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Let’s see how Titans
(one gigantic in size and power) write powerful communication.
In this article, you learn how to customize your message in such a way
that it appeals to prospects and clients. You can use letters to
follow up on a first in-person visit, to establish initial contact, to announce
new product offerings, to present a proposal for services, or even to help mend
fences after you’ve had a problem. There are a couple of dozen other ways you
can use letters to help build up your sales revenue, but those are probably the
most common applications. Just as there needs to
be an appropriate goal behind every call you make (and especially prospecting
calls), there needs to be an appropriate goal behind every letter you send
(especially letters you send near the beginning of the relationship). A goal
needs to fulfill three requirements: it has to be specific, measurable, and
realistic. It just about drives me
crazy to see how many salespeople waste ink, paper, postage, and time writing
letters that have no goal whatsoever. Leave aside for the moment whether the
goal is specific, measurable, or realistic -- in all too many cases, the goal
simply doesn’t exist! “Hi! I just wanted to
drop you a note to let you know that it was a pleasure to meet you today.”
That kind of letter bores me to death, and it has the same effect on
prospects and customers. Be honest:
You don’t have time to read your own mail. Your
prospects and customers are in the same boat. Why should they bother reading a
virtually content-free letter? Instead of writing
about how great it was to see the person, or how wonderful it would be to work
with him or her, take what you’ve learned in the phone call and put it to use.
Suppose you asked someone to identify three big challenges, and that person told
you that it was important to increase productivity, reduce downtime, and support
the (carefully established) corporate image of high quality. The letter you
write after that call should use the key words your contact has identified in
its opening paragraph. It could sound something like this: You are not alone in
struggling with the challenge of providing quality products that uphold the
promises you’ve made to customers. That
is exactly why we need to get together as soon as possible.
At Acme Company, we
were able to reduce down time by 15% and dramatically increase their perceived
quality in the eyes of their customers. Results
like these are common for our customers, and we would like the opportunity to
discuss the possibility of setting up a program with the potential for
delivering similar results for your organization. The first paragraph
deals with the emotion, gaining the customer’s attention by focusing on the
struggles she is facing -- not on whether or not you spoke to the person on the
phone or how you felt the conversation went. The paragraph starts by focusing on
your contact’s biggest challenge related to you on the phone.
If you didn’t get the appointment in the initial phone call, then this
letter must do what the call didn’t do- gain the appointment.
You have a better chance of gaining the customer’s time and attention
if you use his or her exact words. After
all, if the customer said it, he is interested in it! The second paragraph
focuses on credibility and testimonials and illustrates why you think you can
help this person. It does not
concentrate on how your products or services operate. It emphasizes what your
customers can expect from working with you.
Titans first sell the “what” to gain the time and attention; and,
ultimately, to gain the appointment. After
they have the customer’s undivided attention and wants to know more about the
solution, then the Titan goes into the “how” part of the sales process---the
presentation of features and technical specifications. But not beforehand! Since any letter must
have a specific goal say, a face-to-face meeting you should state that goal clearly. Let’s add a third
paragraph that includes a call to action. “Please expect a call
from me on January 12th so we can schedule a meeting. If you are available on January 12th, please have your
assistant call me with alternative dates.” There has to be a
“call for action” in every letter; that appeal has to hook up to the outcome
that you want the letter to have. Some
people place the call to action in the P.S. section of the letter.
Why? Because it has been
proven that when people open a letter, they immediately scan it in this order:
salutation, headline, first sentence, signature and P.S.
By putting your call to action in the P.S., you may increase the
likelihood that the customer will read your call to action.
Regardless of whether or not you choose to use the P.S., make sure you
insert your call to action somewhere in the text.
Any sales-related written communication without a call to action is a
wasted opportunity. If you’re using the letter as a means of establishing
initial contact, and you want the other person to fax something in for you, you
would need to state that in clear, active terms: “Please fax in this response
card for your free demo tape today.” There are two schools
of thought on how long a letter should be.
One school says that a letter should be short and to the point because
people don’t have a lot of time. Another
school says that the longer a letter is, the more effective it is; some writers
have developed eighteen-page formats designing sweepstakes, seminars, and other
high-profile promotions. In such a
situation, the letters sell the product, not the appointment.
People who develop such campaigns are playing a pure “numbers game”
-- they only expect a small response. However,
if they send out one hundred thousand letters, and they get a 3% response rate,
that’s 3,000 new customers. Not bad! Or perhaps they’re selling a very
expensive seminar, one that costs $10,000 to attend.
All you need to do is sell 100 people and you have revenues in excess of
$1M. Still, my feeling is that
appeals like that are best left to the world of direct mail marketing. In person-to-person sales, you are, for the most part, using your letters to develop value added relationships with existing customers, or with prospects that you hope to turn into customers. For a letter in this environment, the best rule, I think, is to keep your message concise. If you are writing a prospecting letter, the only thing you are selling is the appointment, not the solution itself. If you can say everything you are saying more succinctly in three sentences than in fifteen, use three sentences. In this setting, the chances are that the person is going to read the three and not the fifteen. Letters, by their very
nature, require that you spend a little more time focusing on the potential
benefits you offer, or the successes you’ve delivered to other people, than
you would in a phone call. Your reader will be asking, “What’s in it for
me?” Make sure you offer relevant answers to that question -- and then tell
the reader exactly what you think should happen next. If you’re using a
letter to help repair a relationship where there was a problem in the past,
remember that the aim is to focus on the future and the desired outcomes of your
reader, not on past problems. Don’t turn the letter into a confession. In
today’s litigious age, most companies shy away from accepting blame on paper.
There is a difference, however, between taking all the blame and
accepting accountability for solving problems. Instead of writing
something like this: “The oversight on our
part was inexcusable; it ended up costing your company over one million dollars.
It won’t happen again.” Try something like the
following: “We are sorry about
the problems you encountered with the Bellway project, and our intention is to
do our best to correct those problems as quickly as possible so that you don’t
lose any more sleep over the matter.” A side note: if
you’re even tempted to write anything like that first example, where you
apologize for losing the customer a million dollars, mention this temptation to
your company’s legal counsel -- and see how long it takes him or her to start
throwing around words like “liability” and “court action”! Keep the letter direct,
keep it short, and keep it to the point. Acknowledge that there were problems,
and state clearly that your goal now is to help the customer get beyond them.
Create powerful Titan communication. |
