Sales Letter

[xinghu]

Hi all,

I am going to send out an introductory/sales letter to schools, colleges and universities. Below is what I have done so far. I would like to know if I am on the right tracks? If anybody can give me some feedback, that would be great.

Thank you

New Children's Website Online specialising in Educational Toys​

As a new parent myself, I understand how important it is to give your child the best start in life. Education plays an important role in the development of your child. Even the smallest activities like reading a book or playing on an activity mat can stimulate learning skills.

At Children's Educational Toys, we recognise the benefits of education, and this is why we have launched our new exciting website, selling nothing but products which help babies and toddlers with:

• Balancing and Co-ordination
• Counting and Math
• Reading and Writing
• Social Skills
• Word Association

To celebrate the launch of our website, we have an incredible introductory offer available. For a limited time only, we are offering 20% on everything on our website. To get your 20% discount, simply type in the word LETTER in the promotional code field in checkout.

Don't forget that we also offer:

• Free UK Delivery on everything
• Quick, Easy and Completely Secure Website, including a safe online ordering system
• We accept payment by all major credit and debit cards as well as PayPal
• No minimum order

Visit our website at www.mydomain.com or call us on xxxx xxx xxxx from 09:00 to 20:00 Monday to Saturday.

Yours sincerely,

 

[Mike W]

Sounds ok to me. Are you posting or emailing it?

Regards

Mike

 

[TheWordWell]

Hi there

Sales letters are not as easy as they look. A client recently sent me his sales letter which had had no reponses whatsoever. The reason it failed was the letter was all about him and not fulfilling a customer's need.

So, I suggest you initially put yourself in the recipient's shoes. What would be the trigger for them to pick up the phone or visit your website? Have you written more about them than you? Have you written about the benefits to them, not just the features?

Secondly, I'd be worried about you sending the same letter to a school as to a university. As a former teacher, I am fairly well versed in how headteachers' minds work. However, a university will definitely have different needs to a bog standard comp. It's imperative you write for the target audience, rather than rustle up a generic letter which you think will hit the spot. It won't.

There is no PS in your letter. This is so important as 95% of readers look at the PS before they read a letter. If there's nothing to hold their attention, they'll bin your letter. So, think about turning one of your bullets into a PS. It could be a USP, an extra offer, anything!

You need to think about why should recipients buy from you. What sets you apart?

Look at your opening paragraph. It appears that you are writing to fellow parents. But are you? If you are writing to a headteacher or college principal, it's not right to start in the way you have here. Instead, open with:

• A challenging statement

• An impressive fact

• A key benefit

• A story the reader can identify with

• A problem … and how you are the solution

Feel free to check out my blog. I've written quite a few posts on sales letter writing which may help you...

Good luck with it...

 

"For a limited time only, we are offering 20% on everything on our website."

What does that mean? It doesn't make sense.

Off the top of my head I'd update it to read...

"The exclusive, limited-time special offer means you get a HUGE 20% discount off everything on our website.

You also get FREE delivery (no min. order) as our way of saying "thank you" for your business."

 

Just checked out your site. Liking the fact that the free delivery is prominently displayed but what's more important is your headline - "we make learning fun" - that said: it's an average headline. No-one cares about you making learning fun, but they do care about their kids becoming geniuses.

Try "Personal Development for Kids" or "Creating More Intelligent Children" or similar.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

As a new parent myself, I understand how important it is to give your child the best start in life.

As Wordwell said, it sounds like you're writing to parents.

Education plays an important role in the development of your child. Even the smallest activities like reading a book or playing on an activity mat can stimulate learning skills.

That sounds like you think you're an expert and you're teaching them something - something which is probably nothing more than an opinion.

I think the problem with the letter is that you don't know who you're talking to or why.

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

[xinghu]

Thank you for everybody who has contributed so far. Yes, I agree the sales letter needs re-writing. I will take into account what everyone has said as you seem to be suggesting the same thing.

 

[Saifulseo]

Thank you for posting the message.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Not good. The first paragraphs are going to play a key part in whether the prospect reads the letter or simply dumps it in the bin.

As a new parent myself, I understand how important it is to give your child the best start in life. Education plays an important role in the development of your child. Even the smallest activities like reading a book or playing on an activity mat can stimulate learning skills.

This is "me, me, me". You're wasting your first key paragraph talking about what YOU understand, and then explaining a relatively obvious piece of information which bears little relevance to the whole purpose of the letter.

At Children's Educational Toys, we recognise the benefits of education, and this is why we have launched our new exciting website, selling nothing but products which help babies and toddlers with:

Again, the paragraph is "we, we, we" and the first part provides yet another piece of random information which has nothing to do with the visitor. Do you really want to waste such a vital line in your sales letter telling a prospect that you "understand the benefits of education?". These lines of text achieve nothing.

You need to talk about the prospect. There should be a lot more 'you' and a lot less 'we'. You can't expect your sales letter to hold the prospects attention if you're going on and on about yourself whilst ignoring the other person. It doesn't work in first dates, and it doesn't work in sales letters either.

