Creating a Sales Letter that Gets Opened

Sales letters are a great way to tell you customers how great your product or service is in long form. Your pitch can be anywhere from one page to 20 pages, giving you plenty of room to lay everything out for your customers and back it up with supporting evidence. Once opened, sales letters are highly effective. And therein lies the trouble: How do you get your customers to open your sales letter envelope to read your sales letter? Here's how to create a sales letter that actually gets opened:

Lead off right

There's no reason to wait until the sales letter itself to start pitching to your customers. Print your offer big and bold on your envelope and include a mini-call to action: "Look inside to see how to get yours!" Use a big headline that attracts attention and speaks directly to your customers. You could also ask an intriguing question on your sales letter envelope with the promise that your customers will find the answer inside. For instance: "Do you know how to make serious money online? I do, and I'll show you how inside," or even a historical quiz such as, "Who was the first person to make a field goal in the Super Bowl, and what was his salary?" Tie the answer in with your copy.

Unique design

People are intrigued by the extraordinary. Develop a creative design that really attracts attention - appeal to emotions with imagery and use humor, fear, sarcasm, confidence, stability or another emotion to drive your point home. Make your design flow with brilliant use of shapes and colors - sometimes something as simple as a small swirl can catch your customers' eyes. You can also make it official: Many companies design sales letter envelopes to mimic official documents through the use of Eagle insignias and hues of red, white and blue.

Go big

Oversized envelopes get attention, so try going with a No. 10 4.125-inch by 9.5-inch envelope instead of a standard A-6 envelope. Large envelopes are also great for packing sales letters in with mini-catalogs and other materials, so you can get double the marketing out of your sales letter package.

Add a personal touch

All great sales letters know that the more you can personalize your sales letters, the better return on investment you'll get. If possible, handwrite your sales letter envelopes to ensure the maximum number of opening customers. You can recruit a team of co-workers to help you with this.

Print on professional envelope paper

Nothing says amateur more than desktop-printed envelopes. Print your sales letter on professional envelope paper such as 70-pound white woven paper stock or premium 24-pound synergy paper stock, which feels good to hold and inspires customers to open your sales letter. No matter how good your sales letter copy is, it won't do you any good unless your sales letter envelope is just as good. Start your pitch as soon as possible for best results.