The power and magic of a sales letter that really sells.

June 8, 2008 – 9:19 pm
by Scott Nelson

Many entrepreneurs don’t know what they don’;t know about sales and marketing. This often has dire consequences for the bottom line. Good sales copy is an example of something that most business owners know nothing about. Dan Kennedy, aka the Millionaire Maker calls creating great sales copy, “writing your own check”.

By definition a sales letter is something in print that is meant to influence someone to buy your product. Without getting caught up in formality, a sales letter just has to work to earn the title of good sales letter. Most businesses never get around to even writing a bad one.

This omission is devastating to the bottom line, or at least what the bottom line could be. To clear it up, there is no one way or format to create a blow them out of the water, panting for more sales letter. So have no fear.

I want you to run with the concept right now, so I am going to tell you all you need to know: Go to the library and grab a stack of magazines from the popular genres. You are looking for things in the area of fashion, entertainment, sports, and health and fitness. Pick one from specific and one more general from each category. In sports, you might pick up Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest. Go through them and do nothing but look at the ads.

The sales letters are often full or half page. They sometimes can be half page. Many times they offer a free written or audio material when you get in touch with them. You’ll notice that the sales letter focuses heavily on the service or product offered and not at all on the company name. It is an unfortunate false perception that the big corporations are masters of advertising. In reality, most have not clue about how to draft or use a good sales letter.

Trust me, you’ll know really good sales copy right away. It is interesting to read and makes you interested in the product or service being sold. Put a book placeholder and go get two or three past issues. If you see the same or very similar ad in those back issues, the ad is very likely a successful ad.

What the big companies do is promote a brand with entertaining ads with dancing lizards or whatever. Before you begin to think that sort of thing is real world advertising, remember that advertising must be readily measurable. Did it work or didn’t it. Often, these companies can’t measure the return on the millions spent. This is not for you. You have to get the benefit of your product to the average potential customer right now.

Strategy #2 is to provide your unique benefit to your customer. You want to answer the question: “Why should I be doing business with you and not others offering the same product or service. What is it can you do for them? Always keep that question in mind in creating winning advertising copy.

It is likely that you have heard about the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and the power of a good one. Billionaire philanthropist Tom Monaghan turned Domino’s Pizza into the goliath we see today with this USP: “Fresh Hot Pizza delivered in 30 minutes or Less, Guaranteed.”

A billion dollar empire ensued. With that USP, and the guts to try to back it up on a mass scale, Domino’s eventually had the big boys racing to catch up.

Strategy #1 was skipped intentionally? So what is it?

It’s have a good headline for your sales letter. A whole different topic for a future discussion.

About the Author:
When you master the art-and-science of writing great direct-response copy for money letters, postcards, and ads, you can literally write any size paycheck you want. Check out the Copywriting Clinic for 97 specific tricks-of-the-trade. Good copywriting = more money.

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