The main parts of a sales letter.
Introductory opening paragraph needs to capture reader’s attention.
The proposition is the heart of the letter.
Convincing the reader. There may be a price concession if the offer is
taken up quickly, or the offer may have a time limit.
Final paragraph consists of instructions on how to respond or order.
Adopting the above four-point formula, here is an example of how a sales
letter might be written.
Dear Mr. Brown
What do you do when your wife says the lawn needs cutting? Do you turn over
a new leaf in the book you are trying to read? Or maybe you take the dog
for a walk? If you haven't got a dog perhaps you pray that it will rain?
That's if you have an old back-breaker of a lawnmower that's agony to push
up and down the lawn on a hot day.
With the new Smith and Jones electric lawnmower you don't have to push. You
simply steer! The machine does all the work. It's a pleasure, really.
Your wife will be surprised how willingly you take your Smith and Jones out
of the garden shed. She'll probably have a drink waiting for you
afterwards, not that you'll be hot and weary. It will just be nice to sit
down with her in the deckchairs and admire that neat, trim lawn. Nice work,
Mr. Brown!
You can see the new Smith and Jones electric lawnmowers at the New Town
Garden Centre – open all weekend sо you can call in when it suits you. It
comes in a box you can put in the boot, and it's very easy to assemble. Why
not bring the wife along?
Yours sincerely John Donaldson
Manager
When writing a sales letter it is necessary to use language which is
appropriate to the medium, the product and the reader. The contents of the
envelope should be kept to a minimum. Some mailings consist of so many
items of different shapes and sizes that the recipient is bewildered and
may well discard the whole lot! Good enclosures are those which supplement
the sales letter. Some of the best examples of well-planned shots are the
one-piece mailers which contain all the necessary information and the order
form, making an accompanying sales letter unnecessary.
A printed envelope can be an advertisement just like the packaging of a
retail product. It is the first thing people see. It can attract attention
and invite curiosity about the contents, and if sufficiently interesting to
the recipient the printed envelope could achieve priority over other
correspondence received at the same time.
The size of envelopes can be controlled by the format of printed
enclosures. Large leaflets in large envelopes can arrive in a very battered
state whereas smaller leaflets in smaller envelopes are more likely to
arrive in the same condition as when packed. So it’s better to use the
small ones.
In order to send direct mail shots the company should create mailing lists.
There are a lot of ways of creating or obtaining mailing lists. The
information may be took from sales bills bearing the names and addresses of
purchasers, from the response to advertisements, from yearbooks, annuals,
directories and membership lists. They may be created by using a direct
mail house or by hiring a list from list-brokers who specialize in this
service. There are also firms which specialize in client's lists on
computerized databases, adding and deleting names as requested, and so
managing and maintaining a client's own list.
It is important to have an up-to-date mailing list, and it is bad policy to
build a continuous mailing list which is never checked or revised. People
do move, change their names or die. A mailing list of customers can be out-
of-date after two years and in some cases in six months.
Not all direct advertising, or distribution of materials, is sent by post.
A large volume is delivered door-to-door to houses, shops or offices. There
are three types of mail-drop service:
by specialist door-to-door distributors;
by the Post Office;
in conjunction with the delivery of free newspapers.
Direct Response Marketing
Direct response is a form of distribution as I’ve mentioned above. The
reasons for its growth and success are lack of personal services in self-
service stores and supermarkets, problems of car-parking and road
congestion near shopping centres, popularity of credit and charge cards.
Today the variety of means by which 'armchair' shopping can be conducted
are only limited by the ability of modern mail order traders to conceive
yet another technique of what is now called direct response marketing. We
have moved a long way from the mail-order bargains of the popular press or
the mail order club catalogues, although both still exist. It is now a
sophisticated business extending rapidly into the realms of alternative
television, micro-computers and videodisc catalogues. At the same time,
traditional media continue to be used, but this does now include commercial
television, as with recorded music producers. The largest single user of
direct response is insurance.
