Would you like to write marketing copy that converts readers into customers? How can you tap into profitable markets and develop products that sell?
In The Boron Letters, Gary Halbert reveals time-tested secrets for direct marketing success and living a fulfilling life. Written from prison to his son Bond, these letters contain wisdom gained from generating billions in sales through mail-order advertisements.
Keep reading to discover proven strategies for identifying lucrative markets, creating compelling products, and writing persuasive copy that sells.
Overview of The Boron Letters (Gary Halbert & Bond Halbert)
If you were in prison when your child turned 16, unable to parent them during some of their most formative years, you’d probably want to write down and send them everything they need to know to succeed in life. In 1984, copywriter Gary Halbert was put in this position as he was serving a sentence for mail fraud in Boron Federal Prison Camp.
Through “the Boron letters,” Gary Halbert sent his son Bond a series of instructions, explaining how to get rich marketing products directly to consumers and, more broadly, how to live a happy and successful life. In these letters, Halbert distilled the most important secrets to his success, and anyone with a similar entrepreneurial spirit can use them to make a fortune.
Gary Halbert was a freelance copywriter whose mail-order advertisements brought in billions of dollars’ worth of sales. His business newsletter, The Gary Halbert Letter, attracted paying subscribers from more than 50 countries. Bond Halbert, who adds his own commentary to The Boron Letters, has carried on his father’s legacy. Bond Halbert has managed teams of copywriters in various top organizations, and he now works as an author on copywriting and as a copywriting business consultant.
We’ll begin this overview with advice on how to succeed in direct sales: First, we’ll talk about how to decide what to sell to make the most money. Next, we’ll discuss how to write persuasive marketing copy with the greatest chance of turning any reader into a paying customer. After discussing direct sales, we’ll broaden our scope to more general life advice, offering three tips for how to succeed at anything.
How to Decide What to Sell
Before you can get rich, you need to figure out what to sell. But this isn’t the first step: Gary and Bond Halbert contend that, before you decide what to sell, you need to figure out who to sell it to. In other words, you should identify a demographic or list of specific people that you intend to market to directly.
Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of first coming up with a “genius” idea for a product and then doing research to figure out what its target audience should be. The authors maintain that this is a mistake since it’s much easier to invent a profitable product than to find a profitable market.
How to Choose a Profitable Market
If the right market is more important than the right product, how do you choose a market? The authors contend that you’ll make the most money by tapping into markets that are already profitable. Come up with products similar to something that customers are already buying, and they’ll buy your products, too.
Trust Sales Data, Not Customers
When gauging how profitable a particular market is, don’t base your judgments on the information you get from surveys or direct conversations with potential customers. The authors warn that, when you ask people about what products they buy and want to buy, they often lie—knowingly or unknowingly—to make themselves look better. For example, if you interviewed people about their beverage choices and they claimed to buy more health drinks and less soda than they really do, you may falsely conclude that selling kombucha would be very profitable.
Instead, trust sales data. If sales reports say that people buy a lot of soda, another soda will be more likely to sell well, even if most people won’t readily admit that they want one.
To learn which markets are available for you to work in, the authors recommend browsing the SRDS Direct Mail List Book: a book created by the company Standard Rate and Data Services that compiles lists of direct sales leads for a wide range of products. This will not only give you specific names and contact information for potential customers, but it’ll also let you know which kinds of products generate the most sales. Gary Halbert bought a physical copy of this book, while Bond Halbert refers the reader to SRDS’s online resources.
How to Develop a Winning Product
Once you’ve identified a profitable market of potential customers, the next step is to decide what to sell them. Although the authors make it clear that their other marketing advice applies to entrepreneurs looking to sell any kind of product, they particularly recommend developing and selling a knowledge product: valuable information. Gary Halbert wrote and sold how-to “reports” through the mail, and Bond Halbert explains that the modern equivalent would be developing and self-publishing an eBook. Such a product has low overhead costs and is relatively straightforward to produce.
The key to developing a winning knowledge product is research. The authors recommend reading a series of books about a topic relevant to your chosen market. Then, study all the advertising materials you can get your hands on that sell the same kind of knowledge product that you want to sell. Take notes on everything you read and compile them into a comprehensive file for review. By condensing and rewriting the best ideas from everything you read and adding ideas of your own that occur to you, you can create a unique, valuable knowledge product.
How to Write Copy That Sells
After you’ve identified a profitable market and a product to sell in it, sending out convincing marketing messages (or “marketing copy”) is what turns leads into customers. Here are four of the authors’ tips for how to write persuasive, powerful marketing copy.
