50k to write one sales letter! How much do you invest?

Would you invest 50k to have someone write a sales letter for you and your business? 

Some Owners do. 

However, just having the money to invest 50k doesn't mean it'll be a wise investment decision for you and your business.

Why?

Because, it all depends on your business economics, the infrastructure, the back up resources, the capabilities and competencies to handle a tidal wave rush of business.  

Many don't have the size of business, nor the money, nor the economics, or everything else in place that's required to warrant the spend.

Many do however fork out decent money for what eventually turns out to be mediocre writers and strategists producing average to mediocre results. 

How does one make that judgement?

Look at the results that are produced.

Look at the business that gets banked. 

Look at the new customers that are generated. 

Look at the ROI. 

Look at the levels of joy and happiness.

So what is it that has someone charge 50k for writing a long form sales letter, and someone else charging £500 for the same work?    

There are a few components.

High level skill is first and foremost. 

You can't wing, high skill level. 

Yet that doesn't seem to be the case in the marketing and advertising fields.  

Because like hearing it or not, there are writers and agency owners full of hype and bluster about what they say they can do. And (gasp!) they behave as they do because they want to win the business. 

Imagine David Ogilvy pulling a fast one by smooth talking his way into landing the clients he did, and then not having the marketing and advertising chops required to create the winning ad campaigns, promotions and pieces he did!

And so when the results don't show themselves because of that zealous drive to over promise and not much else? It then turns into a 'avoid being pinned down at all costs' game.   

Having an internal level of conviction and certainty 

When you observe top performers in any industry or category, you'll instantly see they've a certain (very high) level of belief and conviction in their own abilities. 

It's that certainty level in themselves is what instantly and automatically radiates outwards to everyone else they speak to. 

We buy another's certainty and conviction based on who they are and who they are being.  

It's not many who can pass the equivalent lie detector tests where their bravado and gusto turns out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.       

Having a system

Ask any number of sales based writers and copywriters what kind of system they use to produce high converting copy and they'll tell you something along the lines of they don't have a particular structured system or, that they write by intuition and feel.

High performing sales letter writers don't leave things to chance. They almost all write to a specified system. That doesn't mean that the resulting sales letters are rigid and robotic because of  being formulated to a created structure.

What a structure or system does, is it acts like an airplane pilot's checklist. Nothing can be left out or be based on guesswork or chance. 

There's a lot of money riding on a sales letter. 

Yet most crash and burn because of the writer not having a proper proven system to follow.  

So now you know what specific question to ask any copywriter before you decide to hire them, whether you ultimately invest £500 or 50k.      

   http://rajahireker.com/whythehell.pdf

Fireproof Safes at £2K a Pop. Direct Mail Letter Produces... ZERO Sales

I asked the owner of company selling Fireproof safes, to show me the direct mail letter that was sent at out at a total marketing cost of 10K - a letter that produced ZERO sales. (That's what she told me in conversation)

Of course, she declined.

Too busy sheltering the fragile ego of the person she got to create the mailing, too intent in saving her own face by protecting her own reasons for hiring the nincompoop marketing help in the first place. 

You would have thought that if a mailing piece doesn't work, that you'd be open, would get help in fixing it, especially when you've paid out 10k for NO results whatsoever. (And, they will  probably roll out the same weak effort at another time, still being none the wiser as to WHY the thing flopped)

But no. That's not the case with the many dumb companies and businesses run with people who have no earthly idea what they're doing -- they have zero interest in testing different options in order to get different results.

Here's THE secret to sales, advertising and marketing success. 

So long as a product or service is sound and has quality embedded inside it, and so long as the mailing is directed and targeted to THE most ideal prospect, the 'killer marketing app' that'll bring home the bacon is good old compelling, irresistible, salescopy.

And yes, there's weak, generic salescopy and, there's direct response salescopy.   

My guess is the salescopy for the fire proof safe was possibly heavily feature driven, logical, boring (probably ZERO romancing the stone), no real offer, no strong call to action, no intrinsic or inherent value or education gained by reading the letter, no reasons why the product is demonstrably superior compared to all others, probably tried to sell the thing right off the letter instead of a number of alternatives, no incentives or gifts for taking the next step, no follow up mailings, no real goal for what the wanted the letter to actually, do.

That's not 100% certain of course. Though, it could be closer to the mark than not.    

Hot salescopy IS the fuel lacking in most businesses selling any product or service you could probably name.

IT tools, software, data, CRM systems.. they're all rendered useless without the necessary & effective, sales driven COPY created to SELL the product or service.

Think about the pre-internet age and even, the pre-computer age; money was made by selling products via sales letters written on typewriters with carbon paper and sticky 'f' keys.

The MEDIA was different though what was the COMMON DENOMINATOR then, and NOW, to greater sales IS... irresistible, direct response salescopy.   

Sales plummeting or at a standstill? Want to create MORE sales through powerful, effective salescopy?

Get my Direct Response Marketing & Copywriting Report that'll help you to fix things.