**Just a Quick Note** Welcome to Part V of the Marketing Expertise six part small business marketing series…
Back From the Dead: 5 Print Media Marketing Vehicles Guaranteed to Make Your Small Biz’nass POP!!!

And now… Part V – Selling In Print: The Fine Art of the Sales Letter

In comparison to the print media vehicles we’ve covered so far – business cards, direct mail postcards and tri-fold brochures – the good ole fashion Sales Letter brings to mind that classic Sesame Street tune:
One of these things is not like the other…
Business cards, postcards and tri-fold brochures rely much more heavily on graphics and visual representations – AKA visual communication – to communicate their message. As we discussed, biz cards and postcards are like mini billboards designed to grab the reader’s attention and motive a response with a Call to Action (CTA): contact me (at the number or email listed on my card) or act on the offer my postcard presents. Brochures have more real estate to work with and obviously incorporate more text. But brochures that. But we focused on letter size tri-fold brochures, which is about a small as you can get in the brochure realm, and assuming your brochure follows the Principles of Good Design in addition to using images to support the text and leave some white space so the layout breaths, the copy should be stripped down to the core message.
Sales letters, however, employ a wholly different approach. Instead relying on visual interest and quick hit CTAs, sales letters use in depth and detailed copywriting to deliver a complete sales pitch in an effort to motivate a potential customer to buy the product service the letter presents.

Selling in Person

When sales rep meets a potential customer: they deliver their winning “sales pitch.” A typical spiel includes…

• Introducing the company they represent
• Presenting the product or service their selling
• Highlighting the product or service’s benefits
• Defining how the product or service can “solve” the potential customers “problems”
• Closing with a CTA – asking for a sale, setting a future appointment, or initiating some other action that, assuming they didn’t make a sale in the meeting, keeps the sales process moving forward

Selling in Print

A sales letter attempts to do exactly the same thing, but without the benefit of one-on-one live and in person interaction. When a sales rep meets a prospect in person, they have the ability to address and assuage the prospect’s concerns on the spot, in addition to using their natural charisma to “win over” their prospect.
As you can imagine, this makes the process of Selling in Print exponentially more difficult. An effective sales letter needs to make a connection and hook the readers interest, but do so as quickly as possible. Once you have the reader’s interest, you need to anticipate their concerns and load enough ammunition into your letter to defeat those concerns. Finally, you need to make a stellar close – leaving the reader with a CTA they just can’t ignore.

Digital vs. Physical

Sales letters can be distributed in email form, or set up as a “landing” or “squeeze page” – a single page website that includes the means to get more information or even purchase a product or service.
But just as is the case with all of the other media we’ve covered, the tangible touch and feel of a physical letter imbues a magnetic pull that trumps email and webpages.
You can hold a letter in your hand. Write on it. Fold it up and set it aside for later review. And just as with brochures, sales letters have become so much less common, if done properly, can really differentiate you from the masses.
Moreover, in countless split tests for a variety of products and services, for a variety of products and services, physical sales letters have outperformed emails and landing pages.

Crafting an Effective Sales Letter

While you certainly need to be a reasonably competent writer, with the ability communicate clearly and coherently in writing, you don’t need to be a professional copywriter to write a successful sales letter. The real secret sauce powering a productive sales letter is passion. If you’re truly passionate about your biz, and funnel that passion into your letter, it’s apt to be as effective as a professional copywriters work.

Sales Letter Components

The Headline & Intro

Many sales letters use a headline over the body of the letter’s main text (similar to a brochure title or a print ad headline)  to capture the reader’s attention.
Whether you use a headline or just dive right in with the intro paragraph, you need grab the prospects attention right off the bat, while also acknowledging their time is precious, and promising to make your point quickly a succinctly.
People are overload and overwhelmed, with a million and one demands on their time. Conceding this fact and promising to make your appeal short and to the point goes a very long way toward assuring your prospect this isn’t some long, drawn out waste of their time.
The Story
After you into have (hopefully) hooked your prospect’s attention, your present the problem, scenario, situation or “story” behind your product or service and why it can help your prospect do whatever they need to do.
Bullet Points (Features & Benefits)
The easiest and one of the most tried and true method (especially for small biz owners writing their own sales letters) for presenting your products features and benefits is with the ever effective bullet point.
But be careful to avoid the features trap! Bullet points make is so easy to present a list of all the great things (you think) your product can do. That all well and good, but who cares? (probably not your potential customer).
Customers don’t care about how great you or your product are, they care about how you can help them.
So, you need to translate your product or services features into a benefits:
A product that performs a task quickly isn’t just fast, it save your customer time and makes them more productive.
A service that eliminates a mundane task your customer has been forced to undertake themselves isn’t merely subtracting that task, it’s freeing your customer to concentrate on doing the actual work of their business.
The Close
This where you hit them with your big finish… 
Reiterate the “Story” of your product or service and why it can help, follow by a strong CTA. Go hard with your request for whatever you want the customer to do:

• Contact you for more info
• Visit your website and sign up for your newsletter
• Buy your product
• Contract for your service

Don’t depend on the customer to act on their own – lead them to water… ‘Cause if you don’t ask, you’ll never know their intention.

A Word on Design

As stated in the intro to this post, a sales letter is text based medium, not a visual medium. That being said, however, a well-organized letter, presented in a clean, clear and easy to follow format builds credibility, engenders trust and is just plain easier to understand.

What About You?

Have you used sales letters to market your business? If so, have you been successful? Have you ever compared email sales letters or landing pages to traditional sales letters, and if so, what did you discover?
Talkback: tell us if sales letters have been an important part of your small business marketing mix.
Next up in part VI of the Back From the Dead: 5 Print Media Marketing Vehicles Guaranteed to Make Your Small Biz’nass POP!!! Series: Print Ads
p.s. If you need a sales letter the sizzles, reach out to Marketing Expertise. I’ll craft a sales letter that will have customers showering you with cash!
Ryan Anys: 310.466.7898 | ryananys@designexpertise.net
p.p.s. If you enjoyed this installment of the Market Expertise print media series, by all means, check out the prior installments…
Discover The Small Business Marketing Power of a Well Designed Business Card
Power Up Your Small Business Marketing With a “Handy” Postcard
The Brochure: Small Business Marketing’s Print Media Friend