Death of the long letter

This is the last of the questions that were submitted for ‘public consumption’ and it is an interesting one because, in some respects, the answer may seem to contradict the advice I give many business owners. It was sent in by Ian Brodie from Lighthouse Business Consulting :

One area I’m really interested in is whether you think that in sales, “what works” changes over time.

I’m certainly finding that in my field (person to person selling for large, complex sales) what worked yesterday isn’t working so well today. People have got so used to approaches that used to be novel (e.g. talking about the financial benefits of a product rather than its features) that they tend to blank them out (rather like the “banner blindness” Jakob Nielsen talks about in the web world).

When everyone from photocopier salesmen to high end strategy consultants is using the “would you like to hear about an approach that could save you 10% of your costs” technique it becomes devalued.

Similarly, both Michael Fortin and James Brausch have written about the ‘death of the long sales letter’. My belief is that this definitely happens. Even the best techniques - once used by everyone - lose their power. Not that they become bad - just that they become the baseline that you must do even to play the game - but you need to do more to win the business. Your thoughts?

My first thought was “Yes” if you do the same thing constantly or do exactly the same as everybody else then your prospect does become immune and getting a response becomes that much harder. Having said that, I still believe, and experience hasn’t changed that belief, it is important to make sure your target market is fully aware of every nuance of what you can do for them; whether that is in the form of a service or supplying a product. And sometimes you have to ask them what they want to know.

For example if you are in constant contact with your prospects and customers, informing and advising, interacting with comments and discussions - perhaps via a newsletter or web-based blog like this - then you may find that you don’t need to use extremely long letters or jaded selling techniques every time you make a new offer.

This is because you have already educated your prospect who has come to know you and what you supply; he has a relationship with you and, possibly, already trusts your judgement and advice. So when you put a new offer into the market place all you have to do is clearly explain what it is and how it impacts on your prospect’s life or business. You don’t have to do quite so much ’selling’.

So I think the ‘death of the long letter’ is subjective; if it is an approach to a cold audience; to people who don’t already know you or have any knowledge of what you can do for them then the long, explanatory, informative-rich and value delivering (i.e. giving valuable free advice that is useful to the reader even if they don’t do any business with you) letter still has its place.

If your target prospect is much warmer and already has a relationship with you then just making the new product or service available with a brief explanation of what it does for him may be enough. It is - like any other marketing approach - one that should be tested as my good friend realised when I posed the question to him. He is a great believer in the effect of the long letter; purely because he has experienced the remarkable results this marketing has generated for him over the last 3 to 4 years. However, he has also found he needs to take a different direction occasionally as his reply indicates…

“I’ve found a mixed approach does best. Whatever anyone says, there are people out there that will never sit down and read a 16 page letter and there are people who want to know every last detail before they make a decision. [Carol: Often you can't be sure which type of person your reader is, which is why the structure of your letter is so vital as I explained in my post The long and short of it ] Plus, of course, they get used to a big bulging letter coming to them every month and know it’s from us - think well I don’t need a… - so they probably don’t even open it.

The smallest full offer letter I’ve ever done was 4 pages, the longest 16 pages. I even rotate who the letters are from now to try and keep it fresh.

What I haven’t tried (which I will now because you’ve just given me the idea - so thanks!) is the same offer going out twice (maybe one week after another) one really shortened down in a short letter and one in a more explanatory long letter.”

As I’ve said previously there is no definitive answer to what works or doesn’t work in marketing. There are theories; there are proven activities generating results in certain industries or professions but when it comes to the crunch the only action that works for you is the one that gets the sales. And you’ll only discover that by listening to what your customers and prospects have to say and testing different approaches on your own target market.

~ Carol Bentley

P.S. Incidentally, it is interesting that you mentioned James Brausch. He frequently uses his blog to explain how his programs work and the benefits both he and others have reaped from using them, before sending you to his ’short sales page’. I’d be intrigued to know how many of his sales are purely from people who have found his sales letter page without any of the preamble on his blog, I’d be surprised if the proportion was significant.

Add to: | del.cio.us | digg

technorati tags: long sales letters copywritingJames Brausch