How I'm getting more clients than I can handle from dollar bill letters

by 103 replies
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Hey fellow Warriors,

I've been getting some absolutely amazing results using an innovative two step selling system and thought you'd like to know about it.

What I do is rent lists containing names and addresses of my target prospects (ie dentists, chiropractors, doctors, restaurants, etc) and send them a dollar bill letter.

What's a dollar bill letter you ask? It's a letter pitching your service that uses a real live dollar bill attached where the headline would normally be.

I use plain white envelopes and live stamp to make letter look personal so it gets opened. Once opened you instantly grab their attention because instead of some hype filled headline staring at them you have a crisp dollar bill. (Whens the last time you got a letter with a dollar bill attached to the top?)

Because of this you've already slid right past the main hurdle to making sales which is a lack of attention on the part of the prospect. They receive dozens of pitches and they all look the same and have the same general promises.

This sticks out like a sore thumb and basically grabs them by the eyeballs. They can't help but want to find out why on earth you sent them a dollar bill. It literally forces them to read your letter!

Now it's just a matter of telling them the reason you sent them the dollar. The reason of course is because you wanted to jumpstart your profit improving relationship with them by giving them the first dollar of the large windfalls to come just to show them you're serious about helping them. Then you go on with explaining what you have to offer and why it's good.

The results of this are like an atom bomb! I've never seen anything like it before.

But I go a step further and wait about 9 days and then I send everybody who didn't respond a simple postcard asking if they got my letter... the one that had a dollar bill attached to the top. If they opened it they'll most certainly remember. Then I ask them to please contact me in regards to it. Simple and gets even more sales.

I'm going to keep this post short but I wanted to let you in on this little secret of mine. The results have been mind blowing and I wish I had come upon this system sooner. It's that good! It brings absolutely targeted leads directly into your funnel who are already very intrigued just by the way you contacted them. You stand out from the crowd like a sore thumb.

Trust me, once you try this you'll never go back to other methods for getting business.

I hope you got value from this!

Best,
Andrew
#offline marketing #bill #clients #dollar #generation #handle #lead #letters #offline #profitable
  • Brilliant idea,

    another method i also heard of was to include 2 dice (die?) in the letter, first of all because mail is more likely to be of interest if it is bulkier, and contains something other than the letter, and also to intrigue the reader, as with your dollar bill idea.

    -Michael
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    • I've used a similar system in the UK. What I use are printed flyers with a slightly enlarged (legal) picture of a £20 note on one side and a pre-printed sales message and contact details on the reverse side. with my photo. What I do is fold the 'note, so the £20 part is visible and use a paper clip to keep everything in place. It works like a dream!
  • So is this the windup ?
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    • I think it was the pitch...The WSO shows what a 10 dollar bill can accomplish I guess.
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  • nice post do you have a copy of the letter you sent ... it would be nice to get a look see
    Thanks
    ramohr
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    • 1 die, 2 dice

      Yes, bulky other than a $1 mail is good, not least because the smallest note in England is a fiver, which is $7.95. Postal rates have just gone up here again, making one really get the letter right!

      Lol, I didn't either. If we're 'winding up' in the UK, it means either we're teasing someone, or we're finishing something, not having a prelude to a pitch.
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  • I know that this type of DM campaign works, one other reputable member of the forum has done it and shared it about 4-7 months ago. Congrats on your success btw
  • I got a mail package from the nielsen ratings people (for those who live outside the US nielsen caculates what people are watching on tv and it helps advertisers and networks set budgets for commercials. They used to put Nielsen boxes in people's homes to track their viewing habits and would sell the information). In the package was 2 bucks and information about their survey they wanted me to take. Since I had a few minutes I went ahead and took it online. I won't lie, the two bucks got my attention because otherwise I would have trashed it.
  • I've been dying to try out the dice method myself I like how the dice kind of imply to "take a chance".

    Just need to find somewhere to get a ton of them cheap.. maybe the dollar store.
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  • Yes, that method has been around for longer than I have!

