Sales Letters: An Effective Means of Advertising

Sales letters are purely psychological. Every literary aspect of a sales letter must be carefully designed to attract the reader into making a purchasing decision. For this reason, they follow a strict format and adhere to certain rules. Oftentimes, advertisers are rookies in the sales letter game and create faulty sales letters that detract from the message and force readers elsewhere. Here are some sales letter tricks of the trade - what NOT to say.

• Don't use first names - using first names on sales letters are artificial and can even create more of a distance between the advertiser and the customer. It is irritating and customers are smart enough to know you used a mailing list to retrieve their contact information. Leave it out.
• Avoid subtle "threats" like "yours while they last," "Don't miss this chance" and "You'll be sorry if you passed up this opportunity." While many readers are naive and will follow this bluff, many others do not want to be forced into making a quick buying decision.
• Tailor the sales letter to your customer's comfort level. This means scolding them for not using your product, adding too many requirements to buy your product (i.e. for college educated customers only), and adding jargon that some readers cannot quickly grasp and understand. Gear it towards the layman so that everyone can have a chance at trying your product.
• Detailing benefits, claims, and features works a lot better than using over-the-top claims like "this is amazing,: "one in a lifetime opportunity" and "extraordinary product!" By keeping it straight to the point, customers will better understand your product and won't be annoyed by hyperbolic words.
• Make your sales letter chockfull of boring words. Keep it active and exciting with plenty of colourful descriptive words instead of general words. This creates powerful and appeasing images in the customers head. Remember, too many mentioned statistics and background information about the product can bore them so add some zest to your sales letter. Also, choose the right tone. You can achieve this through a "friend-to-friend" tone, serious professional tone, technical, mysterious - the tone that best represents the life of your product.