Discover the Elements and the Structure of a World Class Sales Letter
In this article, the author is going to share with you about how to write mouth-watering sales copy that will make your customers take out the wallets, yank out their credit card and buy your product.
You see, I like to surf the web and do my research the whole day, while am browsing, I see many poorly written sales pages. To be honest with you, you can do all the marketing research and create the ultimate product, but if your sales page is weak or poorly written, nobody will buy from you.
So, in today’s post, I’m going to reveal the insider secret to creating a killer sales letter. I can guarantee that if you implement what I share in this post into your sales page, not just you will get more customers but you’ll get even more sales. Sound great? Good! Let’s start the ball rolling”.
Below are the nine elements of any world-class sales letter:
Headline
The first and most important part of a sales letter is your headline. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you’re like those lazy marketers, you’ll just put up a headline as an afterthought after you finished the sales letter. You see, this will straight away kill your ad!
Always remember the purpose of your headline is to get the attention of your target audience when they first reach your sales page and get them to read your sales letter. You must understand that everyone, including me, has a million things going through the mind, like when to finish the work, project deadline to meet and much much more than anyone can think of.
You see, I know and understand this, that is why the headline has to cut through all the clutter, grab the prospect lapels and entice them to read.
This is master copywriter Michel Fortin’s website
Scroll down and click to see some of his masterworks
This is where many marketers and writers screw up. They give a long boring introduction at the beginning of the sales letter as if they are giving an extended book report in high school. I still remember sitting down in the class listening to some people reading a book report and you know, how boring it was.
“When you’re writing your copy, you have to assume or pretend that you are talking to your prospect. Am sure you wouldn’t start off with a lame or stupid introduction when you were talking to your friend one-on-one. You see, if you are going to start off with a lame and stupid introduction, you’ll bore your prospect to tears, and they’ll politely nod their head while thinking about some other stuff in their head. So is important to get right to the point in your opening! No fluff, no filler” ¦ just get straight to the point.”
One of my favorite openings is the perfect Gary Halbert – “If”¦Then”? introduction. If you were selling an informational product, your opening would read like this:
“If you are looking to earn money online from blogging, then this blogging product by Alvin Phang will be the most important product you cannot afford to miss.”?
Above is a simple example but it makes the point. You’re going to tell your prospect about blogging product that will help them to earn money from blogging and then roll into your pitch.
Defining The Problem
After your headline and opening, the next thing you want in your letter is to introduce the problem that your product is going to solve, make sure you don’t talk about your product just yet.
A perfect way of doing this is to tell a compelling story that illustrates the problem. People love stories, and if you write an interesting and intriguing story that fully presses the prospect’s hot button or hypnotize them, they will keep reading till the end.
In this section, it is important to put or inject credential in your copy. If you are selling a product on how to make money online, make sure you prove it with bank account statement, checks, etc. to how much you earn in how many days of using the product you are promoting.
You see, many people are skeptical when they shop online, I have this feeling sometimes too. They are skeptical because they are afraid that their credit card number will be stolen or afraid that they will waste money on a worthless product, so they don’t believe what you are telling. For your prospect to trust you and lower their guard, you will need to describe the problem as descriptively as possible and to provide plenty of proof. By doing this, you will exponentially increase your chance of closing the sale. The Offer
Now remember and keep this in your mind, you are not selling your prospect the actual product. You are selling the solution to their problem. Many marketers keep thinking they are selling the product, you see, if you think of selling the product you are not going to solve the problem for your prospect, but if you think it another way like selling the solution to them, the prospect will more and willing to listen and buy from you. Therefore, in your order, you have to maximize the perceived value and real value of your product.
When you are describing your product, you need to give the most emotional rendition of how your product can help to solve their problem. Add in how your product is going to benefit them primarily, and you’ll talk about the other benefits later.
In other words, describe in full details on how their life is going to be infinitely better once their problem is solved when they’ve used your product. You can also talk about the features of the product and how much time and effort was put into creating the product. By doing this, you increase the perceived value of the product and justifies the price you will introduce later on. Bullets
This is where you’ll convert features of your product into benefit laden bullets that will entice your reader to buy your product.
Below is an example of a bullet
“The one mistake most marketer make that kills their sales”¦”¦ and how you use simple, easy adjustment that will increase the sale by 200% or more.”
Now, remember, you cannot have too many bullets. It only takes one bullet to pique the curiosity of your prospect and motivate them to buy. So make sure you try to squeeze as many bullets out of your product. Value Builder
The reason to have a value builder is to show the prospect, in great details, why what they are paying you is a bargain. In this case of the information product above, you can talk about how much money you’d earn from using the straightforward and easy adjustment that will save them time and money over and over again.
I hope you get the picture – the solution to their problem
You can also increase value by offering bonuses. Sometimes people will buy because they want your bonus more than your product. Just make sure that your bonus is related to or will enhance your product. This is important as there are some rewards I see had no relevant value to the primary product and because of this, it brings down the value of your main product.
It is also crucial to assign a dollar value to each bonus in your copy and add them to show the prospect the remarkable value they are getting. With this you are showing the possibility they are getting the deal of a lifetime, which of course makes the prospect irresistible. Guarantee
The purpose of the guarantee is to remind your prospect of all the claims that you made in your copy of how your product is going to solve their problem. This sets a standard for what they can expect in the product or service and gives them a way to back out if they are not happy with the product.
In your guarantee, you can urge your prospect to test the product for a period. You can also introduce more elements of credibility, such as testimonials in this section of your copy. Saying the terms of your guarantee and refund policy is essential too, so do remember to do that.
Take Away
After you’ve built up the value of your product or service, it is important to insert take away elements of your copy. If you’ve done a good job of increasing the perceived value and real value of your product, the price of your product may be too low to be believed. You can leverage this by explaining that the current price is only a test price and that, after a certain time or number of sales, the price may return to normal or even higher levels. Keep in mind and remember that you have to give your prospect a reason for lowering the price.
Marketers test price online all the time, so you can say that you’re checking the price for ten days and you will test a higher price after that period is over. You can also say that you are offering a lower price initially to get more sales and gather testimonials so that you can eventually charge more in the future. Post-Script (P.S)
It is recommended that, after your signature, you give at least one solid P.S. Here, you should recap the emotional payoff the prospect will get by using your product. Again you want to be as descriptive as possible about how your customer will primarily benefit. You want to get them future-tripping and imagine how their lives will be so much easier after they’ve started using your product.
Another reason to have an active P.S in your copy is that most people will scan to the bottom of the page automatically when they are viewing a new website, which I also do that sometimes. Because I know I also scan the page, that is why I know to have a high P.S will keep scanner to scroll up and read the letter.
So that’s it! By implementing the structure of a sales letter in your next sales piece, you’ll be miles ahead of your competition who are just clueless about this.
