Self-mailer booklet doubles Women's Health Letter's circulation.

About three years ago, Women's Health Letter editor Kerri Bodmer created her own attention-grabbing direct mail package and discovered in the process that she was an excellent copywriter: the effort tripled the newsletter's circulation and garnered a Silver Award in the 1996 Newsletter Promotion Awards Competition.

Her publisher, WW "Chip" Wood, of Soundview Publications, remarked at the time, "Who better to tell her audience how her newsletter would answer their concerns and meet their special needs than the person who produces it each month?"

The 8 1/2 x 11" self-mailer, printed black and bold red on glossy white stock, led off with the headline above a milk-mustached Joan Rivers, "Is Joan Rivers spreading a deadly health myth?"

Now Kerri Bodmer has done it again--this time with a 5 1/4 x 8 1/4", 32-page booklet titled, "Does Your Deodorant Cause Breast Cancer?" It's printed red on black with white reverses. Inside, most of the copy follows the earlier effort: "Make no mistake about it... you're being told some DEADLY LIES by greedy corporations and powerful special-interest groups.

Unwitting celebrities, experts, doctors, and others are often little more than well-paid propagandists for their deceptive pitches. Here's what they will never tell you."

Subjects include: the "shocking" truth about milk, calcium and how it relates to osteoporosis, what doctors don't tell you about estrogen therapies. Drug companies, doctors, insurance companies, and manufacturers are all blasted for "lies, half-truths and cover-ups."

Chip Wood says their objective was to beat the existing control by reaching new lists and pulling better from existing ones.

"With this package, we set out to pop women out of their consumer trances. Editor-in-chief (and copywriter) Kerri Bodmer set out to make women take a second look at the products and medical advice that they may take for granted."

The results? Wood says circulation doubled from 7,500 to 15,000.