How To Write An Effective Sales Letter
Your phone rings in the middle of the night. You pick it up and mumble a half-asleep “hello.” It’s your brother-in-law Bob, who owns a small electrical contracting business. “Look,” he says, “I’m sorry to be calling you so late but I’m looking at our month-end numbers and they’re awful. Truth is, they’ve been in the tank for several months. And we need to do something quick to generate leads and sales. So I was wondering if you’d write us a sales letter?”
Put in this situation, how would you respond?
- “Sure Bob. I’ll have a killer sales letter ready for you in the next 24 hours. Now go to bed and stop worrying.”
- “Bob you know I’m always happy to help. But sales letters aren’t my area of expertise. What you need is an experienced copywriter. Someone who does this type of thing for a living and is darn good at it.”
Now here’s the point: Unless you chose the first answer you shouldn’t be writing your own sales letters. That said, we all know that thousands of small business owners — for better or worse — choose to be their own copywriter. In the “better” department are those people who make a concerted effort at becoming skilled wordsmiths. In many cases these are business owners who have a passion and aptitude for marketing and writing. And many of them go on to build highly successful companies.
In the “worse” department are those folks who, while very smart and very competent in other areas, don’t understand that their intelligence and expertise don’t carry over to marketing and copywriting. In short, they’re too smart to get out of their own way. As a result, their businesses aren’t nearly as successful as they could or should be.
Then, there’s everybody else. Everybody else is the vast majority of small business owners who choose to write their own copy. They aren’t as good as the better folks and they aren’t as bad as the worse. But they could be a lot better.
How much time and effort are you willing and able to invest?
My pointed observation from reviewing hundreds of self-penned sales letters from small business owners is this: A majority of these otherwise by and large hard-working and conscientious people don’t put nearly enough time and effort into the job. Maybe they just don’t have the time or they haven’t divined a good process. Most likely it’s a combination.
I can’t give you more time. Whether your name is Bill Gates or Bill Bailey we all get just 24 hours every day. But I can help you with the process. For the sake of illustration what follows pertains to sales letters. That said, most of the tips are applicable to any type of sales copy.
A proven process for writing an effective sales letter.
1. Document your knowledge of, and experiences and interactions with your customers. Think about your best customers, the 20% in Pareto’s 80/20 rule. Compile a collective psychographic and demographic profile of them. Age range, education, predominant personality type, job title (if you’re a B-to-B marketer), income, political views, the magazines and books they read — all of this and more should be in your written profile. You’ll also want to review responses to your customer satisfaction surveys and study your “white mail.” Plus, if you have salespeople involve them in this process as well. Their help and input can be invaluable.
As you do this, list and rank the key motivators that drive your customers’ purchasing decisions. In most cases it will be one or more of the following: Fear, exclusivity, greed, guilt, ego-gratification, salvation and anger.
At the end of this step you’ll have a good understanding of who your best prospects are and what their key motivators are when considering a purchase in your category.
2. Study response-producing sales letters – Alexander Hamilton wrote, “All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly.” One of the most effective ways to learn is by studying how the most successful people in a given field do what they do. And today all you need to study great copywriters is a connection to the Internet.
For example, Google the phrase “greatest sales letters” and with just a couple of clicks you’ll be able to download a free PDF containing the complete text of five of the most successful sales letters ever written.
Of course, the Internet isn’t the only place to find successful sales letters. Some of them will land in your mailbox. So if you write your own copy and seriously aspire to be better at it, give all of your mail a quick look and save those few pieces that grab and hold your attention. Pay special attention to those direct mail pieces that turn up in your mailbox multiple times. Because if you’re getting a letter a second or third time it means that it’s a proven response-producer.
At any rate, save the stuff that you really like and that you see over and over again. Make yourself a “swipe file.” Then, when writing your own letter, pull out the file and look through it for inspiration and for copy and techniques you can adapt and use.
In addition, there are several excellent sales letter compilation books. Each features word-for-word reproductions of some of the most profitable direct mail packages ever created, as well as expert commentary from the copywriters and designers who worked on these packages. Three books that I have found to be of great value are:
“Million Dollar Mailings” by Denison Hatch.
“World’s Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters” by Herschell Gordon Lewis & Carol Nelson.
“The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of All Time” by Richard S. Hodgson.
But remember, it’s not enough to simply read a letter a few times and think you have the hang of it. To maximize the benefit from your study I recommend that you pick a proven response-producing letter and, at a minimum, do the following:
- Read the letter a minimum of five times, preferably once a day over a five day period. Pay attention to every word, every sentence. Why did the writer use that word, that phrasing? Make note of the transitions from one thought to the next. Note how the copy is all about the reader and how he or she will benefit. Note the motivational buttons being pushed and how the writer pushes them. This intense study and repetitive reading will help the copy embed itself into your conscious and sub-conscious mind.
- Do the same thing, but read the letter out loud. Why? Because people read with their ears as well as their eyes. By reading the letter out loud you’ll get a better sense of the rhythm and flow of the copy and how it sounds to the person reading it.
- Sit down and write the letter out by hand. Doing this will give you a feel for every little nuance of the letter. Because every word or grammatical device you’ll copy was chosen by the writer for one all-important reason: He or she thought it was the best choice for producing the desired outcome the letter seeks.
If you’re a business owner who writes your own copy and you expect your sales letter to have a snowball’s chance of success, you should, at a minimum (1) Get a good handle on who your best prospects are, how they think, and what motivates them when considering a purchase in your category (2) Profoundly study successful sales letters by engaging in visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning behavior.
Once you’ve completed this process you’ll be ready to tackle your first draft. When you’ve got an acceptable first draft print it out (to see how it looks on paper), read it over several times (at least once out loud), stick it in a drawer, and forget about it for a couple days. Then pull it out and look at it again with “fresh eyes.” Things will jump out at you that you’ll want to edit and your edits will make your copy stronger.
Repeat this process and after a few more rounds of revisions you may finally have a letter suitable for mailing. A letter that has a fighting chance of producing profitable results for your business.
Ernest Nicastro is president of Positive Response, Dublin, OH.