    But its good to know that it is still working even today when a dollar is worth a lot less.
  • I dont have any problem imagining 100 one dollar bills going out, and returning in the form of a maybe a couple of $1500 customers or maybe even more.

    never did this, but have thought it. Makes sense. It would probably cost $200 to get a 2k or more return just theorizing based off what seems like common sense here.

    The problem with conversion ratios with diorect mail is largely that no one opens them...

    So if you have a 1/10 call in ratio from the ones who open it and read, and then a 30% closing ratio with the live prospects, then that means you can close 3 out of that hundred as long as all hundred are opened and read, which usually I would think is less than half that (again based on my own guesses).

    So I can see how the dollar would work because virtually EVERYONE would give you the time to at least open and give a moment of consideration.
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    • Obviously, the key with direct mailing is following up with a phone call. That would basically mean: I want to see who's interested first(ie the ones that call you), and then, those that don't call, follow up with them and see "if they got your mailing piece" .
    • This is where I think a combination of chunky mail with the dollar bill would come into play and covert nicely.
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    • How about if you put the dollar bill in a clear envelope, where it can be seen from the outside?

      That would definitely get opened!

      (but hopefully not by the postman)
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  • Here is one idea, use dice and dollar bill. Attach dollar to letter and fold into three, like you normally fold a letter.
    Then on outside use a sticky note and say "Roll the dice before opening this letter"
    Some will roll, most wont but they will be curious.

    Then they open, dollar appears or falls out, and letter starts something like congratulations, no matter what you roll you will come up a winner with one of our campaigns....
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    • now if someone did this to me and i had a business, i would surely call them
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  • Okay.. maybe I'm just a junk mail hater.. what if they don't open the mail at all? Do you put something on the envelope that says there is money inside? Because I own a non profit and I get so much mail most is just trashed without being opened.. I wonder if I missed any money from them??
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    • Put it in one of those imitation FedEx envelopes if you want to make sure it gets open....
    • This would be my concern, too, if it's just in a plain envelope. I think having a "chunky" piece of mail would do better.
  • Nice story, but I don't believe any of it.

    However, if you can show some actual numbers and facts, I'll try to believe it. How many did you mail? When did you mail them? What was the offer? How many conversions? How long does a conversion take? How did you track? How many came back in the mail unopened? Did you run a control campaign with no dollar bill enclosed? How did that compare? How many times have you repeated this campaign? What were those results? If they don't convert during the first campaign, do you step up with a $2 or $5 bill?

    I really want to know more about this. But I can't just take your word for it.
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  • Handwriting the address and their name is very important to get them to open your mail piece, it almost guarantees that they will open it.
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    • It does, or you just say it does? What is your source?
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  • Fed ex them a box with a shoe in at - headline "now that i have my foot in the door....."
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  • I did my first direct mailing campaign 5 days ago but with a VERY small sample(30), so I did not want to say "I've tested it".

    So your "almost guarantee" is more like a guess?

    ... its about how targeted your receivers are and how good the offer is.

    Well, what about marketing isn't?
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    • lol if you just want to argue for no reason, thanks but I am not in the mood for that and its time consuming. You sound like one of those prospects who don't plan to buy but they just want to give you a hard time and waste your time( and theirs).

      How about you try it yourself and then come back and tell us whether you had any success.
      What worked for me, might not work for you. What I can guarantee for myself, I can't guarantee the same for you. Simple as that.
      I know for a fact, that handwriting the address will make the envelope look more personal, you can disagree with it all day long but other posters in this thread agree with it. So if I were to send an envelope of this type to you, you will maybe throw it out, but most of the other people I've sent it to will open it.

      And yes, marketing is all about that, but most of the people in this board think that they can just send 100 mail pieces and get 2 clients, w/o making a targeted list to market. Or send 1000 emails and get 2 clients.
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  • Anyone even remotely involved in direct marketing has probably heard of The
    Dollar Bill Letter. It was originally created in the 1920’s by Robert Collier, a legendary advertising copywriter.

