Posts Tagged ‘sales letters’

Why Was This Sales Letter So Successful?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Perhaps it’s just because of the nature of my profession, but I’ve long been fascinated with why one sales letter attracts a swarm of interested clients while another is studiously ignored.

This question motivated me to do some poking around and research what the most successful sales letter of all time was. The first step was to determine how we defined success. Would it be number mailed? That didn’t seem right. Just because a letter is mailed a lot doesn’t necessarily mean it is effective. What about greatest number of responses? That seemed better but simply getting people to say they’d like more information didn’t seem like a high enough bar for a letter deemed the “most successful sales letter of all time”.

No, in order to be crowned with that honor, the letter would need to actually motivate readers to pull out their wallets and spend money. Not just one person who spent $25 million on a Gulfstream but lots of people buying something. Now that would be a letter worth examining for its secrets. Imagine if we could capture that letter’s essence.

Surprisingly it wasn’t all that hard to find. What was surprising was how long ago it was written. I would have thought that with all the new information we have about buying behavior and the sheer number of excellent copywriters working today that the “Greatest Sales Letter” would have been written less than ten years ago. Apparently we don’t know as much as we think we do, since the letter I’m referring to was written over 40 years ago.

According to numerous sources the letter that is credited with selling the most stuff (to put it inelegantly) is a sales letter written for the Wall Street Journal. It’s been used on and off by them for decades and it’s been copied by numerous copywriters and used successfully to sell a wide variety of goods and services. You may actually be familiar with it. Here’s how it starts:

“Take two men. Both graduates of good universities. Both hardworking and ambitious.

Flash forward twenty years and one is in the corner office commanding the attention and respect of hundreds. The other toils amid the legions of middle managers in a largely obscured position. Why did one ascend to great heights and the other plateau so early?”

The letter to goes on to point out that one key point of differentiation was that one person read the Wall Street Journal and the other did not. Regardless of the Journal’s actual ability to elevate you to the corner office, this is one very successful sales letter.

Which raises the next question of, why? What makes this letter so effective. Why did this one, amid all the others that have flooded our mailboxes over the years motivate so many people to take action?

The answer is actually fairly simple. It tells a story. A story that is deceptively simple in the telling. In a mere 57 words we are transported from reading words on a page to visualize two men. One successful, the other considerably less. Not only does the story enable us to visualize the scenario but it also does a masterful job of forcing us to decide which camp we are in. Are we resigned to the plateau? Isn’t there more that we can achieve? What’s the answer? What’s the secret? How can we too, get to whatever level of success we most aspire to?

Unleashing this psychic visualization of desire and limits is the power behind a great sales story. The power is in its simplicity. It’s elegance is in its restraint.

Those of us who offer our services for a living often hear about “selling invisibly”. It’s an appealing concept especially when the concept of “selling” is uncomfortable. However, while selling invisibly seems like a good idea in theory, how exactly is it done?

This letter from the Wall Street Journal offers an answer. The key to selling invisibly is to tell great stories.
***
That all makes sense but the question becomes…Do you have the time to actually write a great sales letter or success story? If not perhaps I can help.

Send an email to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com and I’ll send you my newest portfolio of letters, sales stories and lead generation advertisements along with my current fee schedule. By this time next week you could have a sales letter or email out in the market, generate lots of interest in what you offer.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

How Long Should A Sales Letter Be?

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

A Gentle Rain Reader writes…

Hi Mark,
I’m confused. How long should a sales letter be?
How about for a lead-generation email? Thanks-Tim Long

My reply:

The first thing to keep in mind is that length is secondary to content. If you bore your readers, two sentences can be too long. However there are some general guidelines to keep in mind.

First about sales letters…If you’re writing in the B2C market (business to consumer) there is truth to the adage ” The more you tell, the more you sell.” As direct marketers and top copywriters Dan Kennedy, Clayton Makepeace and Denny Hatch all point out, a 2-page sales letter out-performs a 1-page letter, a 4-page letter gets a better response than a 2 page.

Where’s the top? I honestly don’t know. In theory a book should outperform a letter and a
l-o-n-g book should do better than a short one. But keeping reality in mind, if you’re marketing to consumers, don’t worry about length. I once wrote two sales letters for a fitness studio. One was 4 pages, the other 8. The longer sales letter did in fact pull a greater number of leads by a factor of 3.

