"I Want a Sales Letter!"
The email to Orange Beetle was very simple, he asked me for a
letter to be written that could be sent to new clients.
Simply it said, "I need a sales letter written, it has to bring
in new clients, I want tell them about how great a business we
are and I need them to use and buy my products"
Now here's the problem.
What I mean is that he THINKS he is asking me to write a sales
letter.
He isn't.
Here is what his mind is actually saying:
"I need a proven way to be able to build my business as fast as
I possibly can. I will pay you if you help me"
So what he says and what he thinks are two totally different
things.
Want to see how most copywriters would react to the verbal sales
letter request?
They say ...
"Sure I can write a letter for you".
Most copywriters (in my frontline experience) would then go on
to ask for a questionnaire to be filled out, then a quote would
be delivered back to the potential client.
REAL CASE STUDY.
Here's what happened when Peter phoned me to write some copy for
him. This is an actual case study!
Peter called me frustrated to death by his lack of response with
his self-written sales letters.
His response had been zero.
Here is how he was doing it.
-He wrote a short letter.
-The letter Peter wrote letter focused on a new product he
wanted to sell to salons.
- No real offer was offered in the letter, it simply spoke about
this amazing salon product.
-No response mechanism or call to action had been built into the
letter.
Now listen to this.
He had been sending this letter out to a list of around 5,000
within his salon database. Most were cold contacts, so not leads
but very cold contacts.
His cost for the 5,000 letters on average was £3,500.00
PETE'S PROBLEM, AS I SAW IT.
Peter was blindly sending to a list on the basis that they were
all salon owners so they would probably want his product! DEAD
WRONG!
The price and volume of mail each month for this small business
owner was far too high and, hence, costly - as I showed you.
No strategy or targeting had been put into place so the whole
campaign was built around this ... "I hope it works".
Remember, his response had been nothing!
Peter, the businessman, had written the copy himself. Not a bad
thing if you are a trained copywriter. A very bad thing if you
are not. In his case ... IT WAS A BAD THING!
The letter itself had no offer, as far as I could see he would
be extremely lucky to get ANY kind of response.
His results spoke for themselves... ZERO sales!
EVEN WORSE ... he was doing this with NO MARKETING budget by
spending all of his government tax fund to try and build his
business.
At some point this fatally flawed campaign would end in
disaster.
This campaign was going to bury his business.
Now, please remember, he asked me for a letter to be well
written. I could have done that easily. However as you can now
see this was more than just a letter problem. I did not want to
take his money and run, i truly wanted to help him build his
business.
MY PLAN FOR PETER WENT LIKE THIS
Step 1. Database mining.
Benefit for client: he would save a small fortune on his
campaign.
I explained to him a strategy. It involved mining his database.
Simply; I asked him to pull what he felt were the hottest
clients in his list.
In fact I asked him to take it one step further. I asked him to
pull out just 100 CURRENT CLIENTS. (in other words this was not
about new clients but about leveraging his current buyers)
So now we have gone from 5,000 to 100.
The cost here in the UK for 1,000 direct mail letters is around
£700. So his savings were huge.
Step 2. Planning The Copy and Sales Tools.
Benefit for client: Most clients have no real idea of what they
actually NEED. If a client asks for a letter does that mean he
actually needs one?
In most cases the answer is no! It may be that the marketing
tools he truly needs are not what he had in mind initially...
So big benefit here is the fact that what he gets will actually
deliver the results, he gets the SOLUTION, and not just a
letter- as he originally asked for.
I planned for him a 3 step process that would involve sending 3
letters to the list of 100.
a) The strategy was to get them to an open evening.
this was designed to get them to meet Peter, see and feel the
products etc... but here was one of the secrets: I wrote the
presentation for him.
The presentation had now moved away from "product focus" over to
"benefit focus"
In other words we were now telling the prospect in the room NOT
how they can have a great new salon product on their shelves
that is the best out there but ... "simple proven steps on how
this new product was guaranteed to pay the salon rent every
month!"
Step 3. the campaign Itself.
The tools for this would be 3 letters.
Letter 1. Powerful teaser offer packed with incentives for
prospect to persuade them to attend the presentation. The offer
in the letter was NOT going to make my client any cash on the
night. It was designed to BREAK-EVEN only!
Letter 2. This letter would go to those not responding to the
first letter. The letter would now have an increased offer and
was now going to COST MY CLIENT MONEY!
Letter 3. This letter would have an outrageous offer packed to
the hilt with benefits but was going to COST MY CLIENT EVEN MORE
MONEY!
I planned the campaign in every detail for him.
I even mailed out and printed the letters from my office. The
campaign started 3 weeks before the date of the open evening.
What Was Peter's Result?
On the night of the evening he had 47 salon owners in the room
out of 100 that we mailed out to.
After Peter's talk, an offer was made to the room that they
simply could not refuse. Virtually every salon owner in the room
took the offer.
Now here's the thing.
Running the evening cost Peter cash. He lost cash on everyone in
that room. Or DID HE?
Lets check this over again.
It cost him cash to get these guys into the room. YES, TRUE!
However, he had saved a fortune on his mailings. He also had 47
new customers. Those customers are all worth over £5,000 over a
12 month period.
So in reality ...
Peter had increased his business by a massive £235,000 or in USA
nearly $500,000!
So..Peter paid me £6,000 for his letters and strategy. Was it
worth it?
Copywriters: next time a client asks you for a letter, does he
really need a letter?
Businessmen: Next time you want more business hire an EXPERT.
Hope you enjoyed this article, I'd love to know what you
thought.
Alan.
-----------------------------------------
Why *NON CONFORMIST* Marketing?
I don't believe most marketing works. Most like the campaign
above is fatally flawed. A break in convention is usually what
it takes to breakthrough.
-----------------------------------------
Regards,
Alan
Orange Mastermind Retreat
http://www.OrangeBeetle.com/retreat
Breakthrough Group Consulting
http://www.NonConformistMarketer.com
How To Build a Copywriting Business The Non Conformist Way
http://www.TheCopywritersMasterclass.com
Email:
alan@orangebeetle.com
Cell: + 44 78059550340
Skype: orangebeetle