    Gary Halbert an accomplished copywriter, actually popularized the Dollar Bill Letter in the 1970's through the 90's

    Gary Halbert also did other interesting things like... attached pennies, dimes, twenty dollar bills and even one hundred dollar bills to his sales letters!

    Here is a copy of the Dollar Bill Letter That I use!
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  • I actually talked about this in a thread 6months ago. It definitely works... I've actually taken an additional 5 steps to make the conversions skyrocket further.

    Steps are:

    1. Call prospect - let them know that you're going to send them a letter (with a cash prize) and an analysis of their company's performance online.

    This first step is CRUCIAL, has it does 2 important things. First, it makes the person who GETS THE MAIL (gatekeeper) and let's them know that money is coming in the mail. MORE IMPORTANTLY though, we verify the data. Verifying your data is such an important step. We buy data and a bulk of the time, the business owner's have changed or they've deceased or something else has happened.

    2. We take our new segmented list and write a kick-a$$ salesletter directed to the actual business owner (now that they've been verified through step 1).

    3. We attached $1 bill to it, add 2 dice and a nice little competitor analysis.

    4. We stick this all in a nice large, manila envelope and add a few rubber stamp graphics. ...c'mon, let's add a little sense of urgency to open!

    5. Sales team follows-up with them 2 days after the day they should've got it to schedule a face-to-face meeting to close the deal. (that's of course if they haven't called us first)

    6. Close minimum $1k-$5k/mo. SEO deals. And we usually will close an additional $2k-$10k web design deals about 30% of the time.

    It's all about targeting, segmenting and nurturing your list. You shouldn't take a shotgun approach to direct mail, or else you'll end up spending a bunch of money.

    PS - we're going to start playing around with $5 attached depending on how much gross revenue the company did the last year (again, verifying the data helps with this). In my mind, I'm more then happy to drop $500 on 100 pieces of mail (leads) that are verified - just to get ONE CLIENT back at $2k/mo. (but that doesn't happen... conversion rates are much better then that).

    It's out there... go get it! I always tell students of mine - these business owner's know the internet is the way to go, the media and everyone tells these people that. They just want to be sold on something that is going to work - BE THAT DIFFERENCE and provide that VALUE!
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  • Here is another way to do the dollar bill thing. I just thought of this and it is based on something that Readers Digest used to do way back when. They would send out a check to people in the amount of 10 cents, yes 10 cents.

    It came along with a letter that said you can either cash this check OR use it to buy this awesome book, the first in a series. The idea that people would think it was a way better idea to spend the 10 cents on this valuable book and would then commit to sampling other books in the series at a special price, cancel anytime thing.

    So with that in mind, send the dollar with a note that states they could spend the dollar how they like OR trade it in on a one hour consultation with you valued at xxx where you will show them how to make lots of loot with your super internet marketing plan.

    I think that people getting such a proposition are more likely to take you up on it (and for Beeswarn, I have not tested this, its purely speculation based on what RD did and what I know about psychology) than if you had just offered a free consultation because it feels like they are losing out on such a great proposition if they dont.

    Back to Readers Digest , why would I cash this lousy 10 cent check when I can get a book valued at $10 with it-Why would I want to keep this measly dollar when I can trade it in for a $xxx consultation.
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  • I would think hand addressing or printed address would make a difference if you are mailing B2C, but with B2B, not so much. Businesses get important letters and checks in the mail all the time, so the chances of them throwing something into the junk pile just because it has a printed address is less. Of course with B2B mail you have the problem of a secretary trashing your letter before the boss you are trying to reach even sees it.
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    • Totally planning on trying this, but not with dice. I think a pair of sunglasses would be a better insert for what I offer. Hmmmm....
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  • I have sent out over 600,000 direct mail letters and postcards since 2003 for various small businesses in the United States. I will say that the response is better with a handwritten address, but in some of the larger campaigns ( Hallmark store 1,500 letters weekly) due to time constraints we used labels. Other consultants using the same approach share the same results with me.

