The most profitable sales letter ever written does not have a clever headline. It does not have a trick. It opens with a story about two men, and it reportedly went on to generate around two billion dollars for The Wall Street Journal across nearly three decades of mailing.
Martin Conroy wrote it in 1975. It ran, almost unchanged, until 2003. Here is roughly how it starts:
“On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both, as young college graduates are, were filled with ambitious dreams for the future. Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion. They were still very much alike… But there was a difference.”
You already want to know the difference. That is the entire engine of the letter.
Why the story lead works
Conroy could have opened with “Subscribe to The Wall Street Journal and advance your career.” Nobody would have read past the first comma. Instead he built a small, relatable world: two equal men, same start, same dreams. Then he split them. One became a manager. The other became the president of the company.
The reader, almost against their will, asks the question the letter was built to plant: what made the difference? And the letter answers: knowledge. The kind The Wall Street Journal delivers every morning.
The genius is that the reader casts themselves into the story. Everyone believes they are the one who could go either way. The letter does not sell a newspaper. It sells the gap between the two men, and positions the subscription as the thing that decides which one you become.
The moves underneath the story
One clear, human contrast. Two people, identical except for one factor. Contrast makes the point unarguable.
The reader supplies the emotion. Conroy never says “do not be the one who falls behind.” He lets the reader feel that fear on their own. Self-generated emotion is the strongest kind.
The product is the bridge, not the hero. The Journal appears as the single difference between two lives, not as a list of features. Sell the transformation, mention the product as the means.
Plain language, patient pace. No hype, no exclamation marks. The confidence is in the restraint. It reads like a wise friend, not a pitch.
How to use this structure
You can borrow the skeleton for almost anything you sell:
- Open on two relatable subjects (two businesses, two founders, two teams) who start equal.
- Move time forward. Reveal that one pulled ahead.
- Name the single difference, and make your product or service that difference.
- Invite the reader to choose which one they want to be.
The trap to avoid: the contrast has to be honest. If your product is not genuinely the difference between the two outcomes, the story becomes a lie the reader feels the moment they buy. Conroy’s letter endured because the claim was defensible. People who read the Journal really did tend to know more about business. Build your “difference” on something true, and the oldest structure in direct mail still works today.
Takeaway: Before you write a single feature, find the two futures your reader is choosing between. Sell the gap, and let your product be the bridge across it.