Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot: 10 Things Not to Do with Your Sales Letter

Creating a long form sales letter can be a great way to drive more sales for your product or service. Despite what haters say, long form sales letters work GREAT when selling to a rabid, targeted audience.

However, there are certain mistakes people make over and over again when crafting their sales letters that can hurt their chances at success. 

I’ve seen (and made) all of these mistakes in the last 26 years… don’t you make them too!

This list of mistakes to avoid will help you ensure that your long form sales letter is effective and drives maximum conversions.

1. Not Doing Adequate Market Research – Knowing your target audience, their needs and wants, and what they are looking for in a product or service is essential before creating a long-form sales letter. If it’s not targeted, it won’t work.

2. Not Creating An Engaging Headline – The headline of your long-form sales letter should be compelling, engaging, and relevant to the product or service you are selling. Without an amazing headline, you’re sunk before you even begin.

3. Not Breaking Up The Text With Subheadlines – Many people will skim your sales letter before they read the whole thing. Subheadlines provide an “alternate reading path” – which is a fancy way of saying they’ll read the headlines and the PS and then decide if they want to read the whole letter.

4. Not Providing Enough Detail – Your long-form sales letter should provide enough detail and information about the product or service you are selling to give the reader a clear understanding of what it is and how it can benefit them.

5. Not Giving A CLEAR Call-To-Action – Use a call-to-action that encourages the reader to take action and purchase the product or service you are selling – NOW. Don’t beat around the bush in the least… tell them very clearly this is the time to buy and here’s how and why you do it now.

6. Not Using Visuals – Incorporate visuals into your long-form sales letter, such as images, charts, and infographics, to make it more visually appealing and engaging. Not only does this break up the text, but it also helps you explain even more without adding more text

7. Not Including Customer Testimonials – Include customer testimonials to build credibility and trust with potential customers. It’s one thing if your product or service works for you, it’s another if it works for others. If you don’t have customer testimonials, go GET some!

8. Not Offering Any Bonuses Or Discounts – Offering bonuses or discounts can help to drive more sales and encourage more people to purchase your product or service NOW. You must give people a reason to buy NOW, and the easiest way to do that is with extra stuff or a discount.

9. Not Proofreading – Make sure to proofread your long-form sales letter for any spelling, grammar, or factual errors. It seems like everyone wants to channel their inner English Teacher when it comes to sales copy (though their stuff never suffers the same scrutiny).

10. Not Testing And Optimizing – Test different versions of your long-form sales letter and optimize it to improve conversions. I once improved my sales conversion by 500% just by changing a headline. That means a single headline change resulted in 5X the sales. Test! Test! Test!

11. Not Believing Long Form Sales Letters Work – Many people believe because they don’t like long sales letters, others don’t either. That’s the biggest mistake of all!

Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean they don’t work! 

Speaking of long form sales letters (as in, 10-pagers that scroll way down the page), how would you like to see me write an entire sales letter, from scratch, in less than 90 seconds? (That’s not a typo. NOT 90 minutes… NOT 90 days… just 90 seconds!)

People are going absolutely nuts over this 2 minute video… check it out and see me write an entire sales letter in less time that it takes most people to brush your teeth or boil a cup of water in the microwave! Watch it here!