Writing amazing sales letters that sell is the Holy Grail for any business.
Although, many people might think that sales letters are dead… that’s just not the case.
Some years back, when I was still a newbie in the direct marketing world, I tried placing an ad on a prominent blog to market my book and the blogger told me that I shouldn’t do that because it doesn’t work anymore.
And I stopped, thinking that since he was a big name, he was right.
He was wrong!
Sales letters are not dead. In fact…
A good sales letter can give your business a 1300% ROI.
Any business owner will salivate for results like this and to get this type of result, you must know how to write a great sales letter.
If you know how to write a banging sales letter, your business will never suffer.
It’s like coming across a diamond mine.
All it will do is pump out cash for you on automatic.
Therefore, here is…
What's In This Post?
How to write a banging, high-converting sales letter
Copywriting for direct response is different from other types of copywriting.
Writing business material that can entice customers to whip out their credit cards on the spot needs precision, research, and experience.
It takes years to reach this point.
You’re in luck, though. I’ve spent years honing my sales letter copywriting skills, and I’ll show you the ropes.
Let’s start with the headline.
Headline
You should consider headlines and titles as a way to get your foot in the door.
Nobody will read the rest of your copy if the headline is bad.
You won’t make any money if no one reads the copy.
As a result, you should employ the following headline-writing techniques. To learn more about these, see my previous guide on headline writing strategies.
Urgency
Always create a sense of urgency when writing your sales letters.
Scarcity, urgency, and fear are some of the most primitive human emotions.
As advertisers, we can take advantage of this by writing urgent headlines.
Customers are led to believe that they must act quickly or they will miss out on another opportunity.
You can use the following power words and phrases to create urgent headlines for a sales letter:
- Now
- Hurry
- Quickly
- Don’t wait
- Don’t miss out
- Today
- Fast
- Limited time
- Limited offer
- While supply lasts
- Low inventory
- Only a few left in stock
- Discontinued
- Rare
- Secret
Be specific
Customers don’t understand vague and generic headlines.
They’re dull, and they’ll want to throw out your sales letter as soon as they’ve read it.
That’s why hyper-specific headlines are so effective.
Within the headline, you can summarize the benefit of the product you’re selling or promoting.
This piques the reader’s interest, prompting them to read the rest of the copy, which leads to a sale.
Therefore, make your headline as specific as possible the next time you’re writing a sales letter.
Include facts, figures, and quotes, as well as a preview of what to expect.
Mention the customer’s pain points
What motivates people to buy things? Because of the feelings.
They are far more important in the purchasing process than most people realize.
Problems are solved by products. That’s all there is to it. And most problems involve feelings and experiences.
This is what initially motivates a customer to seek a solution.
You can use headlines to elicit relevant emotions and thoughts by mentioning one of the audience’s pain points.
Mention a problem that your product solves in the form of a statement or a question.
Then, at the end of the sales letter, include a call to action, such as a phone number, website, or mailing address for purchasing the product.
Sales letter introduction
So you’ve come up with a headline that will put any copywriter to shame.
Cool.
However, your work isn’t finished yet.
With a strong introduction, you must keep people on the sales page.
You should start with a question or a bold statement here.
If you ask a question, make sure it’s something the customer is already thinking about or is relevant to their situation.
According to a well-known copywriting axiom, you want the customer to say yes as much as possible because it will make them more likely to say yes to the sale later.
On the other hand, a bold statement that says something unusual can easily grab someone’s attention.
Here are some examples:
- “Everything you’ve heard about losing weight is a lie.”
- “STOP right now, before it’s too late, if you’re building backlinks to your website.”
- “What you’re about to learn today will forever change you.”
It’s time to show them a unique value proposition after you’ve captured their attention.
What makes you unique or special is your UVP.
It could take the form of a headline, bullets, or text paragraphs.
Explain why your product is so unique that they won’t be able to find anything else similar.
Perhaps it contains rare ingredients or techniques that no one else knows about.
Finally, I recommend using storytelling.
It’s a good way to get people’s attention and get them to agree with the advertisement.
The customer’s problems, feelings, and experiences should be described in the story.
You can use a personal story, a story from a previous customer, or a made-up story as long as it does not make any untrue claims.
Don’t say things like “Joe Bob used our business system to lose 100 pounds, earn $100,000 per hour, and live on Mars.”
For that, you might get a visit from the Federal Trade Commission.
Writing the body
You can now start writing the body of the sales letter now that the headline is out of the way.
There are a few copywriting formulas that I recommend using, including:
AIDA
Attention, interest, desire, and action are all represented by this acronym.
The formula entails grabbing the customer’s attention, making them want to read more, creating a desire for the product, and getting them to take action.
An excellent headline attracts attention.
To get their eyes glued to the page, use one of the strategies I just taught you.
Problem + agitate + solution
A timeless classic.
PAS is the most widely used copywriting formula.
It’s straightforward. It is simple to implement. And it works incredibly well.
The basic concept is to present a customer-experienced pain point, agitate it, and then position your product as the solution.
This works because it makes customers feel emotional and think deeply about their problem, making your product more appealing than Indiana Jones’ golden idol.
Create a buyer persona
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
It usually includes as much information as possible about their demographics, interests, values, and feelings.
You can then tailor a sales letter to this specific audience, increasing conversion rates by up to 73 percent.
Think about this.
If you send a sales letter to a random mailing list, you’ll be communicating with people who may or may not be interested in your product.
Aligning a buyer’s persona with both the copy and the list, on the other hand, will significantly improve results.
To find winning combinations, run a split test.
Split testing is a standard procedure in copywriting.
