10 years!
Thanks!
Nagging, effective.
Actually I suscribed months ago because this is a damn good magazine.
Great. I'll try to call tomorrow. I have three victims in mind. . .
What a TAC fund raising appeal should say:
Only one magazine on the Right employs the liberal blogger Noah Millman.
Oops. I didn't just say that. Sometimes my frontal lobe fails me.
Scott,
I think I renewed my subscription for three years about two weeks before you posted this, but I don't really regret it much. The pictures of Texas cowboys, the poetry, the life talked about in the Chronicle's April issue is a miniature portrait of what your magazine is all about most of the time : It says what Robert Penn Warren said about life, what Andy Adam's cowboys said about poetry and what Robert Frost said of why there is so little left of any of it left. But I appreciate Chronicle's efforts towards 'The Last Rally' for the thing itself.
The poem... is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see - it is, rather, a light by which we may see - and what we see is life. ~Robert Penn Warren
“If you got to talking to most cowboys, they'd admit they write 'em. I think some of the meanest, toughest sons of bitches around write poetry.”
The poet, as everyone knows, must strike his individual note sometime between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. He may hold it a long time, or a short time, but it is then that he must strike it or never. School and college have been conducted with the almost express purpose of keeping him busy with something else till the danger of his ever creating anything is past. ~Robert Frost