Want $40,098.25 in sales? Write a simple letter…

From the desk of Roy Furr, Monday, 12:37 pm

A simple letter (that’s snail mail!) can be the most powerful way to generate immediate sales for your business.

Here’s an example…

I wrote a short 1-page letter for a client that generated $14,916.25 in immediate sales.

The letter sold a subscription product with a high renewals — my client expects to make another $25,182 in renewal sales from these same clients within the next 12 months, based on the sales made from my original letter.

That means my letter will have created $40,098.25 in gross sales, within 12 months. From a single mailing.

Their cost was less than $2200.

This client made over 680% ROI immediately, with an expected ROI of at least 1,800%.

Naturally, they’re ready to do this again, as often as possible.

How do you write an ultra-profitable letter like this?

There’s a lot of details that go into writing short, effective sales letters. More than I can cover here today. But here are the basics…

1. Know who you’re talking to.

The better you know your clients or prospects, the better you can speak with them on their terms, about their needs. Remember — any marketing or sales communication you write to your customers is not about you, it’s about them. It’s about how your solution makes their life better.

Forget that, and you might as well not have contacted them.

2. Make your message look personal.

People always open personal mail, and mail that looks valuable.

They only sometimes open other mail — mail that looks like marketing. Whether you’re sending your letter to 10 prospects or 10,000,000, make sure it looks as much like personal mail as possible.

That means print the address directly on the envelope (a regular #10 envelope). Make the return address a person, not a company. Use a live first class stamp. What does the personal mail you get in your mailbox look like? Make yours look like that.

And don’t screw it up when they open the envelope. Stick with a letter. You may not even need a reply card. Just write a personal letter, on plain paper, and give them a phone number to call to take the next step.

If you have to include your brochure, reply card, or other “marketing” materials, put them in a separate envelope to be opened after they read your letter. And it’s okay to tell them — in writing, on this extra envelope — not to open the envelope until they’ve read your letter.

3. Start your letter with a bang — tell them specifically why your offer benefits them.

Nobody cares to read about how cool your company is. They don’t need fluff. They want to know how they’re going to benefit — “What’s in it for me?”

Put that up front, and tell it big. If they can save 50% off what they’re going to pay elsewhere for the same merchandise, tell them that. If you can write a letter for them that will generate $40,098.25 in sales, tell them that (I have a letter going into the mail right now that starts with that!).

Make it clear how they’ll benefit, so they want to read the rest of your letter. You have 3-10 seconds to really capture their attention. So do it — either in a headline before the greeting, or in the first sentence of your letter.

This is the only way to guarantee they’ll read the rest of the letter.

4. Explain why your offer is unique — why your prospect could trek to the ends of the earth and not get a better deal.

This is critical. People may get excited by your offer. But you’ll lose those sales left and right unless you give them a good reason why you’re the only person they can turn to if they want what you’re offering.

People don’t really want to go through the effort to make sure your offer is the best one available.

But they’ll shop around unless you tell them why they don’t have to. Or why shopping around is worthless because your offer can’t be compared to anything else out there.

If you’re unique — and you give customers an unquestionable reason why — they won’t look elsewhere, and you’ll get the business… as long as you follow the rest of these steps.

5. Prove any questionable claims.

Proof is often M.I.A. — missing in action — in sales and marketing materials. Yet it’s the single strongest element you could include.

You need to prove that your product does what you say it does. Especially if you have strong, almost unbelievable claims.

The pudding — you could say — is in the proof.

There are a lot of ways you can prove your claims — I won’t go in to them here — but be sure if you make a claim that you back it up.

6. Tell your prospect why they have no choice but to respond NOW!

It’s so easy to lose a sale here. For some reason, people get all queasy when it comes time to ask for the sale. (I used to, too.) If that’s you, knock it off!

Ask for the sale. And ask for it clearly. Tell the customer exactly what they’re going to get. Then tell them how to get it. And give them a good reason why they have to get it now!

If you don’t convince your prospect that their life is going to become abysmal if they don’t respond to your offer now, it’s likely that they’ll set aside your letter and never respond.

Do you believe in your product? Quit selling it if you don’t. But if you do…

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be yelling from the rooftops telling people to buy, and buy now. You should have no reservations about getting your potential client to cough up the dough for your product because you know for certain how much their life will be transformed in a positive way as a result of doing business with you.

So ask for the sale — because the whole sale hinges on you taking this simple step.

7. Send the letter, and reap the rewards!

Enough said!

Want me to write a simple sales letter for your business — profits guaranteed?

I’ve given you step-by-step instructions on how to write a profitable short sales letter for yourself. But if you’d like me to do it for you, I can.

I’m not going to publish my rates here. But I will tell you they’re higher than the rates of at least 70% of other direct marketing writers out there, for good reason (the investment pays off better).

If you’re interested and willing to invest a small sum to make a large one, write me an email at roy@freshlookinc.com or call me at 541-543-1438.

I may or may not decide to take you on as a client — but if I do I will even guarantee that the letter I write will be profitable, so there’s no risk to you.

Email me: roy@freshlookinc.com. Or call: 541-543-1438.

Tags: sales, sales letters

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