The power and magic of a sales letter that really sells.
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”.
Basically, a sales letter done right gives you a salesman that does the job around the clock and never asks for time and a half. You can tell good advertising copy because it is copy that creates money for your business. Too bad most business owners never employ a sales letter in any form.
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.
First: Hit the library and go to the magazine area. You want magazines from the categories of sports, fitness, health, fashion and entertainment. From each category, pick a specific title and a more general title. For example, in beauty pick up Cosmopolitan and one of the magazines on hairstyles or something. Browse through them lightly and make note of the ads.
You’ll know the sales letters because they are usually full or half page, but not always. They frequently offer a free report if you contact them. Very often the focus is on the product or service and there is almost no mention of a company name. Trutfhfully, the big corporation advertisers you see during the final episode of Seinfeld or whatever, don’t have a clue about sales letters or how to use them.
When you find really good sales copy you’ll know it. You’ll know it because it is interesting in that it makes you interested in the thing they are selling. Mark it with page tag and go get two or three of the previous issues of that magazine. If the ad is in there again, it is safe to say that it likely has been a success.
The strategy of the big boys who throw their money around on the expensive ads is mass marketing to a mass market based on branding using singing polar bears and football playing frogs or whatever. It is highly likely that they have no idea of the ultimate effect of the millions spent. That’s fine, they have that luxury in many cases. For the purposes of bringing your product or service to everyday people with choices, you need to bring them benefit and make it real clear up front what that benefit is.
So strategy #2 is have a way of conveying a benefit to your customer that is unique in your market. Right up front you want to answer the question: “Why should I be doing business with you v. my other choices for the same product or service?” Bluntly, what can you do for me , and it better be unique and more beneficial than the what the other guy can do for me.
It has been written many times over about the power that a simple USP (unique selling proposition) can have for a business. Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s pizza took a fledgling pizza joint in a college town (he lived in the back room at the beginning) by carving out special turf in the brutal market of pizza with: “Fresh Hot Pizza delivered in 30 Minutes or Less, Guaranteed”.
That simple USP frankly brought the big boys to their knees and had them playing catch up.
But you might have noticed that having a powerful USP is strategy # 2. Where is strategy 1?
It is the headline. The headline is the first thing that captures the reader’s attention. It is vital. How to put together a good headline is a great topic for future discussions.
Filed under: Copywriting