Back in April, I wrote about a crazy (re: Awesome) copywriting exercise you could do, that I learned from Gary Halbert’s How to Write a Sales Letter that Will Make You Rich Seminar Transcript (link to post will be below).
After many months, I finally decided to share notes with you on How to Write a Sales Letter that will Make You Rich seminar transcript (If you can find a copy, I highly recommend getting it). This was a 3 day seminar, so there’s going to be a lot of GREAT information for you to read below. Just be sure to let it all sink in. Print this out if you’d like so you can keep it handy when creating your next sales letter or marketing campaign.
The notes will be quotes that really stood out for me, and will help you with writing copy, designing your marketing pieces, and picking the right market!
Without further ado…
Direct Quotes from Gary Halbert’s How to Write a Sales Letter that will Make You Rich
The first thing you have to understand about good writing, number one, is you have something to say. Number two, say it clearly.
To make selling easy, you need to sell things that people want.
“Look, I could write a full-page in the New York Times in small type and guarantee you will read every word of it.” Headline: “This page is all about David Hunter.” (insert your own name). “Now, if you picked up the paper and saw that headline and it was your name, what would you not read?”
Forget worrying about the people who aren’t in the market who are interested in what you’re selling. You are not writing for them.
When you’re writing something to sell something, if it is noticeably clever, its probably bad.
One of the secrets of good writing is that it’s done fast.
When you have a “t” or an “l” and follow it by an exclamation mark, it is visually confusing.
One of the things when people are reading your copy that will make them more likely to order is the feeling that they can reach out and grab you.
Lead in headline: “Who else…” It has been proven for fifty years to be two good words to put in the headline.
The blind ad will almost always dramatically out pull the specific ad.
Anything that can be misinterpreted will be.
In selling, humor almost never works. Humor, however, can dramatically improve the learning process.
The number one block to creativity is FEAR. Fear of being criticized.
There is two big things that can make you stand out and one is theater/showmanship, the other is a reason why.
When writing your first draft of a sales letter, your job is not to get it perfect. This is just a draft. Your job is to get it done and what you don’t want to be thinking is about the nit picking.
Number one, shoot fish in a barrel. Go for the easy stuff. Number two, concentrate on making the sale.
The mailing list is the very most important ingredient. The number one reason that you will fail in an attempt to create a mail order business is, because you do not have an audience that is made up of people who have demonstrated by writing a check or giving credit card order, or what have you, that they are willing to buy by mail, something.
People don’t buy what they should want. They buy what they want.
The number one thing you can do to ensure success at your endeavor, is to become aware of markets. The reality of markets.
First key to success, do something!
There’s two things that you could do. You either be afraid and frozen, or scared and moving.
The biggest secret to getting good at writing is writing.
It is not only what you say, it’s when you say it.
“Don’t even think” is a very, very powerful combination of words that’s not used often enough.
Back-end Letters:
- Here’s the first main trick… Your back-end letter should go out instantly. Before your fulfillment package or before anything else. It should be a welcome letter that says, “Thank you.” You should give them post-purchase reassurance and you should ask them…. you should give them an opportunity to buy more of what they just bought. An improved version of it or something related to it.
- Second trick is, you should send that letter with a grabber attached to it.
- The third thing you can do that will make that back-end letter enormously profitable is send out… or follow-up that memorable letter, if it has a dollar bill attached to it, a few days later with a telephone call.
Do you know when people decide they want refunds? When they order.
The longer your refund period, the fewer refunds you will have. A general rule of human psychology is no one does anything until just before the deadline.
General Rules To Increasing Response via Direct Mail:
- If you put the same amount of postage on an envelope with multiple stamps as you do with a single stamp, your response will increase.
- If you use a commemorative stamp, a large commemorative stamp instead of a regular first-class stamp, you will increase your response.
- If you print your letters one side only, instead of front-back, front-back in other words if you have a 4-page letter instead of using two sheets of paper you use four pages, it will increase response.
- Adding as though it were a mistake one or more extra order coupons in the letter will increase response.
- The sturdier your envelope, you should not economize on your envelopes, the better quality envelope that you have, the better response you will have.
- If you will go through your letters and highlight significant things with a yellow highlighter pen and give them to a printer who can reproduce that, then you will increase your response.
- If you sign your letters with a blue signature, it will increase response.
In advertising, men like to look at photographs of women, and women like to look at photographs of women.
Everything else being equal, the strongest guarantee wins.
The biggest reasons that people don’t make it is because they don’t do anything.
Only the hungriest fish will snap at the crappiest bait. (You want a starving crowd for whatever you’re selling)
Hit them with more than one media.
When you want a customer back, you should look at it as a brand new sales effort.
“A” stands for Attention. “I” stands for Interest. “D” stands for Desire. And the last “A” stands for Action.
The only reason people buy from you in a sales letter or an ad can be summed up as the information that you put in your bullets which are the little nuggets of copy. Or, which should be in bullet if they’re not.
I believe that your letter should looked crammed onto the page. As though you could hardly get it into the paper. To add a lot of excitement.
There should always be a P.S. in the letter and if you can’t think of anything else to do with the P.S., what you can do with it is simply restate the main benefit in the headline.
Almost nobody mails their customers often enough.
The more you tell, the more you sell.
Think of ways to give more and more value to the people to whom you are selling.
Get in the idea of expressing yourself.
Make them visualize the reward and take all the risk you can out of getting it.
Make your motives transparent when you’re trying to sell somebody something.
If you want testimonials, ASK FOR THEM.
You will always accomplish more through movement than you ever will through meditation.
Pretty good stuff, right?!!
Be sure to let me know if you have any questions by commenting below or contacting me via the “contact” tab above.
Click Here to see April 2015’s post about Gary Halbert’s crazy (re: Awesome) copywriting exercise.
You can check out Gary Halbert’s online newsletters, for free, here: www.TheGaryHalbertLetter.com. Just scroll to the bottom and click on the left link which is the newsletter archive
Now go take action!
Thanks for sharing David!!
You’re welcome, Mike! 🙂