A sales letter has been a highly effective marketing tool that businesses have used for years, but creating an effective letter can be challenging.
Whether you intend to send your message via postal mail service or via email, you want your message to serve a specific purpose.
In most cases, you want to convince your target audience take specific action, and this may mean to call your office to schedule an appointment, to make a purchase or to take another step after reading the letter.
When you are drafting a sales letter, consider following these steps to create an effective message that ultimately encourages your readers to take the desired action.
Grab The Reader’s Attention With A Great Introduction
Your readers will often make an almost immediate decision about whether to continue reading your letter or to toss it away after reading the first sentence. Because of this, you need to grab the reader’s attention immediately.
The first sentence of your letter is critical to the overall effectiveness of your message, so consider what you could say to your audience to draw them in. Do you want to ask a pertinent question?
Should you paint a picture of a common problem that they may relate to? The purpose of your letter may provide you with some indication of the best way to open your letter.
Identify The Reader’s Hot Buttons
Immediately after you draw the reader in with a strong, attention-grabbing introduction, you can highlight hot buttons for the reader.
With a sales message, you typically want your reader to make a purchase or to make an appointment to speak with a salesperson, so you want to focus on the needs of the reader that may be fulfilled by using your products or services.
These may be specific challenges that your consumers may overcome with your products or services. Perhaps your consumers’ lives will be made easier or a certain task will be more convenient to complete with what you are selling.
By focusing on these points, you essentially will further appeal to your audience and encourage them to continue reading your letter.
State The Benefits Of Taking Action
At this point in the letter, you should have your reader’s full attention, so the next step will be to state the benefits they will enjoy by using your products or services. Will they save time or money?
Will they make their home safer or improve their financial situation? In addition to telling your readers how they will benefit from using your products or services, include information about the features that make your products or services different from other options available to them.
You want to showcase your products or services as being unique or different from the competition’s products or services in some way.
This may not be a full sales spiel, but it should be enough to convince the reader to visit your website or store or to make an appointment for a consultation to learn more about what you have to offer.
Include a Strong Call to Action
You are writing the sales letter for a specific purpose, and this is because you want the reader to do something specific. The end of the letter is the time to formally ask the reader to take that action.
This may include calling your office to speak with a representative, visiting your website to request more information or coming into the store.
Be sure to include the proper contact information in your call to action, such as the phone number, address or website URL so that the reader has no questions about where to go for more information.
Proofread the Letter Several Times
In most cases, the ideal tone to use with a sales letter is conversational, and this is because a conversational tone can more easily build rapport.
However, each case is unique, so read the letter to ensure that the tone throughout the message is suitable for your audience.
Consider reading your letter out loud several times, and listen to your word choice and phrasing to ensure that it makes sense and that it flows well.
Look for errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation as well. When a reader struggles to understand what you are saying the letter, you may lose the reader’s attention.
This can make your letter less effective. You may also have several other people read through it before sending it out to get helpful feedback.
Whether you have plans to send your letter out in the standard mail or through email, you want your letter to be focused and to be highly effective at generating a specific result.
Keep in mind that you are writing the letter to help your customers in some way by informing them about how your products or services can benefit them, but you are also writing it to generate a response from them.
A great letter will accomplish both of these goals. By following these steps, you can more easily create a successful letter.
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