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FLY FISHERMAN MAGAZINE "TROUT SPOKEN HERE" LETTER
John Francis Tighe is not only one of the top writers of book and circulation promotion letters, but
he is also one of the most prolific writers about writing. Two of his circulation promotion letters
are included in this section. He comments:
■ These letters demonstrate the importance of establishing credibility for your sales
pitch by talking to the prospect in his own language.
What makes letter writing a unique advertising medium is its personal quality. A
good sales letter is essentially a first person communication from one human being
to another. It is vital for that one-to-one feeling to come through, even in cheap offset
letters such as these — and even though the prospect knows he is reading a form
letter.
The Fly Fisherman mailing uses language so specialized that after several years, I no
longer know what some of the words mean. But because one wrong connotation
would have torpedoed the mailing by revealing its author as a smartass copywriter
instead of an angler, I went to great lengths to learn the vernacular — which was
something like learning Portuguese. However, it paid off. The mailing became the
control, and may still be.
Actually, although the letter is filled with "fishing talk," the language is really quite downto-earth
and understandable by almost everyone. It begins:
There's bait casting. There's spin fishing. And then there's fly fishing —
— what Robert Traver (author of Anatomy of a Murder but best
known to fishermen for his love affair with trout) called "one of the
more amiable forms of an incurable madness."
if the hairs on your neck tingle at the vision of a dusk-rising brown
gently finning as he looks upstream for hors d'oeuvres, you've got
the madness.
I know I do. I'm the Editor of FLY FISHERMAN. Like Robert
Traver I fish because . . .
It's worth taking special note of the postscript at the end of this outstanding letter. I like a P.S.
(often read first) that introduces a "what's that all about" element. This encourages the reader to
search the body copy to discover an answer.
P.S. We've ordered enough FREE CREELS — we think — to meet the
anticipated response. But they are likely to go fast, so why risk waiting
months while we re-order? Since your creel will be shipped as
soon as you pay for your subscription, why not get if immediately by
enclosing payment now?
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