Some basic information can help you write a sales letter that makes money. You need a sales letter to follow up on your classified ads. You can use this information to write a good email also. Most of the princples are the same.
I have written at least four sales letters. They all made money. I wrote down the contents of many successful letters to help get the the right ingredients into my brain. This is good training for learning how to write successful sales letters.
We will cover the importance of headlines, and where to find headline models, The first parapraph is an important lead in to the meat of your sales letter. Sub headlines are also important to make your letter easy to read. You need a list of all the benefits of what you are offering. The difference between a benefit and a feature is significannt .
Headlines Attract Attention
Headlines attract the readers attention. You only have less than 10 seconds to attract attention. If you don’t do it right away the reader will move on to something else. There is nothing more important than the headline.
Make a Big Promise
One way to get attention is to make a BIG PROMISE. Make money could be one type of promise. Lose weight could be another type of promise. Peolpe are always looking for ways to to do these two things. There are many other promises too.
Make a Specific Promise
A specific money making promise is “Make $2000 a month in 5 hours a week” Or on losing weight you could say “lose 10 pounds in the first 10 days”.
Tell a Story
Tell a story about how the great benefits came about. What did you do and what were the results? I have only tried this one time, but the results were very good. People love to hear stories from the time they are children. they remember stories better than a list of statistics for example.
One example of story telling was done for a letter about the Wall Street Journal. The story was about two men with similar backgrounds. One read the Wall Street Journal and the other did not read it. The one who read the Journal was much more successful than the one who did not read it. It was a very dramatic contrast.
Lead with Benefits Not Features
A benefit is something that the product or service will help you do. A feature is the number of pages in a book for example.A benefit could be making money or losing weight like I mentioned before. You should list all of the benefits of using your product or service. You could have dozen or more of them.
Prioritize your list of benefits
After lising all the benefits you can think of for your product, you need to list them in order of importance. The most important benefit should come first. The next most imporrtant should be second etc. Keep going down the list.
The AIDA formula
The AIDA formula is a very important part of writing a successful money-making sales letter. A stands for attention.. I stands for interest. D represents DESIRE.. And the second A stands fior ACTION.
So first get attention with an eyecatching headline. Then grab interest with a strong first sentence or paragraph. The next phase is to build desire with a powerful list of benefits. Last but not least is to ask for action. Have them fill out an order form or make a telephone call or do something. Tell exactly what you would like the reader to do.
Satisfaction Guaranteed
You need to have a strong guarantee of satisfaction or money back. This takes all the pressure off the buyer. They know they will not be disappointed with their purchase or they will get their money back.
Call to Action
Here is where you ask for the order. Tell the reader exactly what you want them to do. Be clear and precise. Fill out the order form below or call the following number etc.
The P. S. is always read
It is a good idea to have a P. S. or post script in every letter because people always read the P. S. Here is where you can add a bonus and explain the offer in some detail.
Order form
One great copywriter Ted Nicholas told me to start writing with the order form because it should summarize the whole offer. It should tell exactly what the buyer will get and how much it will cost. It is a good idea to always add a bonus or two to your offer.
Read and Study Successful Ads
Read and study successful ads to help internalize the elements of successful ads. You can find books with successful ads in them on amazon for example. Practice writing these out by hand. This will help you to remember exactly what to do when you go to write your own ad.
Here You Have the Basics of Writing a Money-making Sales Letter.
Dan Kennedy says that you can a good sales letter from the information in a post like this or from his book The Ultimate Sales Letter. It does not have to be perfect to do the job. Good luck in your writing. You can build it piece by piece.