A good rule to follow is: Keep selling until you run out of selling points. By end of your letter your prospect should have more than enough information to make a decision.

Write a friendly greeting

When possible address your prospect by his name, as this will increase your response rate. If you don’t have an individual name, you’ll have to use a title such as Dear Business Manager, or Dear Creative Director. Don’t address a householder as, “Dear Householder,” Instead use, “Dear Animal Lover,” or “Dear Mercedes Owner.

Use an attention-grabbing headline

Make sure your headline is at top of letter. Use it to highlight main benefit. Make sure it’s easy to understand and tells your reader why he should read your letter. Avoid headlines that try to be clever, or funny. They rarely work.

Ask for what you want

Don’t be slow in asking for sale. If you want reader to buy your garden gnomes, tell him so, near beginning. If you let him get half way down page before telling him what you want, your letter will end up in trash.

Write from me to you

Make your letter personal. Have one customer in mind while your writing it and address him as if he were sitting right beside you. Use word “you” frequently. Instead of saying, Our lingerie is sexy” say, “You’ll look sexy in our lingerie.” Change, “Our blankets are warm and comfortable,” to: “You’ll be warm and comfortable in one of our blankets.”

Get your reader to act NOW

By end of your letter, reader should have all benefits of your product or service, and have become more and more interested. Now you need to get him to act. Tell him clearly and simply what you want him to do: telephone, fill in reply card, send money, visit your web site or get a representative to call.

Finish with a PS

Make sure your PS sounds like something you “just remembered to say. By, try not to start your PS with word “Remember” as it shows what you’re about to say contains nothing new. Instead, use PS to highlight a benefit not already included in your letter.

Paragraphs never justified. Most common is left-margin with no indent. How To Write Successful Headlines In your sales copy you need an attention-grabbing headline and a compelling sales message full of benefits, clearly describing what your product or service is all about.

Legendary copywriter Ted Nicholas author of 14 best-selling books including "Magic Words That Bring You Riches" has these excellent tips on writing headlines

"Start with a well thought out headline."

"Five times as many people read headline as body copy. It makes sense, therefore, to spend major portion of your effort on headlines."

"A good headline motivates action by stirring an emotion"

"Write as many as 250 headlines before settling on one"

13 Proven Headline Words Announcing...

Secrets of...

New...

Now...

Amazing...

Facts you...

Breakthrough...

At Last...

Advice to...

The truth of...

Free...

How would...

How to...

How To Write Attention-Grabbing First Sentences Joe Sugarman (of blu-blocker sunglass fame) and author of best-selling book "Advertising Secrets of Written Word" has these tips on writing first sentences;

"Keep it short, sweet and almost incomplete."

For example:

It's easy. It had to happen. It's time. It's crazy. The sole purpose of first sentence is to get you to read second sentence.

How To Write Attention-Grabbing Ending Sentences "You must plant seeds of curiosity for reader." "At end of a paragraph offer a reason to read next paragraph."

Using sentences such as.....

But there's more.

So read on.

But I didn't stop there.

Let me explain.

Now here comes good part. These tips represent just tip of iceberg on breathing new life into your half-dead web site.

We'll cover all of other necessary elements in future articles. Stay tuned.

I hope that you have found this information to be helpful in your pursuit of excellence. Thank you for reading.

Regards,

Dave Peterson