However in b2b marketing it’s a bit of different story. My opinion is that length does matter. In order to get through the various screeners and anti-promotional mindsets, our sales letters need to look very much like business correspondence. The copy should convey the tone of easy familiarity from one executive to another.

Length? I’d keep it to no more than 2 pages.

With emails, I would as a general rule keep them short and link the rest of the copy to your website. (As I’ve done here.) That’s one of the things I really love about WordPress sites. They enable you to add blog pages with the content that you “tease” in your emails.

Hope that helps. I’m interested in what others think so let me know.

Thanks
Mark

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

Sales Letter Secrets. Get More People To Take Action

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Your offer and benefits of your product or service will make up the bulk of your sales letter. Many people make the mistake of assuming that the readers of their sales letters already know the product or service does and how it is going to benefit them.

For example how much time it will save them or how much money it will save them. Assuming this and not detailing everything about your product or service can lose you sales. Sadly this is a very common mistake.

However, here’s another issue you need to be aware of. Many people also make the mistake of trying to oversell their product or service. You need to find a balance when creating your sales copy. Don’t make your copy too sales orientated as this will obviously turn readers off. Instead you need to focus on your readers.

You need to keep your sales copy light and interesting and persuade your readers that they need your product or service. It is really all about persuasively motivating them to take advantage of the offer you are presenting and to take action immediately. One way to do this is through the time tested method of “scarcity”. For example state that you have a limited number of a particular item, or that the special offer price is only for a limited amount of time.

Your main component of your sales copy will be to entice your reader to purchase your product or service and there are a number of things that you can include here. Testimonials will be very important and you should try to secure testimonials that include a picture, website information, and even a video message. The more persuasive and believable your testimonials, the better they will work.

When stating the benefits of using your product or service, bullet points work best. These tend to catch the reader’s eye better and stand out more on your sales letter. These should be incorporated into the main story of your sales copy.

Using a story in your sales copy is another great way to interact with your readers and get their imagination going. It also makes your sales copy more believable if they can imagine themselves in your shoes and visualize how your product or service will change their life for the better.

The person reading your sales copy should be able to place themselves in your story and be able to see the benefits of using your product or service for themselves. Be sure to break your story up using your testimonials and bullet pointed benefits. If you do this correctly it should result in a high conversion ratio.
**************************************************
This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

How To Write A Sales Letter or Marketing Email That Actually Gets Read. Part 2

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

In an earlier article on persuasive sales letters and marketing emails I gave you a template for hooking the reader’s attention. It’s important to reiterate that the purpose of the first sentence is simply to get the reader to read the second sentence.

Not surprisingly, the purpose of the second sentence is to get the reader to read the second paragraph. If we can get the reader to read the second paragraph then we have a good chance that they’ll go down the entire slippery slope of readership and read the entire letter.

If the focus of the first sentence is to raise a potential problem that the reader may be facing, the goal of the second sentence is to expand on that problem. There are a couple of ways we can do this.

The first is to focus on the reasons why the problem occurs. In some instances the problem that you’re communicating is well understood. It’s been around for a long time and everyone acknowledges it’s an issue. Thus simply stating that you too understand the problem, won’t earn you much credibility in the eye of the reader.

What will enhance your credibility is briefly communicating why the problem exists. Now I realize that every company is unique, and it’s impossible to communicate the exact reasons for why a problem exists with anything close to 100% accuracy. However, if you’re marketing to a specific niche (which you should be) then there are going to be some common reasons that are shared across companies within a particular group.

By communicating the reasons for why the problem exists, you will demonstrate that your understanding of the issues are deep rather than superficial. An approach I use is the following:

Although the problem is well understood, the underlying issues are often not so readily apparent. For example in many cases we find that the key contributors to this problem include: (A, B, C)

When you create the three bullet points make sure you keep them short and concise. Remember that at this point in the relationship building process what we are tying to do is to raise enough interest so that the reader will do what we want them to do once they have finished reading the letter.

In other situations the challenge may be that the problem you raised in the opening sentence just isn’t seen as “all that big a deal”. If that’s the situation, then the second sentence needs to focus on why this issue is important. The way I do that is by communicating what is likely to occur if the problem isn’t addressed. The key at this stage is to strike the right balance. You want to raise real consequences of not addressing the problem, while not going overboard and sounding like Chicken Little.