Direct response has become a very substantial area of agency business,
conducted either by specialist agencies, or by specialist subsidiaries of
well-known agencies. A major reason for the expansion of direct response
marketing has been the demand from clients for 'accountable advertising'
where they can measure the response in enquiries, sales leads or sales.
From small black and white ads in the popular press to full-colour, full-
page ads in the weekend colour supplements, a huge variety of goods and
services arc sold off-the-page. Most hobby and enthusiasts magazines carry
ads offering goods by post, from foreign stamps to computer software. The
business pages offer unit trusts, and even the popular papers offer life
insurance, motor-car and private hospital insurance. Correspondence courses
have long been sold this way. Even the sale of shares is conducted by
prospectuses published in The Times and Financial Times.
A number of commercial and non-commercial organisations sell from
catalogues which may be advertised in the press and on TV or sent to
regular customers, members or donors, or direct mailed against selected
mailing lists. Such catalogues are usually distributed annually or
seasonally, but some are issued more frequently. They may be for specific
products or services such as garden seeds, bulbs or roses; foreign stamps
or coins; fashion goods; wines; pipes; or perhaps tour holidays.
There are two kinds of clubs, those for club agents who enrol a circle of
members, with the agents earning commission on the sales; and clubs for
individual members who usually undertake to buy a minimum number of books,
records, cassettes or CDs a year. Some airlines operate mail order clubs
for passengers.
The first group enrol agents by means of ads in the women's press and in
family magazines like TV Times and Radio Times. The reader should note the
special wording of the application coupons in these ads. Particular
information is requested such as whether the applicant has a telephone, and
there is generally an age limit and perhaps geographical limits.
Also television, telephone and teletext may be used as the method of
distributing. Advertisers quote the Teledata (ВНР) number to make enquiries
or order goods. It is a 24-hour personalised telemarketing service, making
it unnecessary for customers to mail coupons and for advertisers to handle
them. All the sales information is held in a computer. For example, an
advertisement for the Hyundai Stella 1.6 motor car, concluded with: 'phone
Teledata 071-200-0200 for a brochure and the name and address of your
nearest dealer'. The teledata receptionist gives the addresses of the
nearest dealers, and note the caller's address in order to send the
brochure, and asks where the advertisement has been seen and the make and
year of the caller's present car.
Electronic mail is a system whereby mail is received on a Telex or non-
Telex computer terminal with a modem which permits a print-out on a
printer. This system is limited to recipients who have the necessary
receiving equipment. But the growth of such office facilities is making
electronic mail a viable direct response medium especially since there is
the interaction facility to respond directly and quickly.
Direct marketing relies on trust. Customers have to send money in advance
and do not see the goods until they arrive. That is why this form of
trading is less common in developing countries. In Britain, the Mail Order
Protection Scheme means that customers are protected by the publishers who
do not wish to receive complaints from readers.
In Britain there are many laws which could concern the direct response
marketer, and some may be of general application wherever the goods are
sold. To these may be added the common law of contract. Most of these laws
apply to off-the-page direct response, some apply to all forms of direct
response marketing.
Exhibitions
Importance of exhibitions
Exhibitions are popular throughout the world and have a long history,
originating with old trading markets such as the 'marts' in what are today
Belgium and the Netherlands, where British merchants sold their wool and
woollens in the fourteenth century. The exhibition developed into the show
attended by either the trade or the general public. London for many years
became a major exhibition centre, to mention only the Great Exhibition of
1851, the Wembley Exhibition of 1924, and the Festival of Britain in 1951.
In recent years the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham has rivalled
London although many events are held at Olympia, Earls Court, the
Horticultural Halls and the Barbican Centre in the City.
Throughout the world there are major exhibition centres, often government
supported (unlike Britain!), the chief ones in Europe being Frankfurt,
Basle and Milan. Many exhibitions are nowadays held in the Gulf states, an
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