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When Is A Sales Letter Not A Sales Letter? Part One
The function of a sales letter is fairly basic but a basic letter will not get the job done think about the last time you walked into a store and after you told the assistant what you wanted, say a camera, if all you were told was "Here are the cameras, this is what they cost let me know when you pick one". How likely do you think you would be to hand over your cash at the till? Before I go into the differing areas of the letter with you there are two things to remember. The first being, as much if not more effort goes into writing the sales letter for a free item or service as goes into a paid one. The paid item already has a perceived value in your readers mind while with a free item you need to convince them of the value. The second thing to remember is that your aim is to get your reader to want the item, there is a saying in marketing circles that people buy what they want not what they need. Right, now for the breakdown of your letter. Let's say your product is called Joe's Wonder Book. First on your list is the headline/subject line. The headline is your shop window, it is there to grab the interest and make them read on or open the email. Instead of, Use Joe's Wonder Book To Improve Your Business, you need to create a need in your reader to keep on reading so try something like 3 Simple Changes That Could Double Your Business In One Month. See the difference, already they can see in their mind what doubling their business would mean to them and if they can do it in one month just by doing 3 simple things it must be worth having a look at. Mission one completed. Now that you have them reading you need to get them on your side and wanting to know more. The best way for this is to personalise the letter, by this I don’t mean having their name plastered all over it but by making it seem as though it has been written just to them. One of the simplest ways is to open the letter with a few well chosen questions, but they do need to be worded in such a way that the answers are already known. Something like, Want to stay one step ahead of your competition? Do you feel that your business could grow quicker if only you knew how? Another thing not to forget is the power of just the right amount of fear, fear that their competitors might know something they don’t or that they are not keeping up to date, so you could try, Do you know how many businesses's fail because they don’t grow quick enough? Want to know the one thing that could make sure you are still in business this time next year? You get the idea. You would of course word these to suit your product but the principles are the same no matter what you are offering. You now have them eager to know more as you have asked the questions that they want the answers to even if they have never asked themselves these question before, all backed up by the fear of not knowing the answers. In part two we will cover the middle section, the all important closing and the one section that is either left out or even never used that is just as important, in fact could almost double your sales if done correctly. See you then. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Gregg Montgomery is not only an online marketer but also has a great interest in the theory and mechanics behind the subject. He has started an online blog covering I.M. Success Strategies . Where you can find posts about all aspects of the subject, listings of marketing tools and his FREE sales letter writing course to get you started. |
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