Sales Letters

Sales letters play an important part in the sales process. Some of the functions include identifying new prospects, responding to inquiries, following up on sales calls, acknowledging an order, problem solving and getting repeat business.

All winning sales letters succeeds by following the AIDA formula. AIDA Stands for "Attention, Interest, Desire and Action."

Attention
First, the letter must get the reader's attention with a hard-hitting lead paragraph that goes straight to the point or offers an element of intrigue. A sales letter must capture the reader's attention immediately or it won't get read. There are two common approaches that work well.

1. Open with an intriguing question or statement that grabs the readers' attention and compels him or her to read on. Here are some examples:
   The power to complete multiple projects on time and on budget. (For Project Management Software.)
   I'm writing to you about your husband. (For insurance if the husband dies.)

2. 2. Opening with a list of 5 or 6 benefits. Place the biggest benefit first followed by other benefits in declining order of importance. Here's the template:
   How would you like to...
   • Biggest benefit
   • 2nd biggest benefit
   • 3rd biggest benefit
   • and so on . . .

Interest
Next, you want to hook the reader's interest. This is usually a clear statement of the reader's problems, needs or wants. What's new? What's in it for the reader?

Remember, the reader isn't interested in you or your products. They are interested in what you can do for them. Here is an example:
For enterprises with sales of more than $1 billion, a best-in-class IT Asset Management program could yield $7 million savings annually, based on an IT budget of $50 to $60 million.

Desire
The letter should create a desire. The desire to eliminate or minimize the potential for future loss or the desire to gain something (prestige, more time, more profits, etc.). Provide a compelling reason to buy from you instead of your competition. This is called your "USP" or "Unique Selling Proposition". It's a unique advantage customers get only if they buy from you. One important USP is trust. Make your customer trust you. Provide, field tests or studies of your product, the time your company's been in business, the strength of your brand, your guarantee, testimonials from current customers and from those on your client list.

Action
Last but most important, your sales piece must have a call to action. You must ask your customer to do the action that you want, weather it is to buy or to click on a web site. Explain how and make it so easy for them to do so (as many payment methods as possible) that they will feel left out or disappointed if they don't. For Example:

Don't delay. Take advantage of this Special Price Offer. Call NOW to place your order or complete the coupon below and send your order by email, Fax or postal mail TODAY!

Here are two examples:
Sales Cover Letter Example
Donation Letter Example

Recommendations

The Psychology of Selling

This is an outstanding resource on all of the fine points of selling. In this 6 CD set, he goes into the high level strategy and simple techniques that anyone can apply. Depending on your industry, some chapters are more applicable than others. The chapter on mental approach to selling is very good and I throughourly recommend this audio cd to anyone in any form of sales related role. Get The Psychology of Selling here.

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