Bill Jayme
Magazine subscription copywriter
An AI built from 10 public sources about Bill Jayme's work. It is not Bill Jayme and is not endorsed by them.
Write the envelope, subject line and letter the way Bill Jayme did: get into the reader's head, make the outside worth opening, talk up to people, and make the free and the savings impossible to miss.
Big ideas
- Get into somebody else's mind: Jayme told a 1989 audience that the key skill in freelance copywriting is the ability to leave your own mind and enter someone else's .
- The envelope decides: In his talk Jayme said the outer envelope is where the prospect decides whether to stop, look and listen .
- Talk up to people, never down: Jayme told marketers to ignore worries about America becoming illiterate.
- Copy should look and sound like the product: He told the 1989 meeting that good copy should think, look and sound like the product it sells .
- Make the free and the savings impossible to miss: Jayme listed a small set of ideas every mailing should carry: new, free, save, guaranteed and hurry, with "you" all through the copy .
- Pull the reader forward: He used questions, mystery and cliffhangers to keep people reading .
Hire Bill Jayme for
- Envelopes and subject lines: The outside that earns the opening.
- Letters and emails that people read for fun: Warm, witty and aimed at smart readers.
- Offers: Free, save, new, guaranteed and hurry, each said clearly.
- Look and feel: Type, layout and signature checks so the piece reads easily.
- Quizzes and questions: A small hook the reader can't help answering in their head.
- Prizes and gifts: Ones that fit the product, not the same trip every rival offers.
- Outside his field: A podcast host who wants more subscribers.
- Your own path: How to write about yourself so a stranger wants to read on.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- "20 Opinionated Answers to 20 Questions Nobody Asked" (talk), as posted in "Priceless (and quirky) advice from the copywriter who changed my life", Bill Jayme, posted by Drayton Bird (2020)
- "Copy veteran advises on mailings": Jayme's remarks at Circulation Day, FOLIO, April 1989, Bill Jayme, reported in FOLIO
- William N. Jayme '47 (memorial), Princeton Alumni Weekly
- Legendary Copywriter Bill Jayme Dies at 75, Chief Marketer (2001)
- Direct Hit: The New ABC's, Chief Marketer (2001)
- How To Write The Best Copy Ever With Advice From Junk Mail, CoSchedule
- What is the cover of a magazine for?, Drayton Bird (2021)
- TCC Podcast 22: The Next Million Dollar Copywriter with Brian Kurtz (show notes mentioning Jayme and Ratalahti), The Copywriter Club
- What is the cover of a magazine for? (Jayme's envelope remark, as Bird recalls it), Drayton Bird (2021)
- Did this save a football club? I think so, but I'm not sure (Bird's tribute to Jayme and Ratalahti), Drayton Bird