A missive to affluent investors.

• Author: Wachtel, George

This letter from Fisher Investments came in a very nice package: a large 9x12-inch personalized outer envelope (that gave the illusion of special delivery, although it was bulk mailed), with a full-page reply device. But the letter could have clone a better job of communicating to the affluent investor:

(1) Letter setup: The overall "look" of this letter is nice, but has a little too much extraneous information and doesn't get to the point quickly enough.

(2) Salutation: They choose not to have a standard address block at the top (space issue?) and default to a slightly awkward full name salutation. It would have been better to either go personal with a "Dear George" or formal with "Mr. Wachtel."

(3) First person: It is OK to start with who the author is, to build credibility; but they go way overboard with 12 first-person references throughout the letter. Better to transform the language into "you" messages to maintain reader interest.

(4) What's in it for me? The letter continues on about what the sender wants to do and doesn't get to this critical question to almost the middle of the piece. Better to have said up at the top: "You can learn my latest thinking about the types of stocks to use right now in your portfolio!"

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