SALES LETTERS

                                                          sales letters

Sales Letters

To some extent, every letter is a sales letter. You are selling your organization’s image and goodwill. These letters are an easy and effective way of securing business. No other type of letter influences so many people or brings as big a return in terms of money as this letter.

 

More so than other letters, the sales letter is highly specialized, and its writing require exceptional ability and experience.

 

There are two kinds of sales letters:

(i)         Solicited letter (the organization is invited to respond to sales messages.)

(ii)        Unsolicited letter (the organization sends out uninvited messages to sell a product or service)

            Writing whatever type of sales letter, follow these principles.

1.         Know your Buyer

•        First identify the characteristics that describe the most likely buyer for your products or services. From research or experience, build a “composite” buyer. The sex, age, occupation, geographic location, financial situation, and other characteristics of the “average” buyer. Determine what appeals will be used in letter. Defining your targeted buyer’s characteristics helps you discover the needs and desires of these prospective buyers.

For example, you wouldn’t try to sell a “Sixty-Five Plus” insurance plan to college students.

The writer of sales letters has a choice of many different appeals. Those used depend upon the aim of the letter, the nature of the product, and the market – the people who will receive the letter. Buyers usually spend their money for these reasons:

•        For comfort (air conditioners)

•        To make money (stock)

•        To escape physical pain

•        To save money (storm windows)

•        To save time (microwave oven)

•        To protect family (smoke detector)

•        To imitate others (sunglasses)

•        To be in style (new coat)

•        To be different (exclusive hat)

•        To avoid trouble (casualty insurance)

•        For health (toothpaste)

•        To take advantage of opportunities (investment property)

•        For enjoyment (television set)

•        To enhance reputation (charitable contribution)

•        For cleanliness (soap)

•        To satisfy appetite (candy)

•        To avoid effort (power lawn mower)

•        For beautiful possessions (new cell phone)

•        To be popular (dancing lessons)

•        To safeguard possessions (fire insurance)

•        To be attractive (jewelry, garments)

•        To be adventurous (travel)

2. Prepare a List of Buyers

Next, you need a good mailing list. The obvious place to start is your organization’s own list of buyers. You can also buy lists from organizations that specialize in compiling and selling them. For sales effectiveness, a good mailing list must contain the correct names and addresses of people or organizations that have in common characteristics that make them likely buyers for your products or services.

3.Analyze the Product

What specific feature of the product or service makes it attractive or useful or appealing? What features should be emphasized? What features should be played down? (These analyses are usually made along with Step 1.) Letters that present a product in terms of what prospective buyers think of it and how they can use it do more than make sales--they win satisfied customers.

4. Decide on the Central Selling Point

The central selling point (CSP) should be the item of information most likely to persuade the buyer to buy a product or service. After analyzing the buyer and the product, build your letter around this central selling point. The CSP might be appearance, durability, comfort, convenience, price, or any other positive feature that is likely to have the greatest influence on your reader’s purchasing decision.

Writing Solicited Sales Letters

Solicited sales are the letters that you write in response to an inquiry. With these letters, the organization has one central goal: to get responses quickly to someone’s request for information, use the direct plan for the solicited letter.

Organizational Plan Responding to Solicited Letters

1.         Opening paragraph use the good-news approach.

    a. Answer the inquirer’s questions favorably.

    b. Indicate that the requested material will be sent.

2.         Body

    a. Answer additional questions.

    b. Provide educational, resale, or sales promotion information.

    c. Be truthful about negative information.

    d. Arrange your answers so your positive responses are at the beginning and the end; embed (put in the middle) your weaker or negative comments.

3.         Action ending

    a. Make the action easy.

    b. Suggest benefits to reader.

    c. Focus on the positive aspects.

Just Look at the following positive opening

With pleasure we received your letter and it is with further pleasure that we are able to open a credit account with our store. All the necessary forms to initiate that account are included with this letter.

Writing Unsolicited Sales Letters

Unsolicited sales letter are those letters which you write to people who can be persuaded through these letters to buy your product or service. These letters demand superior writing skills. Often you will work with a marketing department or even an ad agency; they will make recommendations about the mailing lists, the timing, the core theme, and the visual presentation of brochures and accompanying material.