Tip #1: Follow the AIDA Model
When writing marketing copy, the authors recommend following the AIDA model: a decades-old template for persuading readers to buy your product. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action: four goals your copy should achieve, in this order. Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps.
Step #1: Attract Attention
First, your marketing message needs to grab the attention of potential customers. The authors note that unless your message is immediately interesting, no one will bother to read your full copy.
This part of your message doesn’t need to be persuasive in itself—it just needs to stand out enough to make people pay attention. For instance, if you send someone a letter that plays a song when they open it, they’ll read your copy to try and understand why.
Another way to attract attention the authors suggest is to make your message look different from typical advertisements, so the reader doesn’t know straight away that it’s a piece of marketing. If you can get them to read your message, you have a chance to hook them so they keep reading even after they realize you’re trying to sell them something. For example, the first few seconds of a television commercial might pretend to be an emergency news bulletin.
However, the authors note that whatever hook you use to attract attention must be relevant to your product. Otherwise, your audience will see it as a cheap trick, and they’ll feel irritated rather than interested. For example, if the aforementioned “emergency news” television commercial is a teaser for a science fiction TV series about a meteor about to hit Earth, audiences might accept it, but if it’s for something unrelated like car insurance they may feel manipulated and get annoyed.
Step #2: Create Interest
After you’ve hooked someone to start reading your copy, your next goal is to get them interested in what you have to say, argue the authors. To do this, offer a few interesting facts that tie into your product somehow. For instance, if you’re selling make-your-own-kombucha kits, write about how there are 100 trillion bacteria inside your digestive system (and drinking kombucha helps give you more of the healthy ones).
Another way to get your reader interested is by telling them a story: Describe a problem in your life, then reveal how your product helped you solve it. You might share the story of how you struggled with IBS for years until you started drinking kombucha every day, which alleviated many of your symptoms.
Step #3: Build Desire
The authors explain that the next step is to intensify your audience’s desire for your product by describing all the tantalizing benefits that the reader will experience if they buy it. Although it’s likely that your audience already understands how your product would benefit them, spelling out its benefits in detail will help persuade them on an emotional level.
Don’t just describe the product’s immediate uses—convey what the customer’s life will look like if they buy it. To be the most persuasive, use vivid imagery that evokes positive emotions. For instance, if you’re selling organic sleep aids, write about how good the customer will feel when they get out of bed with no mental fog and can appreciate the shimmering peach-colored sunrise.
Step #4: Spur Action
Last, your marketing copy should push the customer to buy your product, write the authors. Offer them a special deal that seems unreasonably valuable but time-sensitive: If they want to buy, they need to do it immediately. These deals are more effective the more personalized they are to the potential customer’s unique life situation. Additionally, provide a reasonable excuse as to why you’re giving them such a special, exclusive deal.
For example, if you’re selling sleep aids, you could send promotional emails exclusively to people who’ve recently bought another tool to improve sleep, like a sleep mask or white noise machine. Then explain that you’re offering three months of sleep aids free with the purchase of a year’s supply. Why? You used to be an insomniac and you know how painful it is, so you want to help other people who struggle with sleeping as much as you can. However, you only have enough funds to offer this deal for a limited time, so they need to act now!
To increase the likelihood of someone making a purchase, the authors recommend making it as easy as possible for them to order. To do this, explain in your copy, step by step, how they can buy your product. Err on the side of over-explaining to make sure that no customers get confused.
Tip #2: Make Your Copy Visually Appealing
Another way you can write persuasive marketing copy is by making sure it looks good on a purely superficial level, argue the authors. Neurologically speaking, people rely heavily on first impressions to decide how they feel about something. If your message is pleasant to look at the very first second they see it, they’ll be much more likely to keep reading. Not only that, it’ll be easier to persuade them because their brain will be biased to interpret your copy in a way that justifies their initial emotional response.
To make your copy visually appealing, design it so that anyone can read it with little to no effort, explain the authors. Use wide margins and a large text size, and include plenty of negative space. As a more general guideline, design your copy to look like the kinds of content that people read for enjoyment. For example, when designing an email newsletter, study how your favorite blog designs visually appealing articles.
Tip #3: Keep Your Writing Simple and Punchy
Another way to make your copy as persuasive as possible is to write in a punchy style that’s easy and enjoyable to read. The authors recommend using short sentences and simple words that everyone knows. Structure your text in short paragraphs that are easy to digest quickly.