    I have heard about different color ink making a difference, but I never saw it. Also, having a female with nice handwriting will definitely get you a higher open response. Some of my info is based on talking to the customers who would visit the store and I would ask lots of questions including about our direct mail piece.
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  • I'm going to have to look into direct mail stats, as it blows my mind that some people love this stuff. I can't stand to get a piece of mail with some piece of plastic or other rubbish. Send me a dollar and I'll keep it, but I may or may not even read your letter.
    Obviously I may not be the target market though!

    Someone was asking the other day about how to help a local grocery store. If they put a watermelon in the envelope, that could classify as lumpy mail and free sample at the same time.
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    • Here's how I do it:

      I take a crisp dollar bill and place it on my desk. I then hand write the number of the business I want to send it to.

      Then I pick up the phone and call the business.

      It works pretty well because I can use the same dollar bill all week until I decide to spend it.
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  • I was a direct salesperson for a remodeling company for a bunch of years and a lot of times you get BS objections like "I promise I'll call you next week, we just have to get our loan straightened out" or "I'll call you next tuesday after dad has his surgery, we really want to do it but we'll call you thursday" type of crap.

    Part of the way I'd handle that objection was to take out a $100 bill that I had plastered with peoples name written in ink on it.

    I'd say... "here, just sign your name on this and when you call me back to do it like you say, you can have this". These are all the people that have told me the same thing.

    Now what's REALLY stopping you from doing it now, Mrs Jones?


    *note: sorry for being a bit off-topic here
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    • @Bob Ross - I don't think you're off topic at all. If anyone was off topic it was me in my last post. However, what it's really about is finding what it takes to get people to take action. In your example it's about taking action to make a buying decision, and that idea is a great motivator.
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  • Awesome thread!
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    • Wow-thanks everyone for contributing so Much to this Thread I was just looking at trying this as I dont have 10 bucks to toss at FedEx just yet or Priority Mail so perfect timing.
      i just had a guy from a Skype group tell me also maybe try sending A Poker Chip and say something like,isn't it time you stopped Gambling on your marketing methods.
      Call ME
  • This is a brilliant approach to getting there attention, top notch, thansk for the share.
  • An old trick that still works! How many letters are you sending out? And what is the response?
  • I really wish Australia had $1 bills the lowest we have is 5 but really you can do this with any cheap item all you have to do is some how relate it to what ever you were talking about in the headline. There is a guy who attaches jelly beans to the end of his sales letter thanking them for reading all of the sales letter.
  • bob ross ... I have a remodeling client, absolutely LOVE your $100 bill idea! LOL
  • This idea is golden. I'm going to implement it and report back.
  • Dan Kennedy mentions this dollar bill strategy in a number of his pieces , it works for him (of course else he wouldnt say about it ;-)) .

    Lovers of cold calling will poo poo DM, and vice versa, heres the thing, put it all together and you get even better results , DM followed by phoning, or phoning followed by DM, different people respond to different approaches so give them different communications to increase the conversion chances
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    • It definitely hammers home the point!

      Hah, thanks for the info, I'm such a renegade I guess!
  • So for being on topic, the way to get the best responses for me is a white envelope with a hand written address on it and a normal stamp. for return address use your own name...

    Or if you want to spend some money, sent them a report, it could be reputation report or a SEO report whatever and sent it in a A4 envelope (i don't know if you guys us the same format in the US, you guys seem to do everything different) but sent it in a plastic map, the kind of map that have to pierce two holes in the paper and on the envelope ad a sticker with confidential, handwritten address and normal stamps.

    This has always work great for me, it cost a bit of money, per piece you should be thinking of $5- a piece.

    And the last one is personalized postcards, you can use a service like Heyello.com, you can sent these postcards via them, it is expensive though, i used a similar service for me mobile sites, it works really great.

