For a lesson or two in selling a prestigious and pricey product to a discerning prospect, look no further than Easton Press.
The above ad, featuring distinguished British-American actor, John Houseman, appeared on four glorious pages of the January 1985 issue of Connoisseur magazine.
The product?
“The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written” collection by Easton Press.
Mind you, these aren’t the paperbacks tossed near your front door, but the world’s greatest literature, bound in genuine leather, and decorated with real gold.
This ad offers four powerful lessons in direct response selling…
1) How to use long copy to sell high ticket products
2) How to sell subscriptions
3) The art of product positioning
4) How to make an irresistible offer
While the price of a leather-bound Easton Press edition doesn’t place it in the same league as an Hermès scarf, a Patek Philippe watch, or a Montblanc pen, at $37.50 in 1985 (or $110 in 2024 dollars), it was the undisputed top dog in the world of mail-order books.
The copy in this epic four-page insertion highlights all of the hard-hitting appeals to sell to highbrow prospects in almost any high end market.
And Easton leads with a testimonial headline from the perfectly cast, John Houseman.
“Among my prized possessions, I treasure my Easton Press Books”
When you find winning ads from companies that have been going strong for fifty years, it’s important to put their offers under the microscope to understand the WHY and the HOW behind their success.
There’s no better medium than the print ad (or the press ad as they call it in the UK and Australia) for pinpointing winning offers, and no finer crystallization of it than the old fashioned order coupon.
And speaking of most expensive products, here’s an ad that opened my eyes to the world of high-end product positioning twenty-five years ago.
In 2010, newsletter publisher, author, and copywriter Stuart Goldsmith wrote to me: “Yes, I really enjoyed writing that letter—it’s one of my favorites. We sold a shed-load of books at that price too, and no refunds!”
At £285 ($465 USD at the time), the price definitely caught prospects’ attention, and this is where…
Product positioning leapt off the screen…
right from the headline.
It wasn’t just about the information in the book, but rather: “Can you afford the world’s most expensive money-making book?”
And then, for a readership top-heavy with opportunity seekers, came these compelling lines of copy:
“Sales letters like this are usually heavy on the guarantee. They promise unconditional and instant money-back if you don’t like the product for any reason.
Want to know what the guarantee is with the world’s most expensive moneymaking book?
Zippo. Nada. Zilch.”
The product positioning was perfect for this target market.
I was so impressed with Stuart’s letter that I ended up buying the entire, dusty inventory of his client’s seminars on (don’t laugh) VHS cassettes, and reselling them for a life-saving tenfold return. The Scottish property manager literally retrieved them from the dungeon of Guthrie Castle.
Bottom line?
It pays to have a world’s most expensive (blank) in your inventory…
Be it a product or a service.
I’ve sold several and have two in the works: “The world’s most expensive flash drive of tested inbound telemarketing upsell scripts” and “the most expensive French anti-aging kit.”
Strangely, I got the idea for the latter after a mild case of seasickness earlier this week, just outside Boston Harbor. Ginger chews helped me keep it together.
Besides the obvious advantage of raising your status—whether you’re a founder, freelancer, billionaire, or bootstrapper—simply having a high-ticket offer (think an extra zero added to your current highest price) in your product line or services portfolio makes everything else look inexpensive by comparison.
It’s the classic contrast principle: an off-the-rack suit at $800 looks inexpensive after the prospect is first shown a $5,000 bespoke option.
Important note: if you’re entertaining the idea of launching a world’s most expensive (blank), there’s no “working your way up to it.”
Because we’re not talking about…
A mere high ticket product...
that’s 10x your most expensive offer. While it’s impossible to generalize for every market, you might be looking at something closer to 100x for a true “world’s most expensive.”
And it doesn’t matter if you never sell the product because it draws like a magnet for everything else. Let me tell you though, if it’s a bona fide offer, the day will come when someone will pull the trigger on it.
The secret lies in niching it down as much as possible to make the price credible.
Here are a few examples.
– The world’s most expensive consultant for precast concrete development projects
– The world’s highest priced trainer of Tibetan Mastiffs
– The world’s most expensive genealogist for descendants from Munster
The takeaway?
Maybe you don’t have decades or tens of millions to build a world beating brand from scratch.
Just like The Easton Press, a long copy offer to the right audience hands you the express pass to playing in the big leagues.