So far we have spoken about the importance of using targeted direct mail and I outlined the four important components you must think about. The past two articles we dealt with getting it delivered and getting it opened.
This week let's tackle issue No. 3: Getting it read.
This article is going to be short! Why? That's exactly what you need to do in your letter. In your headline you need to immediately let your prospect know that this letter will be of benefit to him and/or her. Most people (you and I included) have the attention span of a gnat (those small little irritating fleas). If the headline doesn't scream a benefit we are looking for we simply throw it away.
So here are a few quick tips on the letter itself:
Break it up with highlights so it is easy to read. Use bigger fonts if you need to.
Make it short and sweet. Don't say more than you need to.
Make sure you have subheads that tell the same story your letter does. This means people should be able to skim the letter, reading only the subheads and still getting a picture of what you are saying or offering.
Give a guarantee. I used to guarantee that if you read the letter and it was waste of time I would give you a crisp $20 bill. Now before you freak out, I sent out over 100,000 pieces and had one person ask for it. Was it worth it? Of course it was because if people don't read your letter they can't possibly respond to your offer.
I cover this in great depth in the marketing section of
IMPORTANT: The most important part of this step is knowing your prospect and knowing what keeps them up at night and how you can solve it. That is what I mean by a targeted list. People who have some need you can satisfy.
The more you know about this prospect the better you will be able to communicate effectively with them.
Stay tuned - next week we will wrap this up with some ideas on getting them to respond to your offer.
Brian Sacks is the CEO of