    That is how i do my prospecting....
  • OP, I sent you a pm concerning one of your WSO please I need your reply.
  • The only thing I believe in this thread is the OP's original assertion that he's getting more clients than he can handle. That number might be 1 or possibly 2, but it's a real number I'm sure.

    In a year of using this forum, I've never seen David Miller state or imply that telephone prospecting is the only way to generate business. But I've seen him give lots of examples of how and why it's the most efficient way to start that has ever been devised . The way you're browbeating that man, while he's offering experienced advice to beginners, is despicable.

    Of course there are hundreds of ways to market your offers. But this one is fundamentally retarded and beneath the consideration of any professional.
  • While I've heard of this concept before, I like some of the other ideas that everyone has bounced around. You've all just filled my head with an enourmous number of possible angles to work should I decide to implement some direct mail into my new directory that I'm building

    Never a disappointment in the Offline forum!
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  • This thread just turned into the battle of the ages:







    cold callers I only rip on you cause you have thick skin
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  • Hi Andrew,

    That's a neat idea! It reminds me of the time I got a salesletter letter in the mail and the marketer put a metal key in with the letter. When I was going through my mail, that one stuck out before I even opened it, because I could tell, just by holding the envelope, that there was some object inside the envelope, which forced me to open it, to see what it was. I did end up reading the whole letter.

    Their "tie-in" with the key was something along the lines of, "We'll show you the key to better marketing" or something like that. At any rate, I thought you might like this idea too, because the recipient will notice the envelope even before they open it and it grabs their attention as soon as they just pick up the sealed envelope. I'm sure you could probably get a whole bunch of uncut keys at your local hardware store for a couple of bucks. :-)

    -Terry


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  • do some more work for him ,,,, i think he is not satisfied with your work !
  • For someone who has used 1 or 2 dice in their letter, how much was shipping?
    If someone has used a key in their letter, how much was shipping?

    Thanks!

    edit:

    I was thinking you could potentially buy this, and then sort it into smaller bags and attach it, rather than a dollar bill. Add a description like "This is the money you are throwing away by not giving me a call."

    http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/5lb...scurrency.aspx
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    • Love it!!! Thanks for sharing this link. I absolutely love lumpy mail and haven't seen this one, but I'm definitely going to use it.
  • Good concept. Shame the lowest denomination in the UK is £5.

    I do like the sound of a pair of dice or a blank key...
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    • Speaking of dice, you can get "double dice" for a more interesting effect:

      http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6X3Ol4VXt_...ouble-dice.jpg (Not an aff link)

      I've used them before (not with this idea, but in other mailings), and they are very eye-catching, plus they rattle when you shake the package.
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  • Thanks candres79 for the letter you use.
  • I really like some of the ideas here. Attention grabbers are really useful to get the person concentrated on the message and benefits.
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  • Once I get my business running during the summer, I am going to split test this. Here are the inexpensive items I will be attaching to my letters (if you have suggestions for what I should say corresponding to each item, I am all ears. I have included some rough draft examples of what could be said)

    2 cents "here is my 2 cents"
    $1 dollar bill "let me give you a jump start on the profit I can make you"
    $1 coin (same as above)
    Shredded money "You are literally throwing away your money"
    key "key to your success"
    dice "why take the risk with other companies, when my method is proven!"

    here are some more items that I am considering, which will really stick out:

    sunglasses "
    nuts "you're nuts to pass up this opportunity
    eraser "erase away your troubles"
    pencil sharpener "sharpen your advantage"
    lego block "I've been around the block"
    mini magnifying glass "Potential clients can't find you, let me help with that!"
    batteries
    poker chip

    and I just found more here: 3DMail


    For people who have done this, do you suggest to ship in a regular envelope, fed ex envelope, etc..? What do you use, how much is shipping, etc..?

    *
    did this thread die?
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  • Try a million dollar bill letter to test, and if it works it'll save you a little bit of money.
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