Direct Marketing:
Sales Letters:
The Sales letter comes in a variety of lengths and styles. A couple simple well written paragraphs or it can be many pages long. Sales letters have now been turned into VSLs or Video Sales Letters. Marketers are making videos of their sales presentations to help market their businesses and opportunities.
It depends on what you are selling and what you must convey to the reader or viewer. It is well known by the greatest copywriters that people will read long sales letter as long as they are interested and you can keep their attention. Do not be fool yourself into thinking short is always better. Many a copywriter has proven this thought false.
When someone is interested in what you ave to offer, more can be better.
Your sales letter must do the job
From the initial interest, to the sales presentation, right to the close. Your sales letter is a written version of what you would say to your customer if you were sitting in front of them.
You can use case studies, testimonials and inserts to help sell your products and services. There are many tips and tricks to writing and creating a Direct Mail package.
The best news is that some of the best training in this field is widely available. Greats such as Dan Kennedy, Bill Glazer and Joe Sugarman to name but a few. Check our resource section for more information on these and many other experts in the direct mail industry. Check the copywriting section to find some of the top copywriters in the industry.
Short or Long, both can work
The best way to find out what works for you is to try both. Test short and long copy in your sales letters.
Take your customer list and divide it into two parts. Write a short letter and a long letter and mail to your list. You can judge the results from there. Remember to code the ad with a dept # or something to make sure you know where your results are coming from.
Test which version works best. Then create a second letter of similar length and mail to a cold list of names of prospective customers. You can get a list of these people through a mailing list vendor.
A mailing list vendor has thousands of mailing lists that can be customized to fit your customer profile. Once you have a winning sales letter you need to roll it out to more prospective customers. Don’t keep it a secret.
When working with these new lists you can once again change a few items in your winning sales letter and continue to test for better results. Remember to code your mailings so you know who is responding to which ad.
How to write a sales letter
This can be tricky if you are not a writer. The good news is it is not as hard as it looks. The easiest method is to simple record your sale presentation as you would do it in person. You can even explain this to a prospective customer while you do your presentation. Let them know it is for future training purposes.
You then record your full presentation. Now you have it transcribed into a written report. You can do this yourself or you can hire out the service. Simply use the internet to find transcription services. Look at our Outsource section in the Resource section to find some help. You then make a deal to send your recording to them and have it typed out.
Once you have your transcription done, now you can edit it into a sales letter. You can eliminate the repetitive sentences and the umms and ahhs and then create a sales letter.
This process will help you see if you have a short sales presentation or a long version. You can then add or subtract from this sales letter draft. Make it shorter or add more detail. You can test what works best on your own customers or on a new list from a mailing list supplier.
You can higher a professional
You still have options, you can hire a copywriter. There are many available you just need to search them out. Then contact a few and see what they specialize in and ask for samples of their work to see if it may work for you.
You then negotiate a deal with them to write your first sales letter. It is a simple process but this option will cost more to do. Copywriters come in all sorts of budgets. The best ones command high fees in the 5 to 6 digit range.
I firmly believe no one knows your product better than you
Before you hire a copywriter at least try to do your own recording and transcription. This is a great learning process and can lead to expanding your sales presentation and fine tuning it to make more sales for you and more profit for your bottom line.
Try it, you may just find that you enjoy the process. I guarantee it will allow you to see your product or service from a new angle and can only add to your professionalism and confidence.