12-Part Sales Letter In Depth - Presenting Your Credentials

When you are writing a sales letter people will need a few reasons to believe what you say. After all, there are plenty of scammers out there and they don't know you from Adam (or Eve). So people will want to know who you are. You will need to present your credentials. This is a bit like a resume, with some important differences.

• Academic Degrees lend some credibility, but are not the last word
• Employment Experience also helps distinguish you from a con artist
• Online Reputation/Presence (Many people will Google your name. What will they find?)
• Your believable story (People tend to recognize real-life experiences)

Any or all of these can provide a reader with a reason to keep reading. For those with weak Academic Degrees or Employment Experience, Online Reputation/Presence is particularly important. More about that in the next installment.

12-Part Sales Letter In Depth: Providing The Solution

The next part of your 12- part sales letter is the part where you announce that you have the solution. You will necessarily want to make a justifiable claim that it is the BEST solution. (Otherwise, why would anyone want to buy it?)

In college we learn to be conservative with our claims. ("How dare I say I am the best? The professor will cut me to shreds!") I call this the Academic Bias. For this reason alone, many highly educated people with excellent solutions go unrecognized. If they were willing to go out on a limb and claim to be the best at something, people might take notice.

For those who feel it would be disingenuous to claim that they are offering the best solution, they might do well to consider certain qualifiers. For example, if there is a better solution that is more expensive, it might be reasonable to claim that a product is the best solution at a particular price. Or possibly, the product or service might be focused at a particular market. Here is how I would qualify myself:

"I don't make pretty websites so I don't claim to be a webmaster. But I do have a knack with words and frequently find my projects listing near the top of Google, so I call myself a darned good SEO specialist. Combined with my background in technical support, mail-order fulfillment and alternative medicine, I can safely say I am probably one of the best internet marketing consultants with knowledge of the of the alternative medicine market, particularly when it comes to marketing an alternative health book."

Now that is a mouthful when it is placed inside a 12 part sales letter, but it give you some idea of the kind of thing you can say to both tout yourself as the best and remain truthful.

All this points to the need to distinguish your Unique Sales Proposition. Briefly, your Unique Sales Proposition or USP is what makes your product stand out from the crowd. Rather than plunging ahead with the rest of the parts of the sales letter immediately, let's devote an installment to distinguishing your uniques sales proposition.

Next Installment: Distinguishing Your Unique Sales Proposition (USP)

http://internetmarketing.meadrose.com/

The 12-Part Sales Letter: What It Is & Why You Need It

Let's say you have a product, service, book or some other offering that you feel certain would be of benefit to a certain market segment and you need to get the word out about it. If you simply put up an announcement, some people may respond but the majority will tend to ignore it. Most people's experience is that things in life are pretty much consistently mediocre. How can you convince them that what you have to offer is something special?

One time-tested method is the 12-Part Sales Letter. Briefly, these are the 12 parts:

1. Get their attention (Make a provocative statement that makes them want to read further)
   
2. Identify a problem (Paint a picture of a difficult situation most of us find ourselves in)
3. Announce your solution (Make a bold assertion that you can solve their problem)
   
4. Present your credentials (Give them a reason to believe you, with a degree or a story)
   
5. Show the benefits (Paint a picture of how they will be better off with your solution)
   
6. Give social proof (Cite the positive experiences of others with testimonials)
   
7. Make your offer (Tell them how your solution is worth more than what they will pay)
   
8. Inject scarcity (Inform them that the present opportunity will expire)
   
9. Guarantee Satisfaction (Let them know they get their money back if they are not happy)
   
10. Call to action (Request that they BUY NOW)
    
11. Predict Consequences (Paint a picture of continuing problems)
    
12. Use a Power Postscript (Drive the point home one more time)
    

Each of these steps is worthy of in-depth exploration, and although the general structure is known, the particulars vary from audience to audience. Allow me to provide a self-serving and hopefully humorous example. See if you can spot the sections:

"AARGH! THIS INTERNET MARKETING STUFF IS TOO MUCH TO DEAL WITH!"

All you want to do is sell your book online. It should be a simple matter. You put your heart and soul into it for years. It is a polished piece of work that will make a difference to anyone who reads it BUT... (See if this sounds like you):

• "I paid a web designer several thousand to make a site that gets no traffic"
• "I pay all over again every time I need to make a change"
  
• "I bought a domain name that no one looks for"
• "I am on page 5 of Google for my own name"
  
• "I am losing my shirt on pay-per-click"
• "I got flagged as a spammer sending to my confirmed subscribers"
  

If you are like may others, you find the details of internet marketing to be a daunting array of puzzles where the rules are always changing. Aside from the technical details, even the basic business stuff seems challenging. Why do it yourself? Why not hire an expert?

Good news! If you are reading this, you have found your expert. I am your guy.

My name is Mead Rose. I am an internet marketer by profession. I lucked into this by a series of fortunate circumstances:

• I learned how to code HTML in '97 at the request of a boss
• I composed my first professional site in 2002 in repayment of a chiropractic bill for my girlfriend at the time. http://losaltosfamilychiropractic.com/
• Another patient of the chiropractor clued me in to SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Steve at http://www.frontendtech.com/
• Another doctor at the clinic, author of My Doctor Says I'm Fine, So Why Do I Feel So Bad? approached me to implement an internet marketing plan.
• After working with her for a year, I met the owner of Best Of Hawaii who had a longtime association with the folks who had written the plan I had been implementing. I took on writing her newsletter, Hawaiian Travel News. She was quite helpful in effectively structuring a site for monetization.
  
• Since then I have been experimenting in an attempt to keep up with the ever-changing world of internet marketing. Although most of it is pretty standard, I have made some discoveries that I tend to keep secret.

Imagine having a simple, functional, monetized website that sends you ever-increasing revenues in exchange for about one workday per week of your time and you do most of it yourself. From time to time you receive an email from me with suggestions about what to do next along with a schedule of my consulting fees. Easy, no?

"In one hour of consulting with Mead I learned ways to make my traffic climb with minimal effort"

"In one weekend, Mead put together a site that has brought me several thousand dollars worth of clients last year"

"His marketing feasibility study was impressive."

My business partners and I originally paid several thousand dollars to learn these secrets. Now I offer them to you for a few hundred...because I want to build my client base rapidly. I consult for $60 per hour. It's a steal at that rate.

But these rates won't last forever. As my clientèle grows, my rates will go up.

Here's the good news: If you don't think what I tell you is well worth what I charge, KEEP YOUR MONEY. We can shake hands and discontinue our interaction. I am betting you will come back time after time to learn more.

So call me at 720-436-5133. Don't wait.

You could wind up being sold a bill of goods by some kid who makes a point of keeping you in the dark about the technology. You could discover that you are pitching the wrong product to the wrong people using the wrong words...and that by spending a little up front you could have saved yourself some headaches.

P.S. Why make all the mistakes beginners make on the path to doing it right? Get an expert on your side at no risk and get a head start.

Next Installment: 12-Part Sales Letter In Depth: Getting Their Attention the Headline

http://internetmarketing.meadrose.com