Are you trying to write that one sales letter that will pull in the millions and guarantee your retirement to a small island in the Caribbean? Maybe you have just sent out 5000 letters and wondered why you haven’t had one response. Crafting an effective (and profitable) sales letter is an art, but one that can be learnt.

Headlines – grab ‘em early
It all starts here. Grab attention, make it interesting. Don’t bore the audience to death and don’t talk about your company. As the world becomes more cynical and consumers more advertising savvy, you need to be clued up about how to switch a reader on. There are numerous types of headline from the question format to the shocking fact. Just make sure they are highly relevant to your audience.

Know your customers

What is the point of mailing 5000 people with details of your product if 4999 already own an identical product? Do your homework, find the right customers in your database, check that their details are up to date and when you do the letters make sure they are addressed to a person rather than Dear Sir/Madam. I don’t know about you but I’m more likely to read something that has my name at the top (even better if they manage to spell it correctly). Sales letters don’t always have to be mass mailings – if you haven’t heard from a customer in a while why not drop them a personal letter to develop your relationship.

Stop talking about yourself

We’ve all read them, ‘Dear Mrs X, My name is Dave and I’m writing to tell you how wonderful our company, Doofus Ltd is. We’ve got loads of great gadgets and we are based in a town near you’. I’ll say this just once, so listen carefully, your potential customers have one question when they read a letter ‘what’s in it for me?’ If you don’t answer that immediately you’ve lost them and your letter will be winging its way to the circular filing tray marked ‘bin’. Speak to your customer and put their needs first, there should be few, if any, uses of the word ‘we’ and lots of incidences of ‘you’.

The truth, the whole truth

Building credibility is key in a sales letter. If you have testimonials then use them, don’t make over exaggerated claims about your product or service and don’t use millions of exclamation marks!!!!!!
You can use success stories or short case studies to illustrate how you have helped customers; remember to keep the focus on what you can do for the customer, not how great you are.

It is important you have some brief information about your company, but it should be further down the letter, to the point and unique to your business. No standard corporate speak thank you!

Blow your trumpet about benefits

The biggest trap most people fall into is talking about the features of a product or service, not the benefits. You need to think about all the reasons people would choose to use your product/service and why they should choose you over your competitors – can you save them money, get rid of hassle, increase their profits, change their life in undiscovered ways? Think about what causes your potential customers problems and how your product or service solves them. Don’t talk about the colour or size of your new super widget, instead explain how the super widget saves 10 hours and is half the cost of the product they are currently using.

The long and short of it

Sitting there wondering whether your letter should be one or six pages long? This argument has been debated since the Greeks were writing their sales letters on parchment (although I’m guessing they stuck to short copy). There are no hard and fast rules for which one will work. Long copy works for some markets and for some products. Just be aware it isn’t a one fit solution (and nor is short copy). Long copy is generally better suited for selling (if someone already has an established interest in your product it may work) but it is not great for generating leads or giving information. The other issue in the UK is that long copy has become synonymous with fraudsters and scams. It does have its place but needs to be a carefully crafted story that leads the customer to a purchase. The only way to know what works for you is to test.

Test the waters first

If you are planning to mail thousands of people then select a couple of hundred and send out different versions of your letter. Try long copy versus short copy, different headlines, and different offers and see what gets the best response. THEN, mail the other few thousand. Once you know what works you should get a better response rate.

Looks are everything

Don’t spend days constructing the perfect letter and then print it on cheap paper with no company details. Use design and colour (in moderation please), think about its visual impact. A good trick is to use a paper which has a coloured back so when you do your follow up calls you can say, ‘I sent you a letter last week, the one with the neon green back’. Layout your letter with clear, reasonably sized text and make it easy for the reader to find their way around. Before you do a final print make sure you and somebody else proofreads the letter, checking for spelling and grammar errors.

Try to avoid standard letter mail merge boringness, and if you have the time, inclination and handwriting ability, think about handwriting your letters or at least the envelopes. Always send the letters first class, don’t want your customers feeling like second class citizens, do you?

It’s blue sky thinking

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it now! No more jargon. Jargon is unfriendly and makes letters incomprehensible. No one will admit that they don’t understand something, they’ll just ignore it. You are a person, writing to a person, so write like a human not a robot. If you operate a business which is fun and friendly, then write your letter in the same tone.

Oh, I can’t resist

10% off? 5% off? Is that an interesting offer? Does it make me want to pick up the phone and order 100 of whatever you are selling? The key words here are compelling offer. Instead of 5% off, how about £50 cash back, free entry into a prize draw to win a case of wine, free holiday vouchers and an in office consultation on your services? Be inventive; think what you can add that will entice the customer.

Crunch those figures

Sales letters should be one part of a marketing mix, and it should be cost effective. Doing sales letters is a cheap(ish) way of marketing but once you tot up all that paper, envelopes, free offers etc it can add up. Make sure the numbers are working for you – how many customers do you need to get to make the exercise worth doing? On the flip side, if you are worried about the cost, check the figures, it may be that you only need one customer to pay for the mailing and then it is worth every penny.

Cracking under the strain

What happens if you get the letter absolutely right? If you mail 5000 people and they all respond? Can you cope with the demand for your product or service? Think about this before you do the mailing and at least have a plan in place for the possibility of massive success (apart from finding that Caribbean island).

Erm, what do I do now?

You’ve managed to keep the reader captivated until the end of the letter. They know how wonderful your business and product is and then you just sign off. You haven’t told them what they need to do next. This is called a call to action. Tell the reader exactly what you want them to do next, ‘Call me now on 0800 000000 before Monday 7th’. If you are going to do follow up calls then say when and make sure you do them.

At this point you should give you readers an incentive to act now, such as giving them something for free, if they call by the end of the week. You can also reinforce this message in your PS.

PS. I love you

Using a PS at the end of a sales letter is a clever little trick used by many copywriters. We know most people pick up a letter, read the headline and scan down. If they spot a PS at the end, which communicates a clear benefit or special offer, they are likely to go back and read the rest of the letter. Result!

Follow up calls

If you say in a letter you are going to do them, then do them. You need to do them in the few days after you send the letter, preferably the day after the letter is going to land on the recipient’s desk. If you are selling a service, I think it is vital that you do follow up calls as people need to know more about you and your business before they purchase. Make sure you know what you are going to say, don’t go into hard sales mode and be prepared to listen to what the customer is saying to you.