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How long should a direct mail sales letter be?
“How long should my sales letter be?” It’s a good question and as one might guess, there are no shortages of opinions.
We found this article written by a leading authority on the subject and wanted to share this with you.
Mark Satterfield is the founder and CEO of Gentle Rain Marketing Inc and the author of the recent book ‘Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals’, ‘Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power of Stories’.
Over 30,000 business owners, consultants and advisors subscribe to his free weekly newsletter, which you can do by visiting http://www.GentleRainMarketing.com
One of the more common questions that gets asked is, “How long should my sales letter be?” It’s a good question and as one might guess, there are no shortages of opinions.
The first thing to keep in mind is that length is secondary to content. If you bore your
readers, two sentences can be too long. If you write in a conversational style, and you raise interesting points, there really isn’t a “maximum” length.
However, that said, there are some general guidelines to keep in mind, and they will vary depending upon whether you’re marketing to businesses, to consumers, writing hard copy letters or sending emails.
B2C
If you're writing in the B2C market (business to consumer) there is truth to the saying, "The more you tell, the more you sell."
As direct marketers and top copywriters Dan Kennedy, Clayton Makepeace and Denny Hatch all point out, a 2 page sales letter out-performs a 1 page letter, a 4
page letter gets a better response than a 2 page and so on.
Where's the top? I honestly don't know. In theory a book should outperform a letter and a long book should do better than a short one. But keeping reality in mind, if you're marketing to consumers, don't worry about length. I once wrote two sales letters for a fitness studio.
One was 4 pages, the other 8. The longer sales letter did in fact pull a greater number of leads by a factor of 3.
B2B
However in B2B (business to business) marketing it's a bit of different story. My opinion is that length as well as ‘look & feel’ do matter. What this means is that in order to get through the various screeners and anti-promotional mindsets, our sales letters need to look very much like business correspondence.
When writing the copy, you should attempt to convey the tone of easy familiarity of one executive to another.
Length? I'd keep it to no more than 2 pages and ideally one.
STRUCTURE
However, as I mentioned, length is secondary to content. This is where having a structure for your letters and emails is helpful.
Remember the goal of the first sentence of your message is simple; get the reader to read the second sentence and the goal of the second sentence? Not surprisingly, it’s to get them to read the second paragraph.
A lot of evidence supports the belief that if we can get them to read the second paragraph, they are now launched down the slippery-slope, and will likely read the entire message.
So, how do we hook their attention? Keep two points in mind. You want to convey that you:
1) Specialise in working with people like them and,
2) You understand a problem that they face (for which you, not surprisingly, offer a
solution).
Here’s one way to kick things off. “I know from working with (people like you) that most of them are concerned about some particular type of problem.”
“I know from speaking with other banking executives that motivating the retail team to introduce additional banking services is an ongoing challenge.”
“I know from speaking with other manufacturing leaders that reducing transportation and distribution costs is one of this year’s top priorities”
The next couple of paragraphs then drill down on this problem by communicating the
consequences that can occur if the problem is not addressed.
This is followed by a brief paragraph that focuses on the writer’s credentials and expertise in working with this type of client, and solving these types of problems.
The marketing message concludes with the call to action. This might be the offer of some additional information that is available on your website or simply that you will be following up personally in the near future.
Keep these points in mind and you’ll discover that your marketing letters and emails are not only read, but acted upon as well.
Mark Satterfield is the founder and CEO of Gentle Rain Marketing Inc and the author of the recent book ‘Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals’, ‘Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power of Stories’.
Over 30,000 business owners, consultants and advisors subscribe to his free weekly newsletter, which you can do by visiting http://www.GentleRainMarketing.com