More broadly speaking, write in a style that’s clear rather than showy. It doesn’t matter how clever or beautiful your copy is—what matters is how many people it converts into customers. Ideally, people reading your copy won’t think about the way it’s written at all.
Tip #4: Study and Imitate the Best Copy
One practical exercise you can improve your copywriting skills is to find some of the best examples of effective marketing copy, then read them out loud and rewrite them longhand, word for word. The authors contend that this will train you to instinctively recognize what makes high-quality, persuasive marketing copy. These instincts will then help you write original marketing copy that reads and sounds like the proven, successful examples you collected.
How to Succeed at Anything in Life
In addition to the tips for direct marketing that we’ve covered so far, the authors provide some general life advice for anyone trying to accomplish ambitious goals. Here are three tips for how to succeed at anything in life.
Tip #1: Build Your Life Around Periods of Mental Clarity
You almost always need a clear head to do your best, most productive work, argue the authors. Mental fog or emotional turmoil will make it impossible to write clear, effective marketing copy. More generally, they make every task seem more difficult and often lead to unwise and unproductive decisions in every area of life.
To maximize your productivity, build habits that allow you to work during periods of mental clarity and quickly recover when you’re feeling mentally drained. Getting regular exercise is vital for increasing your mental clarity. Specifically, the authors recommend running, jogging, or walking for an hour every morning as soon as you wake up. This will massively boost your mental clarity from day to day.
According to the authors, another habit that’s vital for maximizing your mental clarity is maintaining a healthy diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and protein. On top of this, try fasting one day a week: You can skip your morning exercise on the day you fast, but don’t eat any food whatsoever. This will help your body rest and reset for the rest of the week. That said, the authors diverge in their opinions on fasting: Although Gary Halbert swears by a weekly fast, Bond Halbert dismisses it as unpleasant and unnecessary.
Recover Mental Clarity by Staying Active
When you’re feeling stuck in a mental rut, the authors recommend taking a break and focusing on some other productive action. Even if you’re working on something that isn’t a top priority, productivity-focused effort of some kind will help get you inspired and re-energized.
What kinds of productive action do the authors recommend? Keep two to-do lists: One of important tasks that require mental clarity, and one of simpler yet also productive tasks you can do while mentally drained, like organizing the files on your computer or mowing the lawn. This way, whenever you’re feeling off your game, you can immediately switch to a doable task that still feels satisfying to complete.
Tip #2: Cultivate the Right Mindset
According to the authors, your mindset is the biggest factor that determines whether you’ll succeed. Specifically, cultivate the qualities of motivation, consistency, and resilience.
First, work up a strong sense of motivation. The authors contend that if you’re motivated to pursue success for its own sake, you’ll be able to make money without feeling like you’re trying. Thus, when deciding what to sell, make sure to choose something you’re excited to work with.
Second, commit to consistently working hard and practicing habits that lead to success, even when unforeseen problems disrupt your life. The authors explain that over a long enough timeframe, everyone gets offered opportunities for wild success. However, you can only take advantage of these opportunities if you’re ready for them; that is, if you’ve built habits that allow you to tap into your full potential at work every day. You’ll never have the perfect conditions to build these habits, so consistently work on them no matter what unexpected obstacles appear.
Finally, develop an attitude of mental resilience. Life is hard, but you can conquer it by cultivating a willingness to move forward despite the pain, argue the authors. Once you become mentally resilient, your demeanor will instinctively change, and it’ll be easier to gain respect from others. Working out and building muscle can help you cultivate this resilient mindset.
Tip #3: Avoid Unhealthy Social Relationships
The authors warn that, if you’ve set an ambitious goal—and especially if your goal is to make a lot of money—most people will protest and try to discourage you, including your family and close friends. The more great things you accomplish with your life, the more likely they are to feel bad about not accomplishing as much.
To avoid getting discouraged, be ruthless in cutting unsupportive people out of your life. Many people feel a sense of guilt or obligation to indefinitely maintain their close relationships, even if those people continuously make life harder and less pleasant. This will make it much more difficult to motivate yourself to succeed and will generally make life less fun. When cutting people out of your life, don’t purposefully try to hurt or offend them, but don’t feel bad about spending little to no time with them, either.
Instead of nurturing unhealthy relationships, the authors recommend spending time with ambitious people with aspirations similar to yours, or people who have already achieved success. You’ll be much more likely to succeed if your friends are a constant source of encouragement and are willing to help you reach your goals.
