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Writing Letters That Produce Results!

by Mannie Sherberg

Freedom of speech? I’m all for it. This country can get along perfectly fine without censors, bowdlerizers, or Mrs. Grundys. But there is one four-letter word I’d like to see banned. Tabooed. Forbidden.
The word is junk. J - u - n - k. As in “junk mail.”

What’s wrong with junk? It keeps us from becoming better writers, that’s what. To become better writers, we all need models…examples of good writing that we can emulate in our own writing. For business writers—especially those who write sales letters, there are no better models than those “junk mail” letters you throw away every day.

You know the routine. You come home from work, glance at your mail, and, without even slitting the envelopes, pitch all the sales letters. As each letter falls into the wastebasket, you mutter, “Junk. More junk. Another piece of junk. Why do they keep sending me all this junk?”

That’s a mistake. A serious mistake. Because some of that “junk” you’re pitching is writing as good as any you’re ever likely to read. Many—not all, but many—of those sales letters are models of the kind of writing you should be doing when you write sales letters. If you don’t believe me, read a few— and see for yourself. You’re sure to encounter several that are clear…colorful…compelling—all the things your sales letters should be. So don’t pitch that unjustly maligned “junk” mail. Read it…and emulate it.
In reading good sales letters—letters that leave you thinking, “Hey, maybe I should buy that”—you’ll glean at least five lessons. These lessons will work for you every time you write a sales letter, whether for Gertrude’s Gooey Gumdrops or Carmen’s Carbuncle Cure.

Lesson 1: Get over the idea that you’re writing “junk.” As you write, recite this little rhyme: “Junk” is bunk. That’s true. The notion that sales letters are junk is bunk. It’s bosh, bilge, and baloney. Sales letters are a perfectly respectable—and businesslike—way to get your message across. A sales letter is a sales presentation on paper. If sales letters are junk, then so are live sales presentations. That’s nuts.

Lesson 2: Focus on the reader. Make sure the reader understands “what’s in it for me if I buy.” Start with a strong benefit statement, close with a strong benefit statement, and sprinkle plenty of strong benefit statements in-between. To do it, write in the second-person; use “you” again and again and again. Don’t talk about your product; talk about the reader—and what he or she will get from your product. And dramatize it. Make the reader the central figure in a little drama. For instance:
Don’t write: “Umberto’s Umbilical Umbrellas keep the rain off.” Write: “If you’re tired of getting soaked because you forgot your umbrella…if you too often find yourself in a downpour without your bumbershoot…if you’ve ever wished you had a parasol to protect you against the sun…you desperately need Umberto’s Umbilical Umbrella. With Umberto’s, you can’t forget your umbrella—because it’s permanently attached to your belly-button. That way, you can protect yourself from rain or sun anytime you want.”

Don’t write: “Panacea’s Prodigious Proboscis makes noses bigger.” Write: “Are you ashamed of your small, short, nondescript pug nose? Has the lack of a schnozzle like Jimmy Durante’s…a snout like Cyrano de Bergerac’s…a beak like a Roman emperor’s…damaged your self-esteem? Restore your pride with Panacea’s Prodigious Proboscis. We shape and size every proboscis so that it dominates your face—and your face dominates every conversation.”

The examples are facetious, but the point is serious: A little drama built around the word “you” is a key ingredient of all good sales letters.

Lesson 3: Support every claim with evidence. The next time you get a letter from a magazine asking for your subscription, notice how much evidence—hard, solid data—the letter presents. Such letters never say, “We publish great articles,” and let it go at that. They list examples of articles with well-known authors and provocative titles. And they offer short blurbs about each article, making it plain that—if you didn’t read it—you missed something. All good sales letters back up their claims.
The rule is simple: If you make claims for your product, prove the claims. If you don’t, you may stand accused as a hoaxer, a hustler, a humbug, a hoodwinker, or even a hornswoggler.

Lesson 4: Stay away from hackneyed words. Too many sales letters are loaded with threadbare, shopworn, moth-eaten words—words so stale, so warmed-over, so played-out that nobody pays attention to them. Don’t kid yourself: Words like new, innovative, special are more likely to evoke yawns than to evoke action. Yet action is what a sales letter should evoke.
Before signing-off on a sales letter you’ve written, examine every descriptive word, and ask yourself: “Would I take that word seriously? “If the answer’s “no,” dump the weak-kneed word and find a stronger one. This is the hardest part of sales-letter writing: coming up with novel, unfamiliar, attention-grabbing ways to say things that have been said a million times before.
One way to do it is to replace adjectives with action phrases. If you write, “Humpty-Dumpty’s Egg-Repair Kit is the most terrific egg repairer on the market,” your readers are sure to dismiss it as hype—and not very colorful hype at that. And who could blame them? After all, “terrific” is one of those adjectives that’s indiscriminately applied to everything and anything these days. So why not replace it with an action phrase—a phrase that describes not what the product is, but what it does: “With other egg-repair kits, you reassemble only the shell. With Humpty-Dumpty’s Egg-Repair Kit, you reassemble the yolk and the albumen as well as the shell. You restore the whole egg—including the edible part.” That’s a much better way to say “terrific.”

Lesson 5: Find a USP—and hit it hard. A USP is a “unique selling proposition”—a statement that says your product is better than your competitors’. Make it plain that what you’re offering excels compared to what they’re offering. You can do this without even mentioning your competitors.

The Steinway Piano Company has been doing it for years. Steinway’s slogan—a masterpiece of a USP—is: “You’ll rarely attend a concert that’s not attended by Steinway.” The competition isn’t mentioned—but the unstated message couldn’t be clearer: “If all you want to do is tickle the ivories for fun, any piano will do. If all you aspire to is to plunk ‘Chopsticks’ on the eighty-eight, any piano will serve your purpose. But if you aspire to play the way concert artists play…if you want to sound like Horowitz or Rubenstein or Van Cliburn…only Steinway will do. If you doubt it, attend a concert—and see for yourself which piano is also in attendance.” Then, for good measure, Steinway adds its tag-line: “The instrument of the immortals.” That’s irresistible.
Writing good sales letters is always hard work. But you can make it easier by studying your so-called “junk” mail—and applying the lessons it teaches. Somebody once defined “antiques” as “junk that had a second chance and took advantage of it.” Why not give your “junk” mail a second chance—and take advantage of it? Learn from it. Make use of it. Turn something valueless into something invaluable.

Personal Growth Blog Carnival #39 has chosen this article as one of its “best of the week” (May 4th) picks. You can see it and many other wonderful, inspiring and informational articles at Bryan C Fleming.

Carnival of Customer Service #8 has chosen this article as one of its “best of the week” (May 7th) picks. You can see it and many other wonderful, inspiring and informational articles at Sagar Satapathy : CRM Lowdown.

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