How
to Write a Compelling Marketing Letter: Make Your Prospect
Take Action
By Mark Satterfield
In the previous articles in this series, I’ve focused
on how to get a reader’s attention with your first
two sentences. Today, I want to discuss the next component
of your marketing letter: Making an intriguing offer.
Unfortunately, many marketing letters don’t end with
a compelling call to action. When you’re developing
your marketing plan you always want to think about “What’s
next?” What do you want your readers to do? That’s
why you need to create intriguing and compelling offers
that motivate people to take that next step.
Although marketing letters are powerful tools, they are
limited in terms of what they can realistically motivate
a reader to do.
For example, it is very unlikely that a single letter will…
- Get a reader to hire you
- Result in a flood of phone calls of interest
- Immediately enable you to set up a large number of
face-to-face appointments
Sure, it would be nice if a single letter to a never-before-contacted
prospect galvanized that person into hiring you. Nice, but
unrealistic.
Although common sense dictates that this is true, it’s
surprising how many people tell me, “We tried letters
and they didn’t work. No one hired us as a result
of our mailing.”
Well what did you expect? Unless you’re marketing
tree-trimming services, you’re probably not going
to get someone to hire you on the basis of a single letter.
Whether you get hired as an immediate result is not a good
criterion by which to judge the effectiveness of a letter.
Keep in mind that this is all about building relationships.
And, to do that, you need to crawl before you can walk.
Make a smaller request of the reader—something that
advances the relationship, but offers better odds that the
reader will say yes. Remember that this is a lot like dating.
You don’t go up to an attractive person you’ve
never met and say, “Want to get married?” That’s
akin to saying “I hope you will hire me” in
your marketing letter.
Maybe you’ll get lucky with your letter and it will
hit the desk of someone who desperately needs your services.
But that’s luck. And “being lucky” isn’t
an effective long-term marketing strategy.
Marketing letters are often judged on how many meetings
they generate, or how many people call to discuss their
problems. On a practical level, that isn’t how most
readers are going to respond. It’s more likely that
your letter will raise a mild level of curiosity.
You’ll achieve more long-term success if you structure
your letter so that it intrigues those who might have “a
little bit of interest in what you do” rather than
only appealing to those “with a burning need.”
This means that the letter needs to offer something that
doesn’t commit the reader to a lengthy meeting, a
telephone call, or any other interaction with you.
Initially, the reader may be interested in your services
but also leery of inviting a sales pitch. That’s why
the offer of Free Information works so well at this stage
in the relationship building process.
The scenario is something like this. Your reader puts down
the letter and thinks to himself: “That’s kind
of interesting. They seem to have an understanding of the
issues I’m facing. However I really don’t want
to meet with them, and I don’t really want to talk
with them on the phone. However, they reference some additional
information and that might be helpful to read. If I can
go to their Web site and get it, I just might do that.”
Think about marketing your services as a system. Each step
in the process should lead to the next component in the
sequence. And the step that has the greatest likelihood
of succeeding at this juncture is the offer of useful information.
Here is how I communicate the offer of additional information
after I’ve discussed the problem and the consequences
of not addressing it.
“That’s why I thought our latest publication
[Insert catchy title that often includes how to do something]
would be of interest to you. The report will take you
less than fifteen minutes to read and in that time you
will learn: [List three benefits].”
This call to action should direct readers to your Web site
where this offer should be prominently displayed. The form
people must complete to get the report should link to your
automated stay-in-touch system. That’s crucial to
continue to move prospects from curiosity to interest to
action.
Want to see how the process works in reality? Visit our
Web site (see below) and request our free report. Not only
will you get some great information that will help you build
new business relationships, but you’ll see how this
model works.
Naturally the next step is to decide what type of free
information you want to provide. If you rely on your white
papers you’ll only attract a small percentage of the
prospective clients that you otherwise could. In my next
article, I’ll share with you an easy-to-implement
format for your free special report.
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Mark Satterfield is a founding partner of Gentle
Rain Marketing and the creator of the Gentle Rain Marketing
System. He is also the author of five books, including Power
Prospecting: How to Gain Access to Key Decision Makers,
How
to Negotiate the Raise You Deserve, and
Career
Etiquette. Find out more about his services
at www.gentlerainmarketing.com.
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