How to get attention with your sales letter

It’s true that the most important element of your online marketing efforts is getting traffic to your site, because without traffic you don’t have a business.  But once you get traffic to your website, if the copy isn’t compelling, no one will read it.  Marketing is made up of many elements including how to get traffic to your site, but it’s your marketing message in the copy that will do the selling!

And, I'm sure you've heard this so many times before, but it's worth repeating, your message has to tell your reader what you can do for them not, what your company can do and how long you've been established.

So regardless of what you're trying to sell…

You really can't sell it without "communicating" or speaking to the needs of your prospective buyer. 

And whether you’re trying to sell something on the Internet, offline or whether you’re just interested in getting people to opt in to your email list, you’ll need a compelling sales letter that will speaks directly to your prospect.  So here’s a secret for when you’re writing your sales letter, pretend you have an audience of one and that “one” happens to be a good friend.   

If you write with this approach in mind, you’ll build a relationship with your prospects from the outset because it will force you to write a sales letter that will speak to rather than speak at your prospects as well as keep you focused on their needs and not yours. 

You’ll also find that your sales copy will be much more conversational in style which after all is how you build and maintain a relationship with your friends isn’t it? 

Using the “audience of one” approach also helps you set the scene for your offer by creating an image in the mind of your prospect, right at the beginning of the sales letter, that appeals to their desire or want.

Note here that I used the term desire or want and not need.  Whilst I agree a "want" can soon be turned into "a need," people buy what they want and not necessarily what they need.  So unless you're an evangelist and you want to make money online, give people what they want and not what you think they need.  

The next stage of the sales letter will take them smoothly to what many would refer to as the “sales pitch” but what I like to refer to as “the offer.”   The offer describes in detail how "wonderful" life will be and, how good your prospect will feel once they're using your product or service.  This is the "body or guts" of  your sales letter.

Overall, if you want to write a winning sales letter, ensure you follow the time-tested and proven formula:  1)  Get your prospects attention  2)  Get them interested in what you can do for them  3)  Make them desire the benefits of your product so badly, their mouth will begin to water  4)  Demand action from them - tell them to click the button or take whatever action is required for getting hold of whatever it is you're selling…without delay, and suggest that any procrastination on their part might cause them to lose out!

This is called the "AIDA" formula (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action), a formula that's talked about a lot in both in online sales copywriting and direct response advertising but the important thing is that it's a formula that works!

In the next post, I’ll talk about how long a sales letter should be.  This is a topic of much debate even among some of the top copywriters, and the results from many years of testing may surprise you, so ensure you come back and read part 2.

To your online success,

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