An effective sales letter is much more than a bunch of words describing what you have for sale, but judging by some of the sales messages on far too many websites, not a lot of people know that.

The ‘buy one get one free’ mentality is still alive and kicking and working overtime all over the Internet, but sadly at the expense of the English language.

A sales letter, whether written for an online product or service promotion or for print and mail, has a specific job to do. It has to sell. It’s your salesman. And it doesn’t matter how good or how bad your product or service is, the sales letter is your marketing lifeline.

It truly amazes me when some companies, who are willing to spend thousands on product development then thousands on a state of the art website, go on to fill it with snippets of grammatically flawed information and with more typos yuo cun shak a stuck at.

In my opinion, poor grammar and typing errors account for more lost sales from websites than just about any other factor. Why? Because they instantly lose you credibility. Potential customers need to feel reassured that the product you are selling is genuine. Also, that you are genuine and your business is not about ripping people off.

A poorly created sales message will tell your customers you don’t care. You don’t care about communicating with them. You don’t really care about the message on your website. So why then, would you expect them to care about enriching you by buying your products? They simply won’t.

A website sales message has to work much harder than its printed counterpart because it has less time in which to convince the prospect to buy. People tend to ‘quick scan’ website sales messages, whereas a printed letter can be read at leisure anywhere that’s convenient.

Every single website owner who is trying to sell a product or service to a customer could improve their conversion rate dramatically if they would only spend a little more time on their sales copy.

So correct grammar and spelling is the number one priority for your sales letter.

Next is the structure of the letter. Your sales message must always follow the principles of AIDA. It must attract Attention, stir Interest, instil a feeling of Desire and make a call to Action. Why? Because this formula has been tried and tested over and over and has been proven to be the perfect structure.

If you think of a sales letter as being like a song. Then think how your favourite songs make you feel. Happy, sad, upbeat or melancholy, songs are meant to stir the emotions because people like to feel moved. If a sales letter sounds like music to your customer’s ears, you’ve just chalked up another sale. Your sales letter is your song with which you have to intriguingly introduce yourself, slowly seduce your customer and make them feel exactly the way they want. If it gets them reaching for their credit cards, it has conveyed the right tuneful words at the right time. The words of your sales letter must have the power to say it all.

We can all learn much from how music affects us. It can reflect our moods, our emotions and our wants and needs. It’s a very powerful medium that can literally make us feel happy or sad. But it is only words after all. Just words accompanied by music. The most important thing to remember is how the words of a song can affect us emotionally.

Then remember this. Every buying decision we make is based on our emotions. Understand this, and incorporate emotionally stirring words into your sales copy.

Another important aspect to consider, when writing a sales letter is, we generally buy things because we want them and not because we need them. Your sales copy has got to make your prospects want what you’re selling. Don’t try to make them feel as though they need what you’re selling. Only they will know what they need in their life.

Getting back to the song connection, if you take away the music the song (message) is still there. The music certainly helps the words flow and can help create the mood, but without the words, the meaning of the ‘piece’ is left to the imagination.

Next time you’re thinking of creating a sales letter for your website, remember to pay particular attention to the grammar and spelling. Construct your letter using the AIDA principle and think about how you might present your letter with emotion.

Nothing is more powerful than the written word.


About the author:
Bill Knight is a professional International copywriter with a worldwide client base. To learn more visit:
http://www.knight-writer.co.uk


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