Perfect pitch: writing sales materials that sing

Entrepreneur, June, 1996 by Danielle Kennedy

"It's a system I know you can use, and it has an ironclad, money-back guarantee. So the only question is, Do you want to add to your income this year? (More about that later.)"

The "More about that later" tickles a reader's curiosity and keeps him or her reading. The letter continued:

"The most important product we sell is ourselves. It is a fact that people do not do business with people they do not trust. That's why the first part of my course is a comprehensive study about authentically earning the prospect's trust." The letter goes on to detail how the product accomplishes that goal.

Since all good sales letters ask for the order many times throughout the body of the letter--especially at the end--this one continued, "You take NO RISK with my you-be-the-judge FREE-TRIAL OFFERING. I want you to order it now--and to make sure you don't procrastinate, this offer is only good for a limited time. "

Strong sales letters are specific about how the order can be accomplished now. Write in the present tense. Avoid the passive.

I like ending a sales letter with a P.S. Sometimes I handwrite the postscript myself. Here's the one I used on the above letter:

"P.S. Do not treat this offering like another sales pitch. I know with certainty this is going to help you. If you were my bestfriend, I would tell you not to pass up this offer. Someday you will thank me, so ORDER NOW:"

If you're still struggling to write a compelling sales letter, here's an exercise that can get your creative juices flowing: Write a passionate letter to your spouse or significant other. Because your feelings run deep, your "voice" comes through on paper. Don't hold back. Next, with the same intensity, compose a letter to a customer describing your products or services.

* KEEP IT SIMPLE

A message often creates the strongest impact if the language is very simple. Elegant techniques often get in the way of what I call the "selling message." My husband, Mike, and I have created all the advertising and marketing promotions at each company we owned. We have won awards for some of these pieces. I believe our work was singled out because we followed our instincts and kept the message uniform and simple.

Simplicity applies to your theme as well as your words. The same theme should be carried through all your marketing materials. When I opened my first company, I wanted to communicate the importance of repeat business and quality service. One of the messages I found myself repeating to customers was "Remember me." I decided to use that theme in all our printed material.

We had a graphic artist design a simple forget-me-not flower. The local newspaper ads announcing our opening had charcoal-gray sketches of each member of our management team, with the flower and the words "forget-me-not" under each sketch.

We kept to that theme by passing out forget-me-not seeds to our prospects and reminding potential customers that if they gave us a chance to do business with them, we would deliver "forget-me-not" service.