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7 Tips For Sales Letters From A Consumer Standpoint
by Mario Churchill
More Business Skills
Articles
Published on this site: November 7th, 2008 - See
more articles from this month
Sales letters, whether in actual mailed letter or email format,
is probably one of the most tedious and annoying means of
advertising ever devised. From a customer perspective, getting
your physical mail box flooded with flyers and your email inbox
stuffed with spam is NOT a good way to start out the day. From a
salesman or business owner's perspective, trying to offer people
a product that you KNOW will actually help them becomes more
difficult because the public in general is becoming more jaded
from all the trash letters being sent out by half baked
marketing groups with substandard products. To this end, here
are 7 tips from an irritable consumer to give some advice to
people making sales letters:
- Honesty is the best policy: Nobody likes a scammer,
with the sole possible exception of the scammer himself and any
associates who make a profit alongside his sales. Those "wonderful" people
aside, everybody else would rather take a
scammer, disembowel him, and hang him from a flagpole by his
intestines. So first thing's first you want us to read your
letters? Shoot straight and don't hide or lie about facts.
- Get to the Darn Point: You're not writing a novel,
are you? It's a sales letter. Keep it short so you don't waste our
time, and if something can be said in 5 words, why phrase it in 20?
Granted, some of those lengthier statements may be intended to
amuse us, but if we wanted a quick laugh, we can always just go
out and watch a mime getting run over by a truck.
- Talk TO your Readers, not AT Them: A lot of letters
come across sounding like they're being delivered from a stage or a
pulpit. Talk TO your readers, person to person, not AT them like
you're making a grand speech. Again, if I wanted to fall asleep
listening to a speech, I'd just go to church or a corporate
meeting at work, or maybe watch TV and look for a politician.
- What's In It for The Reader?: Yep, that's the bottom
line bubba. What's in it for me? Your new fangled high tech swiss
army bulletproof cell phone may come with more processing power
than an entire network of PCs, it might be made from materials
that theoretically shouldn't exist through modern smelting
methods, and may even include a tazer gun in case I get mugged.
But what do I get out of it when all I need from a phone is a
longer battery life, a built in MP3 player for my tunes, and a
high powered "babe" magnet?
- Fine Print Makes People Nervous: Use large, clear
print for your letter text. Nobody likes having to use a magnifying
glass to read a letter. Fine print, from the stand point of a
consumer, will often hold various arcane stipulations designed
to squeeze extra bucks out of our wallets. We like knowing what
we're getting into and what we're buying without any hitches,
snags, and hidden agendas, thank you very much.
- Concentrate on Getting Interest, Not a Sale: If
you try to push your product off on me, I'll shove it back into your
face and down your throat. There's an old adage: Don't call me, I'll
call you. This applies to most any potential consumer. As far as
I'm concerned if you push for a sale, then all you want is my
money. If, on the other hand, you catch my interest and give me
a good reason to call you, THEN we can talk about my buying your
stuff. Make it worth my while.
- Let The Reader Know How to Reach You: One of the
most irritating aspects of business sales letters is incomplete or
vague return contact information. I know that being "mysterious"
and "hard to get" is a common ploy. News flash here: playing
hard to get makes people walk out on you, and being mysterious
usually means you have large skeletons in the closet to hide.
So, that translates to you're being a scam. If you want to talk
about making a sale, let me know how to reach you quickly and
easily.
Mario Churchill: Is a freelance author
and has
written over 200 articles on various subjects. For more
information checkout
www.websiteconversionexpert.com/articles.html and
www.websiteconversionexpert.com/testimonials.html.
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