After all the search for the ultimate marketing strategy, a lot of businessmen ended up being surprised that the tool they need to effectively sell their products is something so basic and rather age-old: the sales letter. No other marketing tool addresses prospective customers more directly than an effective sales letter. This is why, nowadays, companies shell out portions of their budgets to hire people who write good sales letters. But what does it take to write a good sales letter? Here are some things you need to know to write a sales letter that will turn your prospects into paying customers: 1. Make sure that the message of the letter goes in line with your prospects’ needs – know your prospects first before you write them anything. It would not be wise to write a highly intellectual letter if your target market consists of grade school kids. 2. Go to your point directly – you should address your readers directly. Do not bombard them with confusing and obscure information. You should get your point across with the first few lines of your sales letter. 3. Be concise and clear – when you write a sales letter, you should make a point that it is brief, yet encompasses everything you need to sell you product. People should be able to read the letter quickly and still get to know your product as much as you want them to. 4. Talk about your product’s benefits not its features – a lot of sales people try to catch buyers’ attention by giving a long list of features of their products. Of course a customer would want to know what features a product has, but what they really want to know is how the product would benefit them. Tell them how the product will make their lives better or easier. 5. Be human – readers loath automatically-written papers. They want real people to talk to them. When you write a sales letter, it should be personal and it should flow as if you are just talking to a friend. The letter should be sincere, warm, something your reader would enjoy. 6. Write the letter to entice response, not necessarily to make sales – the purpose of the sales letter is to make leads. You just want your prospects to respond in whatever way they can to your letter. Sales might not be immediate, but soon, they would turn their responses into actual sales. 7. Write simply – according to research, majority of people read within the level of an eight grader. For you to be understood, the sales letter should not contain highfalutin words. Keep the language simple so that everyone can understand. 8. Take advantage of the PS – studies revealed that people’s attentions are caught by the postscript even more than the actual letter can. Put something in the PS that will want them to read the entire letter better or would help them remember all the things you have said. 9. Give your readers some room to breath – while dazzling letters and backgrounds can be eye-catching. People might get tired of reading with so many distractions. Have some room for breath in your letters. Use the blank, white space of the paper for some refreshing moments. 10. Stick to one – make sure that your sales letter uses only one page. Your readers are mostly likely busy and they can pay attention to only one page. Compress everything you want to say in just one, easy to read page. 11. Set a deadline – people respond more to deadlines than anything else. Make an offer, but set a deadline for your readers to make their reply. People act more urgently if they know they have to meet a particular time limit. 12. Make responding easy for your reader – a lot of readers do not respond because it can be hassle. Make it easier for your readers by giving them an easy-to-reach phone number, or a prepaid reply postcard. You can increase the chances of getting positive responses if you make things convenient for your readers. It is not really difficult to write a sales letter. If you know these things, you can write letters effectively and capture your market easily.
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