It enables advertisers to come up with winning headlines, calls to action, and other sales letter elements.
This is why I recommend split testing these and other components, such as images.
You can send one by one to a mailing list a few different versions of a sales letter.
Keep track of how each campaign performs and see if one generates more revenue than the others.
If that’s the case, you can effectively double down and mail it to a much larger list to make a lot of money!
This is 100x easier if you’re writing a digital sales letter.
Manually test different pages or use software like Optimizely to send a control message to half of your visitors.
Use testimonials to your advantage
You may be surprised to learn that testimonials influence 67.7% of all purchasing decisions.
They serve as social proof, which helps potential customers trust you.
This is why testimonials are a great way to boost conversion rates in a sales letter.
You must first obtain a testimonial from previous customers regarding their experience with your product and service.
Take the best of these and include them in your sales letter. You can include them after discussing the product’s advantages to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Justify the price
Successful sales letters require the ability to justify a product’s price both logically and emotionally.
As a general rule, marketing a $10 product requires far less justification than marketing a $10,000 product, for example.
This is why:
A $10 purchase is not a significant financial commitment. They can get a refund, and even if they don’t, it won’t put them out of business.
But let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the customer.
If I’m going to spend $10,000 on something, it better be the best damn thing I’ve ever used!
Don’t you think so?
A sales letter would have to work extremely hard to convince us that a product or service is worth that much.
Because this is how most people think, we can use reverse engineering to land the sale.
The most effective way to do so is to frame the price as an investment.
You’ll be able to do this easily if you sell a course, book, or other products related to business, career, investing, or other topics.
Assume that your program is $500. You can explain that they’ll learn how to make thousands of dollars per month in passive income, so the $500 is nothing compared to what they’ll eventually earn.
I understand what those who do not sell financial products are thinking.
“How am I supposed to use this?”
This principle can still be applied to supplements, consumer goods, and anything else.
A company selling weight loss pills, for example, could claim that its monthly plans are an investment in the customer’s health, happiness, and self-esteem.
If you want to outsource your sales letter writing, any talented sales letter copywriter like myself will be able to do it with ease.
Address all objections
You want the customer to flow like water from the top of the sales letter to the bottom.
The more hiccups and interruptions they have in between, the longer it will take to convert them, or you may lose them entirely.
You can avoid this and increase the number of sales you make by anticipating objections and responding to them before they arise.
This necessitates a thorough understanding of the intended audience.
You’re interested in learning about their emotions, beliefs, desires, pain points, and demographics.
This allows copywriters like yourself to anticipate and resolve their critiques as the page progresses.
The following are common objections or concerns:
- Pricing
- Refund and return policies
- Privacy policies
- Customer support availability
- Evidence for any claims made
- How long does it take for the product to work
- What the end result looks like
- Exactly how to use the product
Customers will be able to cut through sales letters like butter and have more confidence in what you sell if you can answer questions and objections like these.
Have more call-to-actions than you can count
Last but not least, there must be numerous calls to action.
These statements and words instruct users to proceed to the next step in the sales process.
It varies by business and product, but it could be to buy something, add something to your cart, or subscribe to a newsletter.
These include:
- “Respond within 10 days”
- “Receive a FREE bonus book”
- “Act promptly”
- “Get a FREE bonus book”
Because customers convert for a variety of reasons, you should include a call to action in each major section of your sales letter.
What I mean is that some people may buy a product after reading testimonials, while others will buy it after learning about its benefits.
Calls to action include phrases such as:
- Sign up today
- Sign up now
- Register
- Buy now
- Don’t wait
- Hurry
- Claim your discount code
- Get your free X
To learn how to use calls to action effectively and get more ideas, read my guide.
To quickly summarize value, use bullet points
As a copywriter, bullets are one of your best friends.
They enable you to communicate features, benefits, and other critical information quickly.
For visual relief and convenience, use bullet-point lists throughout the sales letter.
This makes lengthy sales letters more readable and visually appealing, as well as assists readers in comprehending the most important information.
A good sales letter template
Understand that there’s no one perfect sales letter template. But all templates have certain things in common and as long as those elements are present, you can come up with your own sales letter template.
I know that’s a lot to take in, so here’s a sales letter template based on the strategies I discussed today.
- A headline that grabs the attention of the customer.
- A subhead that supports the main headline.
- Video sales letter.
- Use storytelling to show you understand the reader’s situation or section agitating the customer’s pain points and experiences.
- Describe the product and its unique selling proposition.
- Product features and advantages.
- Reviews and testimonials.
- Structure of pricing
- Bonuses and their monetary value
- Money-back guarantee and an overview of the refund policy.
- Pricing and offer justification.
- The Postscript
For decades, this has been a tried-and-true sales letter formula.
If you look at successful sales letters, you’ll notice that they always follow this structure.
Why?
Because it is effective!
It contains all of the essential information that customers require to make a purchase.
Combine it with the other sales letter strategies I discussed today to get the best results.
Final thoughts on how to write a sales letter
Direct mail is a cost-effective and effective way to generate sales.
However, great results need excellent copywriting.
The headline is the most important part of a direct mail sales letter. To get people’s attention, you need to use urgency, very specific statements, and emotion.
Then, using a formula like the ones I mentioned earlier, write the body of a sales letter that entices customers to buy.
Every sales letter should also include a clear call to action. This could be something as simple as dialing a phone number or visiting a website.
By following these steps, you can create sales letters that effectively generate free money.
How to Write Copy That Sells
Discover how to boost your online sales in 24 hours or less using this new and exciting copywriting secret that turns first-time visitors into eager-to-buy customers... without spending more money on ads!
