What is a Sales Letter?

A Sales letter, also known as Copy, is one of the most versatile forms of letter writing. Its main purpose is to persuade a prospect (the receiver of the messages) to buy the goods or services marketed by the writer or his client. Therefore, the architecture of the Sales Letter is designed to catch attention, sustain interest, build up desire and demand action to buy. The Sales letter begins with a catchy headline, followed by the Lead (opening sentence) which will sustain the reader’s interest. The writer now proceeds to build credibility for the message, by citing facts which the reader finds difficult to ignore or dispute.

The writer now has to find ways to get into the prospect’s mind and awaken the resident, dominant emotions and motivate him/her into wanting urgently to buy. The headline does a good part of this awakening of desire through subtle hint and the lead and the body of the Letter creates a strong undercurrent of desire. Desire is soon converted into demand and the prospect, almost unwittingly is now ready to buy. The writer of the Sales Letter has to bear in mind that his primary aim is to promote the sale of the product. There has to be a call for action (like: ‘ORDER NOW’).

Three Percentage or more of sales resulting from the letter makes the letter a Classic and is thereafter repeatedly mailed to produce the maximum returns. Such a letter is called a Control. It should be the goal of a Sales Copy writer to create as many Controls as he can, because that would ensure the butter and Jam on his daily bread, through Royalty for the repeated use of the Control.