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THE FRANKLIN MINT "100 GREATEST BOOKS" LETTERS
When the history of direct marketing in the twentieth century is written, chances are the greatest
single success story will be the mailing used by The Franklin Mint to enter the book publishing
field. With just a single mailing to two lists — The Franklin Mint's customer file and American
Express's merchandise buyers list — this classic package sold $110,00,000 worth of product.
Few organizations have ever devoted so much time, talent, and energy into fine-tuning letter copy.
At The Franklin Mint, it's a committee effort. Many of the country's top copywriters and marketing
executives add collective input to make sure every word, every sentence, and every paragraph
works to its maximum.
It's been said that a camel was a horse produced by a committee, and most committee-produced
letters are about as sleek as a camel. But thanks to a great copy chief, Ed Trautman, and marketing
staffs who understood the need for smooth-flowing copy, Franklin Mint letters always ended
up in the hands of a skilled copywriter and copy editor for a final polishing that smoothed out the
rough edges created by the multiple voices of the committee.
Because the typical Franklin Mint collectible was a highly visual product, an elegant full-color
brochure nearly always was part of the mailing. Yet letters were considered so important that
many mailings had not one, but two letters. Such was the case in introducing the highly successful
"100 Greatest Books" collection.
The first letter, which The Franklin Mint called an "imprimatur letter," was used to introduce the
basic selling letter. This is a valuable technique when the seller doesn't have established authority
in a given field. Turning to someone with established authority and using an introductory letter
to "transfer" authority to the seller permits the selling to get right into the sales story without
a lengthy introduction to convince the reader the message is worthy of attention.
For this mailing, there were two imprimatur letters. The one to The Franklin Mint's customers was
signed by Charles Andes, president of The Franklin Mint. It began:
As an established Franklin Mint collector, you know how satisfying it
is to collect things of beauty in precious metal.
In the accompanying letter, you will learn about another form of collecting
— one which can be equally rewarding. The collecting of fine
books.
The other letter, used for the portion of the mailing going to American Express merchandise buyers,
was signed by James A. Lancaster, an American Express vice president. It began:
What I believe will be the finest collection of books published in a
lifetime is described for you in the accompanying prospectus from
The Franklin Library. The Franklin Library is the publishing division
of the world-famous Franklin Mint.
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