 

[xinghu]

Ok I think I got the message Scott-CopyandDesign.. I need to understand what I am offering and who my target audience is, what features and how these will benefit the prospect. My content and wording is all wrong, so I am going to go back to the drawing board on this one and think of ways to entice the customer rather than mumble on about the obvious and not really giving the reader something to grab their attention

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Ok I think I got the message Scott-CopyandDesign.. I need to understand what I am offering and who my target audience is, what features and how these will benefit the prospect. My content and wording is all wrong, so I am going to go back to the drawing board on this one and think of ways to entice the customer rather than mumble on about the obvious and not really giving the reader something to grab their attention

Just make sure it talks about the prospect. You shouldn't be saying 'we can do this', you should be saying 'you will get this'. It's essentially the same thing, just worded in a way which gets a much better response from the prospect.

Also, don't forget about the headline. That should also be about the prospect.

Good luck!

 

[TheWordWell]

Thank you for everybody who has contributed so far. Yes, I agree the sales letter needs re-writing. I will take into account what everyone has said as you seem to be suggesting the same thing.

Hi

Good luck with it. And let us know how you get on.

 

[kingwas]

Hi there

Sales letters are not as easy as they look. A client recently sent me his sales letter which had had no reponses whatsoever. The reason it failed was the letter was all about him and not fulfilling a customer's need.

So, I suggest you initially put yourself in the recipient's shoes. What would be the trigger for them to pick up the phone or visit your website? Have you written more about them than you? Have you written about the benefits to them, not just the features?

Secondly, I'd be worried about you sending the same letter to a school as to a university. As a former teacher, I am fairly well versed in how headteachers' minds work. However, a university will definitely have different needs to a bog standard comp. It's imperative you write for the target audience, rather than rustle up a generic letter which you think will hit the spot. It won't.

There is no PS in your letter. This is so important as 95% of readers look at the PS before they read a letter. If there's nothing to hold their attention, they'll bin your letter. So, think about turning one of your bullets into a PS. It could be a USP, an extra offer, anything!

You need to think about why should recipients buy from you. What sets you apart?

Look at your opening paragraph. It appears that you are writing to fellow parents. But are you? If you are writing to a headteacher or college principal, it's not right to start in the way you have here. Instead, open with:

• A challenging statement

• An impressive fact

• A key benefit

• A story the reader can identify with

• A problem … and how you are the solution

Feel free to check out my blog. I've written quite a few posts on sales letter writing which may help you...

Good luck with it...

Yes, sales letter are not as easy as they look, but we should know the key to target as following

1, Who you are
2, What you want to do
3, What's the advantage for this field or products you are in

 

[ParagPrasad]

TheWordWell was spot on about clarifying who the recipient is. It does sound like it's written to a parent and not to a teacher. Whereas a parent's main priority might be their child's development - a teacher is probably looking for something that will help them do their job more easily/effectively/economically.

Further to that, it might help to try and use the type of language people working in the education sector use. Are there certain terms, buzzwords, 'jargon' etc. that would make the recipient feel like you had something in common? Maybe you could even mention a particular journal, study about child development or government initiative etc. that they're likely to be familiar with.

Thinking more widely about sales letters, I have to say the only sales letters that seem to get a high response rate are those that have some kind of gimmick involved. Running with the educational toys theme...

Maybe you open the letter and there's a puzzle printed on the first page. It looks really easy but on closer inspection nobody can figure it out.

Could you include some kind of cheap toy? It makes the letter stand out, the toy might get left around the office for a while, it might get passed around among colleagues.

Anything that sets your letter apart from all the other junk mail they're receiving is great.

You might be put off by the extra costs involved in this type of strategy but consider this: the average business has to sell 2.5 times to a client before they start making a profit out of them.

 

[Sarah Harvey]

---> xinghu

Your message is normal. Nothing interesting or spectacular. However, a different headline and a message targeted to the University/College will be better in the long run. Don't worry about your company. People will visit your website or Google it if they want to find out more about your company. In the end the message should only present the problem, discuss it and then provide the solution.

Wait... I just realised something. You are targeting universities to sell your educational toys for babies and toddlers? Not exactly the right market there, but then again I forget... here in the UK kids fall pregnant at a young age.

I guess in my home country, you wouldn't see adverts like that (targeted towards a university) because not many kids in Universities can afford to have a baby and go to University. You can ask for references from senior staff in a University I assume.

You can create a lot of buzz in the digital arena actually. There are thousands of forums for people that have children. You can also target nurseries, day care centers etc.

 

[xinghu]

Hi Sarah, thanks for your message.

I agree the sales letter needs a lot of work to modify it. I am currently working on it so I can send it out before the education sector breaks up for Christmas.

The reason I mentioned Universities is because I am thinking of targetting the more mature market. Children here have been known to fall pregnant as young as 16. I don't feel that it is sensible to target students at schools. My line of thinking was to target staff in schools, then perhaps students and staff in colleges and students at universities.

You are correct, I should consider other places to reach my target audience as well, and nurseries and daycare centres are certainly on the list.

Of course, my main scope would be to keep within my industry. However, since there are an estimated 384,000 babies born every day, there is no reason why I can't think outside the box and advertise my business in other sectors.

Thank you again for your comments. They are most welcome.