Direct:

“One of the most important factors in the success of your direct mail package is your sales letter. In many cases, particularly with small businesses, the sales letter may be the entire package.

But given the right list and the right offer, a skillfully crafted sales letter can be all you need to turn a great profit — or pull in a large number of qualified leads. Below are 15 tips to create a more effective sales letter.

1. Always focus on the wants, needs, hopes, dreams and desires of the people to whom you are writing. When writing your letter always keep your mind tuned in to the same radio station as your prospect. That station, of course, is WIIFM, a.k.a. What’s In It For ME! Make sure your letters plays the same refrain over and over again.

2. Always write to someone specific. An aunt, an uncle, a brother, sister, cousin, friend, current customer — anyone. This mind-set will make your writing more personable, friendly and genuine — important traits that every salesperson must have, especially your salesperson on paper.

3. Never forget that benefits are the reason why people buy. What your product or service does is a feature. What it does for me — is a benefit. Give them benefit after benefit until they simply have no choice. They have to respond. They have to pick up the phone. They have to get out the checkbook. They have to go to your Web site and make that purchase.

4. Grab the attention of your reader with your very first line. 7 Seconds. You have just about that long — seven seconds — to grab the attention of your reader, so your opening line better be good. Because it’s the most important line in your entire letter. The objective of your first sentence is to get your prospect to read the second sentence. The second sentence must get him/her to read the third. And so on. Every word, every sentence of your letter is important — and must advance the sale.

5. Give the reader relevant and specific information. You’ve got great service? What is it — specifically — that makes your service so great? And why should they care? You make a “total quality” product? What specifically do you mean by “total quality?” Do you mean the dang thing never breaks down and you have third party maintenance records to prove it? Then tell me. That’s relevant. That’s specific, verifiable and meaningful. And that’s the type of information that makes me want to buy or schedule an appointment with a sales rep.

6. Write to communicate. Write in a conversational, working person, sitting-down-talking-to-someone-you-know-face-to-face style. Forget about always writing in complete sentences. You don’t always talk in complete sentences do you? And it’s OK to start sentences with “and” or “but”. Remember, you’re trying to generate a lead or advance or close a sale, not get an “A” from your high school English teacher. None of your prospects or customers is getting paid to read your letter. In this case, if your letter is well written the reader will pay YOU.

7. Ask yourself the following question several times while writing your sales letter. “If someone were sitting in front of me…trying to convince me to take the action I’m asking the reader to take…and speaking the words I’m writing…would I be favorably disposed to taking that action?”

8. Use active, action-oriented language. For example, instead of writing “SES has provided many specialty courses to Government and industry since 1983″ write “At SES we provide a wide range of specialty courses for government and industry - and we’ve been doing so for more than 20 years.” Active, action-oriented language is more dynamic and persuasive.

9. Write as much copy as it takes to get the job done. There is no such thing as copy that is too long. There is only copy that is too boring, too uninteresting, too uninvolving, too we-we-we-oriented. The bottom line is this: Interested people will read everything that’s interesting about an interesting offer. In Denny Hatch’s great book, “Million Dollar Mailings,” the average letter length for consumer mailings was 3.3 pages. For business mailings, 2.1 pages. And there have been many highly successful sales letters that were eight pages and longer.

10. Do not end any page except the last page in a complete sentence. The human mind seeks completion. If a page ends in mid-sentence the natural tendency is to go to the next page to complete the sentence. And the more interesting, dramatic or intriguing you make your copy leading up to that point the better the odds are that your reader will keep reading.

11. Use a comma in your salutation, indent your paragraphs and avoid long drawn out sentences like the plague. You should strive to give your letter a personal look and feel. Remember when you were a little boy or girl writing home from summer camp? I’ll bet you always used a comma and indented your paragraphs. So do the same with your sales letter Plus, indenting your paragraphs has the added advantage of leading the reader’s eye into your copy.

And never, never, never justify or “block” your text! It’s boring and hard to read. And avoid long, drawn out sentences. Remember, you want your letter to be easy to read. Long, drawn out sentences, in addition to being hard to read, can be confusing — a real “deal-killer” in any sales situation.

12. Tell the reader exactly what you want him or her to do. Don’t assume anything. Just like with web copy, if what you want is for the prospect to pick up the phone and call, then say so, energetically and enthusiastically. Here’s an example: “So why don’t you pick up the phone right now and give me a call at 800-555-4444? Go ahead and do it now while you still have this letter in your hands.”

13. Always include a P.S. Extensive research shows that the P.S. is one of the first things people look at. Restating a key benefit or guarantee here can pull your reader into the body copy of your letter. The great copywriter Herschell Gordon Lewis tells the story in one of his books about a test mailing of fund-raising letters by St. Jude hospital. The letters were identical except for the fact that one included a P.S. and the other did not. The letter with a P.S. pulled a 19% greater response. The moral of the story? It pays to use a P.S.