National Clothesline

After doing some quick calculation last evening, I realized I’ve written more than 350 sales letters in the last 20 years.

Most have been a page or two in length but some have been as many as 24 pages long. In fact, just last month I wrote a 16-page letter for a veterinarian. And just last night, I put the finishing touches on a letter for a plumber. It was a one-page effort but it took about a week to think through, organize, outline and then craft.

Have you ever used a sales letter to build your cleaning business?

A well-written letter addressed to an individual, by name, is arguably the strongest form of direct marketing there is. It’s personal, direct, highly targeted and extremely flexible. It can be as short as you want or as long as your reader will endure.

A sales letter can be written in minutes or it might take days. About six years ago, I wrote a letter to drycleaners that took two full weeks of hard work. In the end, it turned out to be a very successful means of contact.

The purpose of this article is not to teach you how to write a sales letter, per se. Rather, it’s to share with you a headline technique, which, if properly applied, will increase your response rate to your sales letter by a very wide margin. Guaranteed.

If I asked you what the two most powerful words in marketing are, you would likely say free and new, right? After all, that’s what you’ve been told and that’s what you happen to see every time you turn on the TV, listen to the radio or leaf through a magazine or newspaper.

Unfortunately, these words have been so overused that they actually trigger rejection.

In some cases they act as red flags, telling the reader, “throw me away!”

In fact, e-mail spam filters consistently catch these two culprits and toss them overboard like a couple of Jonahs.

Nowadays, it seems almost everybody is making a fantastic claim of some kind… a new way to get rich quick, lose weight overnight for free or an incredible way to grow body parts bigger than you ever dreamed.

You read claims like these every day and when you do, the spam filter in your brain says yeah, sure! These are the two words that a world of harried prospects utter each time they slog through an ever-rising tide of advertising claims. Yeah, sure.

With this in mind, how can you, as a drycleaner, pump up your offer any higher than it is right now? After all, what’s better than new and where can you find an offer that beats free?

Here’s a little technique that will get your piece read and get your prospect to respond. It’s really simple… never make your claim bigger than your proof. And always join your claim with your proof in the headline of your letter.

A good way to do this is to sandwich your offer or promise inside an IF… THEN, type of construction in your headline.

When you say IF (followed by a requirement your prospects have to meet), it seems to magically switch off the yeah, sure response on the part of your prospect.

For example, your headline could go something like this:

If you have at least 12 items of drycleaning every week, very little freedom and a telephone, call me. I’ll save you time, eliminate aggravation and deliver the best service you’ve ever had — guaranteed.

The formula is really pretty simple… a reasonably easy requirement followed by a strong promise. You can think up all sorts of offers that have nothing to do with FREE or NEW. Try something different for a change and people will begin to read your offers… and respond.