           

Once you know what you need to say and whom do you want to say it to, decide how you’re going to say it. Will you send just a letter, or will you include brochures, samples, response cads, and the like? Will the letter be printed with an additional colour or special symbols or logos? How many pages will it run?

You’ll also need to decide whether to conduct a multistage campaign, with several mailings and some sort of telephone or in-person follow-up, or to rely on a single mailing.

All these decisions depend on the audience you’re trying to reach their characteristics, their likely acceptance of or resistance to your message and what you’re trying to get them to do. In general, expensive items and hard-to-accept propositions call for a more elaborate campaign than low-cost products and simple actions.

Unsolicited letters are written on ADIA plan which is a four step approach.

a. Attracting the Attention

1. Design a positive opening that awakens a favorable association with the product, need, or cause.

2. Write the opening so that it’s appropriate, fresh, honest, interesting, specific, and relevant.

3. Promise a benefit to the reader

4. Keep the first paragraph short, preferably two to five lines, and sometimes only one.

5. For sales, letters, get attention with a provocative question, a significant/startling fact, a solution to a problem, a special offer/gift, a testimonial, a current event, an illustration, a comparison, an event in the reader’s life, a problem the reader may face, or a quotation.

Sales letters start with an attention-getting device. Professionals use some common techniques to attract audience’s attention. Look at the following beginnings:

 

•  A piece of genuine news. “In the past 60 days, the commercial electricity billings have shrunk by 12 percent.”
• The most attractive feature plus the associated benefit. “New control device ends problems with every type of pilferage!”
•  An intriguing number. “Here are three great secrets of the world’s most loved entertainers.”

• A sample of the product. “Here’s your free sample of the new medicated tooth brush.”
•  A specific trait shared by the audience. Busy executives need another ‘timesaving’ device”
•  A provocative question. “Are you tired of watching inflation eating away at your hard-earned profits?”
•  A challenge. “Don’t waste another day wondering how you’re going to become the success you’ve always wanted to be!”
•  A solution to a problem. “Tired of chilly air rushing through the cracks around your windows? Stay warm and save energy with Storm Seal Weather stripping.”          
•  Stressing benefit of previous students.
• In the last university examination of the university one of our students topped securing record marks. In addition, seven out of top ten positions were bagged by our students you too can be a top notcher!
• For the ninth cricket world cup our juices were announced the official drinks of the world cup. Besides, the world cup management committee declared our juices the best soft drinks.
• Convincing readers through free trial
• You can keep the monthly Asia for two weeks. Read the articles and even if you feel that it is not worth your amount just give us a call, our representative will bring back your amount next day.

b. Creating Interest

1. State information clearly, vividly, and persuasively, relating it to the reader’s concerns.

2. Develop the central selling point.

3. Feature the product in two ways: physical description and reader benefits.

4. Place benefits first, or interweaves them with a physical description.

5. Describe objective details of the need or product (size, shape, color, scent, sound texture, etc.)

6. Use psychological appeals to present the sensation, satisfaction, or pleasure readers will gain.

7. Blend cold facts with warm feelings.

c. Arousing Your Desire

1. Enlist one or more appeals to support the central idea (selling point).

2. If the product is valued mainly because of its appearance, describe its physical details.

3. If the product is machinery or technical equipment, describe its sturdy construction, fine crafting, and other technical details in terms that help readers visualize themselves using it.

4. Include technical sketches and meaningful pictures, charts, and graphs, if necessary.

5. For sales letters, provide test results from recognized experts, laboratories, or authoritative agencies.

Objectives	Suggested descriptions
To sell porcelain bathroom fixtures	“The porcelain finish is glass-smooth.”
To sell small cars	“To driver who is fed up with bigger, thirstier cars switches to ____.”
To sell air travel	“For travel elegance, fly with _____.”
To sell soft drinks in cans	“And cans chill so fast, keeping the flavor fresh and full of zip.”
To sell a soft drink	“You’ll really welcome the cold, crisp taste that so deeply satisfies ….. the cheerful lift that’s bright and lively.”

