The Sales Letter

Since its humble beginnings in the year 1194 when the French Cathedral of Chartres burned down and Bishop Regnault de Mouçon wrote the nobility of England and France requesting funding to rebuild it, there has undoubtedly been a teach response copy urging people to act. Even though those letters likely do not exist, and the Bishop likely used fear, guilt, and promises in order to achieve his response, it was a start to modern snarl response copy.

Since that fateful year a vast treasury of direct marketing rules has developed over the years. These rules along with secrets, cannons, and a few customs have been handed down. After 800+ years of hard work and dedication what is the result? No other form of advertising comes close to the response of direct marketing.

The majority of modern day advertising fails simply because the new salesmen on the market ignore the tried and moral discipline of the copy. Therefore, the internet market calls those who are experienced with the direct response copy or who are willing to follow the discipline to the full.

What is this marketing?

While there is much ado about internet marketing, it is my opinion that it can be done quite profitably if it is done fair. The first step is to know your advantages and disadvantages, the second is to know what you are up against, and the third is to know your audience and how to speak their language.

First, unlike traditional marketing in the store where a sales person can control the pace of the sale, internet marketing can be over in a one click of the mouse. Your website is also situated in a sort of comically arranged avenue where you are literally stuck between an auctioneer and a social network. And unlike telemarketing, the wrong web URL can usually send your prospect out onto journey of self discovery, or to the closest web video, where they forget all about your site. Additionally, people have a fear of hackers, cyber thieves, privacy invaders, and scam artists and thus will not as immediately trust you as they would the clerk inside a physical store.

The second is to know what you are up against. You need to capture your audience. That isn’t the end of it. They don’t just want to be entertained, they want to be sold. And then they need to be able to easily come back. Therefore you need to get them to book mark your region. That’s not an easy task. Not all dot com locations are as easy as Amazon and eBay. People need a reason to come help daily, or several times per day, and you need to give them that. That means you need to gain it addictive.

Your prospective customers or visitors also need instant gratification. This can be in the form of discounts, emails in less than 24 hours, or other fun things they can receive instantly. Without this instant, same day service, they will move on to where they can get it. Over 3/4ths of all businesses fail to satisfy the instant gratification and loose business. If you can’t supply this, you have no business on the web.

The internet is only one method of advertising with many channels inside. To really have a good business you need to spend it to the full. It also is not the only means of advertising. To really get a business going you also need to exhaust other forms of reaching your prospect besides fair an internet connection. You should look into instruct mail, ad space, broadcast, retail, and telemarketing.

You also cannot be all things to everybody. Pick your niche of customers and work that niche well. Don’t try to please everybody, you will only please nobody. Instead, opt for a code of service. People get distracted too easily, and others, just don’t care. While a broad market niche or trying to please all your customers’ needs may work for dot-com shipshape sites, it objective doesn’t work for the majority of businesses.

Third is to know your audience and how to speak their language. Your job is to sell your product and get them to pay you. To do this you need to know your audience and know their language. People don’t care much about you or how you got started or why you are selling, or giving them. They simply need to know if it fulfils one of their needs. So if it is not filled with one of “The seven key copy drivers — hot buttons — which change human behavior, are: fear, greed, guilt, arouse, exclusivity, salvation, flattery. If your copy isn’t positively dripping with one or more of these, plod it up and start over.”–Bob Hacker

Therefore, the most powerful words on your sales page should include motivations based on 13 key words- you, save, money, easy, proven, guarantee, health, wealth, love, results, discovery, safety, free. In other words, consume them as noteworthy as possible.

Just remember

The internet is only a place to test your advertising in staunch time. It’s cheaper that most other forms, but takes more work. Make positive your prospect knows exactly what the website can do for them. Make certain you gear it directly for those people you nee and want on your website. Make sure you provide them with instant gratification. They don’t really care about you or anything else, they only care about what they can get out of it. Give them that.