I like to use a bullet point approach for listing the consequences. The bullet points can be set up with a simple statement such as; Unfortunately, the consequences of not addressing this issue can include…

If we’ve done our work correctly, at this point we’ve got our reader’s attention. This is the point when we want to shift the focus of the content to What Do We Want To Reader To Do When They Finish Reading The Letter? This is where we make the reader a very compelling and specific offer, which is designed to move the relationship building process to the next step.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

How to Write A Compelling Marketing Letter That Actually Gets Read.

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Ask a typical consultant where their business comes from and it’s no surprise that you’re likely to hear; “Repeat business from existing clients and referrals.” And while there is certainly nothing inherently wrong with those methods, over-relying on them is one of the main reasons why so many consultants suffer from the inevitable “feast or famine” business cycles.

However, expanding one’s circle of senior level relationships is a challenge for many consultants. Cold calling, attending networking meetings and industry conferences tend to be either a) unpleasant or b) immensely time consuming. So, what are the other options available to consultants who feel that they have lapped the track with their existing circle of contacts?

For the consultants that we work with, we’ve found the most effective method for gaining initial traction is a one-page letter. However, the difference between whether the letter gets through the screener, actually gets read and acted upon, naturally depends upon how it is written. And it all starts with the first sentence.

There’s an old saying in copywriting that the purpose of the first sentence is simply to get the reader to read the second sentence. And that’s basically the truth. You either hook the reader with your opening sentence, or your letter gets pitched. It’s that simple.

However, all opening hooks are not the same. First, we need to consider who the reader is. Crafting a compelling letter introducing our consulting services to a C-Level executive is a very different challenge than marketing a consumer product to a homeowner. Thus the opening sentence must “grab” the reader, but do so in a manner that doesn’t scream “This is a sales letter and I want you to buy my services!”

The key to getting immediate attention is 1) communicating that you specialize in their industry and 2) understand a particular problem this group faces. Why are these crucial?

First, everyone thinks their problems are unique. This isn’t necessarily true, but from a marketing perspective it’s important that we accept this perception. Thus, the more we communicate that we “play in their sandbox” the greater the likelihood is that our entire letter will get read.

Communicating a problem that the reader faces requires that we raise a specific, rather than obviously generic, challenge. Simple saying “We know you’re concerned about cost reduction” is just too basic. You need to fly the plane at a lower level. What exactly does “cost reduction” mean to a bank? To a manufacturer? To an educational institution? To your specific audience? That’s what you want to communicate.

So this is quite an objective for the opening sentence. You need to demonstrate that you specialize in the reader’s industry and show that you understand an issue of substance and importance. Let me share with you an example of an opening sentence that has proven to be extremely successful for my clients. The format is as follows:

I know from speaking with other (people similar to the person you are writing to) that many of them are concerned about (a specific problem).

For example:

I know from speaking with other banking executives that training bank personnel to cross-sell financial services is an on-going challenge.

Note that I didn’t say that “more business” was the challenge. Rather I focused on the issue of “cross-selling”, which is a specific challenge for executives in retail banking. Thus I begin to build immediate credibility for myself as someone who truly understands the issues bankers face.

This lesson applies to any group that you are writing to. You want your reader to see a reflection of themselves in the message you are communicating.

Now suppose, despite all of your efforts, what you come up with as an issue still sounds pretty obvious. That’s not necessarily a problem as long as you acknowledge the obviousness and don’t try to package it as some sort of unique insight.

Let me give you an example of a letter I wrote for my own practice (that you can easily adapt to your business) which I stated a generic problem but still got readers to keep reading by adding a second sentence.

“I know from speaking with other partners of management consulting firms that new business development is an ongoing challenge. And while this may appear to be a blinding grasp of the obvious, what is less apparent is what the most successful firms are actually doing to address this challenge.”

I tested this letter with, and without the second sentence, to two mailing lists of consulting firms. The first letter drew a minimal response of .5%. The second letter, which included the second sentence, drew 3.7%, which in the world of direct response is a huge difference.

Naturally there is more to writing a compelling marketing letter that gets read and acted on than just the opening sentence. In future articles I will share with you how to continue to build initial credibility and create a call to action that motivates readers to take the next step in the relationship building process.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | 1 Comment »