the Almighty Sales Letter
Okay, we’ve all seen them.
We’ve probably all believed them.
Alright, we’ve probably all fell for them, too, at some point.
The mesmerizing, compelling, too-good-to-be-true and yet too-good-to-pass-up
amazing gonna make me smart/rich/handsome/pretty/slender/young
SALES LETTER.
You need to know, right now, before you click away and read another pile of promises, the following:
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Your bank account is never going to explode.
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no one is ever going to beg you to sell them something.
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no one arrives at your site via some ‘laser targeting’ device.
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profits never, ever can arrive at your door on auto-pilot.
These are simply ‘hot button’ words and phrases designed to excite you. To pull at your emotions. To get your hand unconsciously reaching for your wallet, because your dreams and wishes are being stroked by the words you are reading.
There is a science to crafting a good sales letter, and it has little to do with providing you with a product that you actually need. Without a one-on-one presentation, an online marketer has to do a lot of work to get you to buy from them. And, somehow, it has become acceptable to exaggerate, stretch, fudge, even outright lie in order to get that click.
I’m sure some of it has to do with the fact that the prospect isn’t really a person, but rather a statistic in the conversion chart for the website. Online marketing has a lot to do with numbers– clickthrough rates, conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), etcetera. And with the average viewer likely to spend less than twelve seconds on your page, you had better hook ‘em early and often…
I am always amused by the totally hyped-up, exaggerated, off the charts sales letter for a product to teach you how to write a totally hyped-up, exaggerated, off the charts sales letter for a product. Is that nuts, or what????
What you need to do is get past the hype . ASAP. Become immune to it. Remember the hot button principle (see bullet points above) and search for what really matters to you. Unless you want to end up with a desktop full of garbage, YOU have to take control from the beginning and follow a simple plan: just focusing on one step at a time until it is done- then moving to the next step…and buying/downloading the tools you need only when you are ready to use them. Believe me, you won’t miss out on a bargain…. those ‘one time offers’ and ‘ridiculously low launch prices’ DO come around every day…. and it’s only a bargain if you actually use it.
The guy who’s pushing his product doesn’t know where you are at in your business. Only you know that. And you need to keep that firmly in mind when considering a purchase. Is it the thing you need to use NEXT for your business? If you don’t have a website, you don’t need traffic tools, right? If you don’t have your autoresponder set up, you don’t need an ecover generator…. see what I mean?
Let me emphasize…the deals will ALWAYS be there. Just bookmark a salesletter that only guarantees the price til midnight. Then go back in a month. The price is only guaranteed til midnight…. or the ones that are only selling 300 copies? They’ll “find” another 200 copies to sell a little ways down the road…
These are the tricks of the trade. You yourself may or may not use some of them. They work, don’t they? I personally believe that honesty, integrity and candidness are going to be the strongest tools an online business can use– so, my sales letters are peppered with a lot more facts than hype…. If you are going to get into this for the long haul, I would suggest the same for you.
The long, hype-filled sales letter is dying a slow death. This is not just my opinion, but also an idea shared by some of the long time superstars in marketing. For some more reading on this, there are two Fabulous whitepapers you should get: The Rebirth Of Internet Marketing, by John Reese, and The Death Of The Sales Letter by Michel Fortin. Powerful stuff.
To your continued FOCUS!
