How’s business? Brilliant, I hope! In this issue I am going to provide you with 8 tips guaranteed to improve the quality and focus of your sales letters.
Sales letters seem to be a forgotten art by many business people, but I believe that they are a low-cost and effective tool to add to your marketing toolkit. Very few businesses are using this powerful relationship-building too; therefore, they are a good method to help you position and differentiate your products and services.
Use these eight tips in every sales letter you write:
- The headline is the most important part of your sales letter. At the top of your sales letter, use a strong headline that states the most important benefit you are offering. This headline should be bold and a in larger font size than the body copy font size in your sales letter. A great headline promises a specific result.
- When writing your sales letter, always use a friendly conversational style. Do not try to write in a formal and corporate style. Don’t use large words to try and impress your prospects with your vocabulary. Flowing, easy-to-understand language is far more effective in a sales letter that sells. Basically, write your sales letter using friendly and simple language as if you were talking to a good friend.
- Provide powerful benefits. Your sales letter needs to explain the benefits your potential customer will receive. Understand that everybody cares about one thing – WIIFM – ‘What’s in it for me.’ This is essential. You must review the ‘WIIFM’ factor in your letter.
- Offer measurable proof why your product or service is better than the competition. Show quantifiable proof that your product is better than your competition. Your sales letter should state facts that you can prove, such as your widget lasts 2 times longer, costs 15% less, your company offers a 90-day 100% money-back guarantee while the competition offer no guarantee, plus your widget is guaranteed to last 2 years or we will replace it for free, while our competition only offers a 6-month replacement guarantee, etc.
- Use testimonials. Customer testimonials are proof that your products or services work. Testimonials are one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use, so take advantage of them and always use them in your sales letters. One effective testimonial is worth a hundred sales pitches. Let your clients shout it out loud.
- Call to action! To get your prospects to take action, your sales letter must ask your customer to take action and purchase by a specific date. Consider giving them a bonus for ordering by a specific date. For example, ‘Buy our widget by May 19 and get an instant 10% off’. Use words like ‘order today’ or ‘call now’. Your prospects need to be led.
- Use a P.S. in your letter to reaffirm your most powerful benefit and sales offer in it. Most people will read a P.S. first before reading the letter, so ensure that your P.S. has a very strong sales message and a call to action.
- Use repetition. You will rarely have success with your sales letter campaign if you only send out one mailer. Each prospect on your contact list should be contacted a minimum of four times during a 12-month period.
P.S. – Now go and write a sales letter to your top 20 prospects. Happy writing!