Objectives	Suggested descriptions
To sell an air deodorant	“Make air smell flower-fresh.”
To sell shampoo	“Hair so satin-bright – airy-light!”

d. Stimulate the Reader to Action

1. Clearly state the action you desire.

2. Provide specific details on how to order the product, donate money, or reach your organizations.

3. Ease action with reply cards, preaddressed envelopes, phone numbers, follow-up phone calls.

4. Offer a special inducement to act now: time limit or situation urgency, special price for a limited time, premium for acting before a certain date, gift for acting, free trial, no obligation to buy with more information or demonstration, easy payments with no money down, credit-card payments.

To motivate the reader to act within a certain time, you can use one or more of the following methods:

•        You don’t have to send any money right now. Take a moment to fill in the postpaid order card and drop it into mail. Your Asia Today will be shipped the day after we receive your order.

•        Offering a special discount

An Offer of a Free Gift

Our gift is already enclosed: a sun catcher to attach to your window. Send your order in and we’ll send you another one Free.

Please place your order by filling in the enclosed postpaid card and save 25% off the market price before September 30.

          Here are some other ways to motivate the reader to action:

•        Free trial of the product.

•        No obligation to buy.

•        Higher earnings.

•        Special price for a limited time.

•        Join with others who already are satisfied.

•        No salesperson will call.

•        Name will not be sold to other firms.

   

In short, writing successful sales letters is difficult. Some letters may take weeks to be perfect. But financial returns can be great. Good selling presents the proposition in such a way that the readers become convinced. Achieving your goal requires careful editing and rewriting.

 

            This effective sales letter offers the reader a special discount just for bringing the letter to the store.  

Attention	Dear Sir, Make The Photo Shop Your First Stop…. …Whenever you need camera or photographic equipment.
Desire	Whether you want a highly sophisticated sound movie system or a simple pocket camera, whether you’re an amateur photographer or a professional.

Desire	The Photo Shop   Is for you! ABC —all these famous brands and more are available at Photo shop. Every type of camera, lens, film, and darkroom equipment is in stock at The Photo Stop, because we have the largest inventory in the city.
Action	The enclosed brochure describes some of the many items now on sale at The Photo shop. For an extra discount, just bring this letter with you and you will get 10% off any purchase over Rs. 5000! (offer ends July 30.) Yours sincerely,

Selling an Educational Course

Situation

Career Institute offers home-study courses in various trade occupations. The sales promotion director has obtained a list of subscribers to a practical mechanics magazine, who are often good candidates for home—study training. He writes a sales letter, the purpose of which is to persuade readers to send for a free catalog, which describes a course in small-engine repair.

Model Letters

Modified Block Form

Attention	Dear Sir,                                              WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO OWN YOUR OWN BUSINESS?
Attention	If you’re looking for the change to be your own boss… or earn extra income in your spare time… or a way to achieve independence when you retire… SMALL-ENGINE REPAIR could be the answer.

Interest

Career institute can quickly train you--in your spare time at home--to service repair mowers, tillers, chain saws, outboards, garden tractors, mopeds, motorcycles, snowmobiles, and dozens of other types of small-engine equipment. It’s a great way to get your own business, full-or part-time, with a minimum investment. And it’s a field with growing opportunities for qualified people.   Career Institute’s Small-Engine Course contains forty-five lessons, each easy to read and understand. You also perform experiments that show you how every part of an engine works. And we supply you with professional tools--a complete set of wrenches, electrical system tools and other. Everything you need!

Desire	Our big catalog tells you all you need to know. It describes the contents of each lesson (and there are sample pages of the actual study materials), and contains illustrations and descriptions of the equipment you will use. The instructor you will be assigned to has been a professional small-engine mechanic. He will be your “partner” in your studies.
Action	Just fill in and mail the enclosed post card for your free catalog today. It needs no postage.                                                   Sincerely,                                                 Director of Studies P.S: No sales representative will call you!

Full - Block Form

Attention	Dear Friend, The most comprehensive selection of Quaid-e-Azam’s speeches, public writings, and private letters ever published! YOURS FOR JUST RS.500
Interest	Quaid-e-Azam was not only the founder of Pakistan but also a great orator.

Desire	Here are all of Quaid’s speeches, from the early days in his politics, including all his addresses to the students of different institutions. It includes Quaid’s personal and political correspondence.   Above all, here is Quaid’s absolutely distinctive language, resonant with dignity, wit, and the uniquely patriot flavour.
Action	Write today for your copy of the book. You’ll be awfully glad.   Sincerely yours,