Chime School

Posts Tagged ‘sales campaigns’

“Are You Insane?” That was the headline of perhaps the greatest letter I ever penned, my famous “Insane” letter. This 1 page letter alone is responsible for over 5 million dollars in income but here is the REAL beauty of it. I have used the same letter for almost 15 years with the same staggering results in a number of different businesses from my own resort management firm to selling franchises in the karate industry, to software in the golf business. I even used it to sell my own online marketing book that was recently published.

The reason this letter has been so successful is very simple, the concept and the copy resonates with the readers. Albert Einstein’s Theory of Insanity is: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, meaning the same letters you have been sending for years expecting higher response rates is, in fact, INSANE!

This type of connection and understanding of human nature, motivation and purchasing psychology is what separates a five hundred dollar sales letter writer from a five thousand dollar or even a fifteen thousand dollar sales letter writer, with a corresponding boost in response.

There is NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING, more powerful than a well-written letter! By well-written I do not mean grammar, spelling, punctuation and all the things I seemed to have missed by quitting high school education at the age fifteen. What I mean is a letter that connects with a PROSPECT at the soul. A letter that speaks the language of your companies’s prospects, not the corporate speak language that some Madison Avenue type THINKS that your prospect must speak. And very probably, NOT THE LANGUAGE THAT YOU SPEAK!

It’s that connection that makes your copy work and it’s the lack of that connection that makes it fail, whether in a letter, brochure, postcard or Web site.

Here are ten tips for connecting with your audience; check your copy to see how it rates:

1. Always write your letters like you’re writing them to a friend.

2. Never use complex language, keep it simple!

3. Try to avoid excess use of superlative words.

4. Every single headline and subhead ABSOLUTELY MUST have maximum impact and interest to the reader’s SELF INTEREST or curiosity!

5. Don’t say what everyone else is saying; be different, ASTONISHINGLY DIFFERENT, if at all possible.

6. Attempt to paint a picture with your words and make the reader of the letter want to jump into that picture with you!

7. Connect the readers of your sales letter with a story; do not just give them the cold, hard, FACTS.

For example, if you were advertising for Loch Lommond Golf Club in Scotland, you could say that the golf course was designed by renowned player Tom Weiskof. A great piece of knowledge, but of little impact. However, if you say, Loch Lommond was one of the last golf courses Tom Weiskof ever got to redesign; you lead right into the story of your letter… While drifting around one morning in the gentle Scottish mist, while designing the course, Weiskof stepped up to his neck in quicksand and remained there for several hours before being discovered. Is there any question why the seventeenth hole is so special for him?

8. Always use visual, aural and feeling references to reach people of different information processing persuasions. (How many copywriters do you think even know of this important fact, let alone actually use it? Precisely, not many but it is smart little tricks like this that can make or break a sales letter.)

9. Always make sure your piece readable on 3 different levels to accommodate the bobber , the skimmer, and the studious. That is to say, for the skimmer: the headlines, captions and underlines alone MUST ALWAYS tell your story. The studious will read the entire letter, while the bobber will zone in on subheads of specific interest and ignore the rest of the letter.

10. Make the readers take action. Amazingly one of the most common mistakes in any marketing literature of all kinds is simply failing to provide clear action steps on what you want the prospect to do next! For instance, if you want great sales copy that motivates people to ACTION, call me now at 1800-827-1663!

Well, there it is sports fans; how to connect with your business’s prospects.

Oh, and I know that someone at your company will still sabotage your next brochure or letter with well-meaning corporate speak. But, at least, when you read the sales letter, you’ll have the pleasure of knowing in advance, why your results will be so predictably poor!