Yesterday I was chatting with a friend who was writing a direct mail piece in the real estate niche. So, I started brainstorming a grabber idea.

Instantly, the old bag of dirt attached to the letter came to mind.

And then a even greater idea came to mind!

As I was thinking about putting soil into a little bag, I somehow got sidetracked and came up with a sinister idea for a "cremation service" or maybe even a "life insurance" letter.

The intro would go something like this....

Dear John,

You may be wondering why I've attached a small bag of my fathers ashes to the top of this letter.

You see, not too long ago my dad passed away.


Now, who in the hell wouldn't be somewhat curious about those damn ashes?

And of course, it's absurd to think that you'd actually send out a loved ones ashes. A few mailings and there would be no more ashes left.

But, considering how flexible the English language is, here is how my evil brain works.

You could just make a fire pit in the back of dads back yard and just burn some of his stuff. Maybe a desk. Heck, that would provide enough ashes for a few hundred mailings.

Then, you could say... "You may wonder why I've put my fathers ashes atop of this letter".

You never said it was his personal ashes, but rather it's your fathers desk ashes. Or any other item you'd like to burn.

Oh geez, I'm going straight to hell.

Anyhow, that was my grabber idea yesterday. Otto and I were on the floor crying laughing when I came up with the idea.

The other example I came up with that I love is using a "Green Leaf" from a tree to tell everyone how organic and hippy you are and that you only use "Environmentally Green" materials.