5 Insider Secrets to Million Dollar Sales Letters
By Terry Dean and Michael Bosse
Posted Sunday, January 2, 2005
One of the most important skills you could ever learn is how to write million dollar sales letters. The difference between a killer sales letter and a mediocre one is often the difference between a successful site that earns thousands of dollars weekly and one that can't break even. It doesn't matter if you drive tens of thousands of people to your site every day if you can't convince them to buy from you once they are there. Your site will never be profitable if it isn't full of benefit driven client centered ad copy.
The good news is that anyone can fill their site with good ad copy. If you don't want to write it yourself, you can find numerous good ad writers who are willing to do it for around $1,000 to $15,000 per sales letter. If that cost is too much for you to bear, I have even better news for you. Anyone can learn how to write million dollar ad copy. Don't start letting your mind come up with all of the reasons why that may be true for other people but not for you. Let me rephrase that sentence. YOU can write million dollar ad copy.
The best copywriters in the world did not have the best writing skills when they started out. Many of them, in fact, don't even have high school diplomas. Just because you have never even written a free report doesn't mean you can't write a killer sales letter. As a matter of fact, I am going to give you the best insider secrets available in the world to help you write the best ad copy you possibly could.
There are thousands of resources online that will teach you how to write better ads. Below are just a few of the books or manuals that will help you learn how to write good ad copy:
"Advertising Magic by Brian Keith Voiles
"Maximum Profit Copywriting Clinic by Bob Serling
"Magic Words that Bring You Riches by Ted Nicholas
"Cash Copy by Jeffrey Lant
These types of books and manuals will teach you the in's and out's of the inner workings of good ad copy. They will teach you the important pieces you need such as creating great headlines, listing benefits, finding testimonials, and using a P.S. Any of these courses will improve your sales letter writing ability.
What I want to give you today through this article is a turn-key plan that you can use for FREE to start writing killer ads. Follow my simple 5 step system below and you will start writing killer sales letters within the next few months.
I know you may want to have a quicker way of doing things, but anything that is worth doing is worth doing good. Going to college and getting the skills it takes to do a job takes a minimum of 2 to 4 years and often quite a bit longer. If you follow my techniques below, you will become a killer sales letter writer within 2 to 6 months and have the skills to be an entrepreneur for the rest of your life.
Don't quit after 6 months though. Keep doing these techniques for years and you will keep those creative juices flowing and building in you for the rest of your life.
So, without further ado, here are the 5 Insider Secrets to Writing Million Dollar Sales Letters.
1. Spend one to two hours a day copying by hand some of the greatest sales letters of all time.
The easiest way I could ever tell you to become a good ad writer guaranteed is to copy and study good ads until they become a part of you. Study each paragraph. Look and contemplate why they said this or that.
Figure out what they were trying to do in each paragraph. Go out and pick up some of the sales letters by the best ad writers of all time, such as Ted Nicholas, Gary Halbert, Jay Abraham, Brian Keith Voiles, and others. You could also go around the Internet and print out the ads for top selling products and services you know of online.
Then, pick out an ad that you admire greatly that you know produces tons of sales for it's owner. Start copying it by hand. Write the entire sales letter out in your own hand writing. Write it out 5 to 30 times over the next week or month.
I told you this would take some time, but it will be worth it. Once you have written this sales letter over and over again, you will begin to almost memorize the way the writer worded different things. Next time you sit down to write a letter, their wording and even part of the mentality that they sat down to write with will have become a part of you.
After you have copied the first sales letter so many times that you are actually sick of the thing, it is time to go onto the next letter. Pick out another sales letter you admire and copy it by hand. Copy it 5 to 30 times until you begin to know it by heart as well.
Keep doing this with more and more of the winning sales letters and you will find some interesting things happening when you go to write a sales letter. You will sit down and some of their phrasing and ways of doing things will come to your mind. Once you have copied dozens of these sales letters you will find that it is becoming much easier to just sit down and begin flowing right into a million dollar sales piece.
By doing your assigned homework you will begin to learn how to write the headlines, benefits, and the P.S. You will actually start doing the things that Ad Writing courses teach you how to do naturally. As you continue doing this for the next year you will find yourself getting better and better at writing ads every single month. By following this one technique, anyone reading this report can make a decision to start writing better ads next week.
