In step with my recommendation to review headline writing and promoting copy that works, I assumed I’d share what many take into account to be the best gross sales letter of all time.

The next is an excerpt from the traditional direct-mail piece that generated an estimated $2 billion in income for The Wall Avenue Journal. I’ve seen diversifications and straight rip-offs dozens of occasions.

Right here’s the way it begins:

Expensive Reader:

On a fantastic late spring afternoon, twenty-five years in the past, two younger males graduated from the identical school. They had been very a lot alike, these two younger males. Each had been higher than common college students, each had been personable and each – as younger school graduates are – had been full of formidable desires for the long run.

Not too long ago, these two males returned to varsity for his or her twenty fifth reunion.

They had been nonetheless very a lot alike. Each had been fortunately married. Each had three youngsters. And each, it turned out, had gone to work for a similar Midwestern manufacturing firm after commencement, and had been nonetheless there.

However there was a distinction. One of many males was supervisor of a small division of that firm. The opposite was its president.

What Made The Distinction

Have you ever ever puzzled, as I’ve, what makes this type of distinction in individuals’s lives? It isn’t all the time a local intelligence or expertise or dedication. It isn’t that one individual needs success and the opposite doesn’t.

The distinction lies in what every individual is aware of and the way she or he makes use of that data.

And that’s the reason I’m writing to you and to individuals such as you about The Wall Avenue Journal. For that’s the entire goal of The Journal: To offer its readers data – data that they’ll use in enterprise. …

Is it the best gross sales letter of all time?

So, what do you suppose?

And most significantly, What’s your story?