How to Write a Full Packed, Highly Persuading Sales Letter

If you’re selling a product through your own website (or you intend to in the future), it would be helpful for you to understand the term ‘copywriting’.

Copywriting is simply defined as ’salesmanship in print’. It is the art of putting the entire sales process into writing and inducing the reader to take prompt action, either to buy your product or surrender their contact information. In online marketing, effective copywriting is used in many communication platforms such as emails, websites, blogs, splash pages, thank you letters. But the most vital use of copywriting resides in its potential to create powerpacked sales letters!

A sales letter (also known as ‘pitch page’) is a complete sales presentation placed on a webpage, PDF, or document. It’s main purpose is to sell a product directly through that webpage! You might think that this is too ambitious, and that people seldom buy from webpages. But in the real world, hundreds of thousands worth of dollars and products are sold via the internet every single month! The sales letter has fully automated everything, and coupled with a powerful online shopping cart or payment gateway, online sellers can really take home giant incomes and customers can get their ordered products safely! To see a perfect example of an effective sales letter in the dating niche.

But wait, writing an effective sales letter is not as easy as it sounds! An internet marketer should have superior knowledge about choice of marketing words and phrases. He must understand psychological triggers that cause people to buy. He (or she) must find a way to keep a reader (and consequently a potential customer) interested. And finally, an online seller must be able to smoothly guide a prospect towards the ‘close’ and induce the reader to buy now.

First tip, any aspiring copywriter must know how to write an effective headline. The main headline should immediately confront the reader and cause him to STOP whatever he is doing. This is a tough challenge, but to be able to do this effectively, the copywriter must write a major product benefit that will satisfy the needs and wants of the reader. It is proven that longer headlines succeed more when it comes to getting the attention of readers. For example, in a hygiene website selling breath products, a certain headline goes like this: “How To Cure Bad Breath In Less Than 3 Days… & Have Strong Healthy Teeth & A Sparkling White Smile For The Rest Of Your Life”. You might laugh, but this particular headline was taken from a real life breath product which sold like crazy online!

Next, the online seller must insert his personality, establish his authority and expertise, and gain trust from the reader. All this ’self marketing’ is done for a single purpose, and that is, to answer the reader’s question, “Why Should I Listen To You”? Statistics show that sales for any website drops by as much as 40% to 90% when the seller has not successfully branded himself. That’s why the first few paragraphs of the sales letter should be aimed at the online seller telling more about himself and establishing his authority on the subject he’s talking about. For example, a person selling his music courses online should’nt just start off selling and pitching the products immediately. He should first concentrate his first few phrases in telling the reader about his musical background, how many years he ‘has been playing music”, or possibly the amount of people he has personally mentored to become great musicians.

Third tip, the online seller must increase the perceived value of the product or service he is offering! To do this he must highlight all the features and benefits of the products he is selling, then appeal to the emotions of the buyer. Increasing the perceived value of an online product can be done in many ways. First, the online seller must make the product look “scarce”, showing that it has high demand but limited supply. Second, he can make the offer “time sensitive”, by stating and making clear to the reader that the product will be available for only a certain period of time. Third, he can add free bonuses and additional goodies for those who order now. Fourth, he can give “early bird discounts” for the first few people who avails of the offer. All these are proven sales techniques which has been used since the beginnings of civilization, during the days of barter and trade. Fortunately, they still apply today!

NOTE: This article contains links that point to sample sales letters. I do not own the links and websites mentioned, neither do I have selfish interests in posting them. They are just included here for illustrative purposes.