You need
to...
Sell benefits not
features. Your reader
doesn't care how many teeth are on your machine's gears. He only cares
that your machine will grind his rocks into cement cost effectively.
Tell him how your machine can do that.
Sell him, don't tell
him. Your reader doesn't
have the time to peruse the family history of your company's founding
fathers. Sure, you can tell the company story. But you should try to
phrase it in the form of a reader benefit. Example: Don't say
"we've been in business for fifty years." Say, "our
customers have been profiting from our grommet's superior performance
since World War II."
Be conversational.
One of my early mentors said it this way. "Write it like you'd say
it, then go back and take out all of the cuss words." Damned good
advice, if you ask me.
Get to the point.
If you dilly-dally around about telling your reader what you have to
offer, you'll lose him for sure. It's best to get to the point at the
very beginning of the letter. Preferably in the first five lines.
Always include a
postscript. Research shows
that the letter is the first thing the reader looks at in the package,
after the outside envelope. And, a majority of people will read the PS
before they read anything else. So, always include a PS. In addition,
it's best to restate your proposition in the PS, just as you do at the
beginning of the letter (see above).
Write long copy. Long
copy sells better than short copy. I'm not talking about lead generation
here. I'm talking about selling. I'm talking about picking your prospect
up by the ankles and shaking him until all of the money falls out of his
pockets. That takes a few words. And testing has shown that a four page
letter ... or even longer ... will almost always outpull a two page
letter when going for the sale. This is a fact. It's not just my
opinion.
Forget grammar.
Please don't interpret this to mean that it's alright to sound stupid.
It's not. But, it is better to write like the reader reads than to write
like Mrs. Lesile taught you to in her eighth grade English class.
Research shows that most people read at about the eighth grade level,
anyway. That includes college graduates. So, if you're thinking you
should try to correct the way people read, forget it. This is
advertising, and moving product or selling service. We're not pursuing a
social agenda.
Use words that are
"active" rather than "passive."
You can increase response simply by using action oriented copy. It's
better to say "get your new whatchamacallit!" than it is to
say "send for your new whatchamacallit." Say "dial this
toll-free number" instead of "call this toll-free
number." Get it?
Always follow AIDA. She'll
never lead you astray. A) attract Attention. I)
stimulate Interest. D) create Desire. A)
incite Action. Do this every time on every direct mail component
and you will surely succeed.
Assume your copy is
never finished. I think it
was Stephen King who said, "There is no such thing as writing.
There is only rewriting." Type your project into the word
processor. Edit it at least once on screen. Then, print it out. Edit it
at least once on paper. Then, set it aside for a day or two and go
through the whole process all over again. I've been writing for direct
mail for a quarter of a century and this is the only way I know of to
turn words into power communication that sells. Sure, you eventually
have to turn the project in. But, never give them the first draft. Or
the second. Why? Because if your direct mail project doesn't work, the
writer always gets the blame. Even when the list was compiled in Hell.