Even if you are only writing ads for your own business, doesn't it stand to reason that you owe it to yourself to write the most profitable ads possible. Isn't it worth the time you have to dedicate to it?
2. Create a Swipe File.
You should also collect all of the good sales letters you find and create a notebook out of them. Then, when you are sitting down to write a sales letter, you can thumb through your notebook of sales letters to generate ideas for your project.
Many copywriters call this their swipe file. They use it as an idea generator for their headlines, body copy, bullets, etc. If they are stuck on creating a good guarantee, they can look through other guarantees people have used. If they are trying to think of how to do a P.S., they can look through other ones. They can get their letter writing going through taking ideas from other winning sales materials.
Never Use Ideas Word For Word From Your Swipe File. This would be plagiarism. Use it to generate general ideas. You don't want to copy their sentences word for word. You want to flip through some different sales letters until an idea forms in your head about what to write for your project.
This swipe file will help you keep on track and produce winning sales materials every time and it costs you nothing to create. Just collect or print out winning sales letters you find and put them in a notebook or series of notebooks you keep handy when writing your letters.
Remember the cardinal rule when using your swipe file. NEVER copy the ideas word for word!
3. Always research your client's customers until you know them like your own best friend.
Many times you will see reports on how to write killer sales materials that cover many of the basics, but they forget the most important part. The major key to writing million dollar sales letters is to know your customers like you do your own best friend.
You need to know what their needs and desires are. You need to know what fears they are experiencing. You need to know what their Hot Buttons are. What is it that they respond to? What is it that would offend them?
If you don't know your prospects, then you can never write an effective sales letter to them. I don't care if you are best writer in the world. If you don't know them, you won't be able to make sales to them. Good copywriters take polls of the customers. They look at sales letters their customers have already responded to. They go out and ask questions of their potential customers. They do everything they possibly can to know who their biggest potential prospect is.
If you can't tell me everything about your potential prospects, then you aren't ready to start writing yet. You should know their general age, their hot button, their dreams, their fears, and everything that relates somehow to your product.
The key to a good sales letter is being able to describe the benefits of your product to this individual prospect or customer. It needs to be personalized to them individually.
4. Relax.
Learn how to relax. If you are in a rush to do your sales letter, it will be obvious to the readers. Be willing to take your time and do an extremely good job. Let things stew inside your brain between each of the important elements.
After you research your prospects and get to know them, take some time to relax. Think on them and their desires for a while. Take some time to relax after you write your headlines and choose the best one for your letter. Think about how to create that flow throughout your letter, starting with your headline. Take some time to relax after you write your rough draft. Sit it down and come back to it the next day. Then, you will be refreshed and ready to edit it. After you have done your editing, put it away again for a little while. Come back to it refreshed and read over it again. See if there is anything else you would like to change about it.
Don't rush through the writing process. Learn how to let your mind go to work by working on it, then relaxing a bit. Go back to work and then let your mind stew over it again. Keep this process throughout the entire letter.
5. Test and Edit.
There is only one way you can ever determine if a sales letter will be successful or not. It has to be put to the test. It has to be sent out to some of the potential prospects.
Send it out and find out if it makes a profit or not. If it is winning letter right up front, great! If not, then it is back to the drawing board. Whether it makes money or not, you will still need to test it.
For example, you should take the letter that made money and try a different headline for it. Compare the results to the original. Test a different price. Test the offer worded slightly different. Keep the sales letter that is producing the best results after each test. This is the control that you will determine your results from.
Winning marketers are always testing their materials to find out which one is producing the best results. The killer sales materials that you see being used year after year and decade after decade became that way through this type of testing. Rarely is the first letter written the absolute best letter it could ever be. You need to keep improving it through testing until you have the letter that consistently out-pulls everything else.
As you can see, copywriting isn't all about being born with huge amounts of writing talents. It is about making a decision to become the best. It is about deciding to do the work you need to succeed in your business. Good copywriters are never lazy, and anyone can be a good copywriter. What about you?
By Terry Dean co-authored by Michael Bosse
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About the Author
Terry Dean is a 5 year veteran of internet marketing and the founder of (www.netbreakthrough.com). Michael Bosse is a business logistics specialist who provides consultation and aid to people interested in starting there own home business.
