“How to get CEO:s of fast growing companies to respond to your sales letter in 24 hours or less”

Are you a B2B marketer? Do you want to reach CEO:s of big successful businesses? Do you want them to contact you and think that you’re a genius?

If you answer “YES!”, then sit down, pour yourself a glass of your favorite drink (I’m drinking beer) and listen up, so I can tell you how to get the Head Honcho to respond to your sales letter and suggest a meeting within 24 hours.

Here’s the story:

One day when I got home after work I found a jiffy bag in the mail. Funny, I thought. I don’t remember ordering any books or CD:s, I wonder what this is. Now this was just a jiffy bag with my name and adress on it. No return adress. Anyway, when I stood in the elevator I got so curious that I ripped the jiffy bag open, slipped my greedy little fingers inside and found … A chocolate bar.

Really? Who sent me a chocolate bar? And why?

I looked at the chocolate bar. It said only one thing.

“Welcome back”.

And then a logo of “MatHem” (food delivery service).

Now me and my wife usually buy our food from “MatHem”, since we like to save time and since we don’t really enjoy going to the food store at 5pm with two cranky and hungry kids.

Anyway, this direct mail campaing was a 100 % failure in my eyes.

Sure, it’s nice to get free chocolate. It’s nice to hear someone say, “Welcome back”.

BUT ...

No offer. No letter. No link to website. No nothing.

Let’s see how The Donald would have tweeted:

Disgusting. Total failure. So sad.

This of course irritated me to no end.

But I also saw an opportunity to get a new client.

If they did their direct mail campaigns this bad it would be a no brainer to succeed.

So that night I poured myself a glass of white wine. Slapped my ass in the sofa and started to write. In just a couple of seconds I will show you the letter I wrote. But first let me explain my reasoning behind the letter.

They (MatHem) sent me a chocolate bar in i Jiffy bag. So …

1 I decided I would send my letter to their CEO in a Jiffy bag. Exactly the same kind they sent to me.

2 On the top of the letter I put the chocolate bar paper AND a post it note

3 On the post it note I wrote an offer plus a call to action with a specific link to their website. I wrote this in a 1-2-3 style. Like this:

1 Offer

2 CTA

3 Link to website

And in the letter I wrote this:

Dear Carolina!

My name Krister Maxe and I want to give you a big thank you for the chocolate you sent me in the mail. The fact that the chocolate was dark turned out to be a big benefit to me since my wife only likes “regular” chocolate, so I was left alone in the sofa munchin on the the wonderful piece of 70 % cocoa chocolate. I really appreciate it.

As you already know, me and my wife are customers of yours. Or I should say, we have been customers of MatHem. We really enjoyed getting our food delivered directly to our apartment. And we have been really satisfied with your deliveries. But as you know it is hard to change routines. It is difficult to change habits.

So one Sunday afternoon we forgot to order our food from your website. And presto! The next day we stood in the line of the convenient store with two hungry and cranky kids at 5 pm. Again.

So why have we not started to buy from MatHem once again? I was actually thinking about this while I sat on the couch munchin on the chocolate you sent me. It was extremely tasty. And only with natural ingredients too. Awesome!

But as I sat there on the couch, Mr Miser showed up. And he said, “Why didn’t I get a “Welcome back offer”. Mr Miser is like that. And it was not only Mister Miser that showed up in the sofa. His friend, “Mr Martyr” also came by. And he wondered why there were no personal letter enclosed with the chocolate. “I’ve been a customer for over a year, he whined. Don’t they appreciate me as a customer, he wondered?” Mr Martyr is like that.

And then “Mr Results” showed up. He is an annoying bastard. He is constantly nagging about what works and what doesn’t work in direct mail and other marketing channels. And now he was asking, “How are they going to measure this? (He made his own suggestions on the post it note, sorry about that).

The chocolate you sent me is a really nice gesture. It is (like Mr Results said) difficult to measure though, since there were no link to your website and no landing page I could visit to get a welcome back offer. You could call all your customers who got the chocolate I guess but I haven’t received any phone call (Mr Martyr again).

Anyway, I really enjoyed the chocolate. Thanks again!

Kind regards,

Krister Maxe, Copywriter

PS. If you think that I have taken a long time to get to the point, you’re absolutely right. But I know from experience that you will read this first, so here’s my offer:

My colleague Barbara and I would really like to buy you lunch and tell you more about how we can help you get high response from your direct mail campaigns to your current customers. I’m taking the liberty to call you in a couple of days to hear if you are interested. If you want to call me, you can reach me at (my phone number).

.

** END OF LETTER**

Here’s Karolins response, which I got at 10.00 am the day after I sent the letter:

Subject line: Wanted: Contact with Krister Maxe

Hello!

I rarely take any meetings but your letter is irresistible. Please suggest a time for lunch, preferably close to my office so we can meet as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Karolin, Founder of MatHem

I hope you found this useful.