Sunday 3 March 2013

Ethical or Legal Sales letter?


In my previous blogs, I have discussed about different aspects of Sales letter.  I have discussed in some blogs that the sales letter should be legally correct and should be free of Puffery and other elements which make it illegal. The fact that something is legal doesn't make it ethical. So what is important? An unethical but legally correct sales letter or an ethical sales letter which is legal.




 According to me, Ethics should be given a higher weightage. Life should not be solely about "me, myself, and I." To be fully human and be a part of civilized society means to go beyond what the law demands of us. It means to live according to ethical rules and principles, many of which ask more of us than the law does. Similarly, to earn higher profits and increase the sales, a company should not ignore the ethical part in the sales letter.

There is an article, I would definitely recommend you to read, before you decide if ethics are important in sales letter or not.
Click here to read the article.




In the short run unethical but legal sales letter might get you more sales, but in the long run it surely will prove very bad for the business.
I am sure you all agree with me. I would conclude that it is MUST for the sales letter to be LEGAL, but at the same time it should be ETHICAL also.
If my friends you have a different opinion on this, please post your comments.

Relevance of graphics in sales letter



Just like kids we all like colours, pictures and images.  Graphics are a very important part in Sales letter formation. They act like a glue which keeps the reader`s attention hooked and fixed on the sales letter. The graphic design of a sales letter is an important part of the branding. The font, layout, line spacing, imaging, etc all have an effect on the efficacy of the letter. Nowadays, a lot of time and money is spent on selection the best graphic design for the sales letter.


There is wonderful video on sales letter graphics, which I would like you to see. It shows importance of the graphics in sales letter. 


To view how the Sales letter with lots of graphics 
  1. click here 
  2. click here
  3. click here
I personally like graphics, they keep me hooked and make me read more. Do you agree with me?Can you imagine how a sales letter , without any graphics will look ?What about you , do you think graphics are relevant for making an effective sales letter ? 




Determinants of Length of Sales letter


In my previous blog posting I showed you examples of Short and Long Sales letter . In order to determine  what really works in the market and what readers prefer , I read many blogs and articles. There are some who vote in favour of long and some in favour of short. While I was searching, I came across a great blog . I would like to share few points that were discussed in it.

Different ways to determine how long the sales letter needs to be :


1.      What is your reputation with the prospects? Are they from a trusted list? In many cases, the more a person trusts you. For example, Apple can sell a product with two words: New Product
2.      How complicated is your product? If you have something like software or a new service, it may need more explanation than other products. Think customer education. Thus, more copy
3.      What is your price point? If this is a higher ticket item, you’re going to have better success with things like rapport building emails.  If it’s a smaller item, you can likely get away with making sales to cold traffic on a sales page.
4.      Scope out the competition! What are they doing?  Go ahead and sign up for their newsletters and take a look at their sales pages.  Get a feel for what seems to be working

What I personally feel is that if the content is boring and not very informative the reader will just throw it in garbage  irrespective of being short or long .What do you think ?I am sure after reading this some more points are coming in your minds. Please do drop in your comments and do share your views about my blog.




LONG Vs SHORT SALES LETTER



In the huge pile of flyers, a single page leaflet is dumped in the trash bin without any reading. That single page leaflet could be a great sales letter. Have you ever experienced this? Well, I am not a very big fan of reading all those papers that are sent to my house. Be it a single page leaflet or a multi-page booklet. But that’s me, on the contrary my sister is a complete opposite who likes to go through all of them, she says, “I don’t want to miss out on a great deal”. Sometimes she asks me to read and tell her if there is any good deal in it. And every time I pray I get the shortest paper.

So I wonder, why do people take all the effort in writing those long sales letters? Why can’t they just write a short sales letter? This is a very question, whether the sales letter should be short or long?  The sales letter only has to be as long as it has to be. Say as much as is needed and not a word more.


Well here, I am going to show you examples of short and long sales letter and then you decide, what impressed you more?


The example of Short sales letter :



Now an example of Long Sales letter :
Click here to see the example



Well I think the shorter the better for me. But sometimes for some products you need more information to decide if you want to spend your money on that or not . May be this is the reason why you find such long sales letters .
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ? DID THE SHORT OR THE LONG SALES LETTER IMPRESS YOU?  Do post your comments .

Saturday 2 March 2013

SALES LETTER – An extraordinary way to sell



I was just surfing the net, to find some information on writing a perfect Sales letter and I came across this awesome video on sales letter. I would definitely like to share this with you. See how a single penny cans upsell for you.


This is an actual sales letter created for a local bakery in Liberty Lake, WA. It pulled an incredible 15% response rate with 90% upsells. Mailed in 2010 and brought in over 540 new clients.
 
What impressed me the most, in this sales letter, was the use of the penny. It is a great technique of persuasion. To begin with, the penny gets the reader’s attention and makes him read more. Later that penny makes the reader walk into the bakery,  to get the free gift , which makes the customer try more product . What an amazing idea? So what do you think about it? Do post your comments on this video.