The best paying piece of coffee advertising a grocer ever put out.
“Last summer when my wife came back from visiting her folks down East, she brought a couple of pounds of the coffee they were using down there.
I’ll own up that it made the best grade of coffee I had in my store taste like a cheap imitation. I made up my mind right away to stock it. But no one in this part of the country had ever heard of it, and there was no roaster’s name on the package.
It had a fragrance that would bring us hurrying to breakfast in the morning – you know how the odor of real good coffee starts your appetite. Its color was almost as red when you poured it as old port wine, and just as clear – turning to a beautiful brown when you added cream. And such a flavor!
I couldn’t stop hunting for it – wrote my wife’s people, got the grocer’s name, and wrote him, but could get no satisfaction. Finally, by sending the empty package to a trade paper, I learned where to get it. The coffee is the special blend of a little old firm of importers down on Coentie’s Slip in New York. They are old-fashioned and have followed the same methods for sixty years. Every dealer has to say in advance how much he will need during the year. He gets just that much and when that’s gone he gets no more till the next year.
But it’s worth the trouble. I now have the exclusive sale for this city – Ozama Coffee, it’s called – and it’s just as good as the sample my wife brought home. The importer fixes the price at 40 cents a pound and won’t let it be changed. I could get 50 cents if they’d let me, for you never tasted coffee like it!
Now, from the way my regular customers are taking to it, I doubt if I made my year’s order as big as I should. So I am not going to advertise it generally this year. I am just going to offer it personally to my regular trade and to a few selected families whose trade I would like to get.
I want you to try just one pound – I believe that when you have tasted it you’ll so appreciate the chance to get such coffee that you’ll maybe later try me out on other things, too.
But take my word and try out one pound now. No one else in this part of the country has this coffee, and only a few can have the privilege of enjoying it.”
This is a good example of a sales letter, successfully using the motive of “Self Indulgence”, the appetite for a good coffee.
Mailed by a grocer, he calls this letter was the best paying piece of advertising he ever put out.
It uses scarcity and exclusivity to a selected few families.
The intrigue is so tempting that the conversion rate was extremely high for the mailed copy.
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In this way, just by reading high-converting classical ads, you’ll be able to craft letters of similar efficacy.
You may hand-copy them, or just read and analyze each letter.
The fundamentals of human psychology and persuasion haven’t changed.
A letter that worked 100 years ago will work also today.
And whether you’re trying to sell coffee or a luxury car, the same principles will apply.
Please comment below on what fascinates you about this letter.