The Long Sales Letter: Should You Use it In Your Advertising?

By: Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com

If you're a web marketer and you've done your homework, you've
probably come across the Long Sales Letter in your internet
travels. Top web marketing experts like Yanik Silver, "The Copy
Doctor" Michel Fortin and countless others use it to pitch their
comprehensive instructional kits. You may have even made a
purchase based on what you read in one of these letters.

Powerfully persuasive, the Long Sales Letter employs carefully
targeted copy to draw the reader in, emotionally identify with
them, create a need for the product, and incite them to make an
immediate purchase. The Long Sales letter, in all its verbosity
and sensationalism, gleams with promise. It appears the surefire
way to make sales come pouring in.

But is it? Should you fork your hard-earned cash over to a
copywriter who will create a hypnotic and riveting sales letter
that goes on for pages and pages hyping your product? Should you
grab for your credit card and buy one of those comprehensive
teaching packets that tells you everything you ever wanted to
know about writing a Long Sales Letter yourself?

Answers often come in the form of questions. Here are some
questions I typically ask my clients:

What are you selling, and how much does it cost?

Does the product you offer on your website fulfill immediate
short-term needs?

Or is it something that might help someone reach a long-term
goal?

Items that satisfy immediate yearnings for a low price don't
require a rousing speech to attract buyers. What these products
do require is visibility. How funny would it be to receive a
letter in the mail from the CEO of Bubble Yum, urging you to buy
his product! Totally unnecessary; Bubble Yum does a fine job of
selling itself on the "impulse buy" rack by the supermarket
check-out. Music CDs and clothing are things that don't cost
huge amounts of money, and virtually sell themselves. Your
customer will know in a matter of seconds whether they want what
you have. In such a case, skip the letter. Instead, showcase
these items in a high-traffic area where they will be seen.

Who are you marketing to?

I did some work recently for an e-greeting company who had me
writing a long and persuasive letter. I posed the question: "How
much do we really need to convince people to buy these
e-greetings? Either people will like them, or they won't." My
client in turn made a good point: the sales letter wasn't needed
to toute the actual product on the site. But it would certainly
come in handy for potential affiliates and promoters. The sales
letter was a handy tool that depicted us an intelligent group of
people with a knack for selling - and that could very well be
the driving decision for those who might want to represent us.
So yes, a sales letter may actually work to your benefit,
depending on the audience you plan to address.

Would your product or service be considered 'an
investment?'

An investment is a possession acquired for future return or
benefit. Items that offer long-term benefits cost more money.
They promise a brighter tomorrow; an investment for the future.
They also require more convincing to get people to buy them. I
recently met a career coach who features a goal achievement
system, in the form of an e-book, for purchase on her website.
Her e-book is moderately priced for its category, and
well-written in my opinion. Would I advise her to use a sales
letter to pitch the e-book? Yes, but I'd make the letter an
overview of her entire service offering and not just about the
e-book.

The trick is to convince people that a career coach will help
them reach their personal and professional goals, which in turn
will do wonders for their career, bolster their confidence and
improve their quality of life. If you can sell them on this
broad concept, then they'd likely sign up for career coaching
sessions, and at the very least purchase a goal achievement
system e-book. With your sales letter, you can build a case for
maximum investment, and at the very minumum, make a few
supplemental bucks with a supporting product.

How much information can you fill your letter with?

As much as you have to build a solid argument. Start by openly
addressing the customer's frustrations and fears. "Are you tired
of throwing away money on lukewarm ads that just don't sell?"
The reader is hard-pressed to disagree. Next comes the
aspirations; the hope for a better tomorrow: "Imagine an ad
campaign that can triple your sales at a minimal cost to your
business!"

Pose your company as having solution; the secret key, the pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow. "Watch your sales rate explode!"
"Discover the secrets that successful marketers know!" They're
not really secrets and nothing is literally going to explode,
but such language creates a sense of excitement and urgency.
Build your credibility with testimonials and success stories.
"Bob Luken had this to say about our system:" (list
testimonial). "Marla Thompson lost 49 pounds in three months
thanks to our weight loss program!"

Finally comes the call to action: "Buy now, and get on the path
to a more properous tomorrow!" "Click here to start saving
immediately!" A word to the wise: once you make your point, wrap
it up. Beware the hypnotic effects of repeated ideas and words,
and endless streams of mind-numbing copy. Not everyone succumbs
to such trickery! I speak for myself when I say that after four
or so paragraphs, the reader is likely losing interest. At this
point, one of two things may happen. They will scroll all the
way to the end and click BUY NOW, or they will grow disgusted
and leave your website.

How strong of a message do you require?

The flashy, all-I-need-now-is-a-megaphone Sales Letter doesn't
work for everybody. Take the hospitality industry, for example,
which calls for a bit more subtlety and finesse. You don't want
to appear frenzied or desperate to make the sale, or you may
scare away the customer. Strong language can do just that. Some
Lengthy Sales Letters use what I consider marketing brainwashing
tactics. The brainwashing comes when you start repeating what
you've already said, but in a slightly different way. Or when
you follow the formula I've outlined in the previous paragraph,
but do it no less than 12 times in the body of your letter. This
is a form of "loud" advertising in itself!

If you ask yourself the right questions, you'll get a better
idea for whether a Long Sales Letter, or any other type of
advertising strategy you might have learned about, is the best
approach for your own company. Be honest with yourself during
the questioning process. It also helps to "put your feet in the
consumer's shoes." In my ten years as an advertiser, one thing
rings true as far as I can see: the more aggressively you push
your products and the "busier" the ads, the more lowbrow or
"low-confidence" consumer you'll attract. As a general rule,
when creating ads, less is more. So if you have a good point to
make, make it in the best way you can, but don't go to extremes.
If your ads are always long-winded, bold and frantic, you'll
attract plenty of attention. But it may not be the kind of
attention you want.

Copyright Dina Giolitto 2005. Use with permission.

Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com:
Dina Giolitto is a New-Jersey based Copywriting Consultant with
nine years' industry experience. Her current focus is web
content and web marketing for a multitude of products and
services although the bulk of her experience lies in retail for
big-name companies like Toys"R"Us. Visit
http://www.wordfeeder.com for rates and samples.