Direct mail sales letters are more difficult to read than most types of business correspondences because of two primary reasons: firstly, direct mail sales letters are unsolicited which basically means you’ve no right to expect that your recipient will indeed read your letter, much less open it.
This leads to the second reason – people who had actually taken the time to open them were unfortunately bombarded with so much junk that they become cynical about all direct mail sales letters in general.
And the worst part about all this is that you can’t really do anything about it. You can’t force people to open your mail. What you can do however is write a killer copy that will reward people who generously took the chance on your direct mail sales letter. You’ll learn how to reward these people with an effective copy that benefits you both as you read on.
What is a Direct Mail Sales Letter?
Before anything else, it’s important that you understand what a direct mail sales letter. A lot of businesses start sending such letters without even being aware of what its real purpose is leading to failure in their part and further compounding the problem with cynical customers for businesses who are doing things right.
Although there’s certainly an intention to sell with a direct mail sales letter, that isn’t your primary purpose. What you should hope to obtain is actually a confirmation or a positive sign from the customer about his openness of receiving similar mail about other products and services offered by your company.
When permission is granted for further contact, your direct mail sales letter has achieved its objective and sooner or later, you’re sure to make a sale. So remember: go after leads and not sales! But if you manage to sell something outright then that’s certainly nothing to be ashamed about. Hooray for you, actually!
Unsolicited but Personalized
You have to compensate for the fact that direct mail sales letters are unsolicited by personalizing the letter. Don’t address the recipient as “the customer” or something equally impersonal. Use the pronoun “you” to strike a conversational tone for your letter.
Also, take the time to know more about your recipient and make sure that you address him or her by their given name. Talk about common interests and always think about their viewpoint and how things would seem when you’re in their shoes.
What’s in it for Them?
That’s the most important question in readers’ minds when they “deign” to open a direct mail sales letter. And they want to know about this immediately. No beating around the bush. No long explanations. If a list must be provided, it must be done so in bullet form. Focus on what they’d get and not how great the product or service you’re offering is.
Not Everyone are Bookworms
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that all of your recipients would be willing to read one long paragraph another about your products and services even if it adds up to a simple one-pager.
Only a few people are willing to digest a heavy amount of information that they haven’t asked for much less are interested in. If you want them to read your direct mail sales letter up to the very last postscript, you need to break down your letter into short but fact-filled paragraphs. Discursive may work for a number of fiction genres, but it’s definitely not something that helps direct mail sales letters gain their objectives.
Be brief. Skip a line after every paragraph. And most important of all, don’t waste your reader’s time with useless information.
A Call for Action
The last part of any sales letter -direct mail or not- must always contain a strong call for action. It must make the recipient feel that responding in the desired way is urgently needed. Be careful however in avoiding crossing the boundaries of assertiveness and aggressiveness by becoming pesky and irritating.
Visuals and Overall Effects Matter
Proofread your direct mail sales letter for grammatical and punctuation errors. Use the right format. Use the appropriate margins, font type, size, and color. Highlight words if necessary. Use bold, italics, or a change in font color to stress important facts.
Incorporate these tips into your direct mail sales letters and you’re already rewarding your readers more than you know!
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