A lot has been said in professional Web design circles about gaining clients via search engine optimization. It is clear to those in the design and search engine optimization business space that one of the best ways to acquire new customers is to take advantage of your own skill set and increase traffic to your website. What is less obvious is how to reach those possible clients that don’t even know that they need you. One technique that I have recently employed is the sales letter (also known as the marketing letter) to attract customers for my Chattanooga Web design business.
After I qualified and gathered my mailing list, I spent several hours pondering the letter and another couple of hours writing the letter. This isn’t the first sales letter that I have written, but it has been some time. I have come to understand that there is an art to this and it does take considerable crafting to put something down that will be effective. After I finished my draft and sent the first batch of letters off in the mail – yep, good ole snail mail – I thought that others could avail from my work.
Let’s get started.
The first thing that you should know is that the people that you are writing this letter to don’t want to hear from you. Having said that, you have to make the best of your letter from the opening at the beginning to the call to action at the end. Here’s the simple structure I used:
1. The opening – Acknowledging the problem. This is the most important part of the letter. If you don’t get this right, the rest of your letter will be useless. So, your opening should be empathetic to the situation of your reader (a.k.a. potential client). After all, your first sentence should be written to get the reader to read the next sentence.
2. Solution to the problem. Once you have the reader hooked with your opening, you should offer them the solution to their problem with your offerings. Break the services down into a bulleted list for quick digesting.
3. Engender confidence. Now that you have illustrated how you can solve the reader’s trouble, you should now convince them that you are the right person for the job. Tell them about your experience, accolades, or anything that will give them faith in you.
4. The close – Call to action. You have them were you want them, now get them to make a move. Ask them to ring you. It’s that easy.
This simple formula should have you own your path to attracting new clients that didn’t even know they needed you. Here are a couple of pointers to help you get your message across. You should be empathic and understanding of what the reader’s plight is throughout the letter. You should be succinct[spin] and not bore with [spin]abundance of detail. If you write short paragraphs and bulleted lists, the chances of the reader making it to the “call to action” is vastly improved.
Of course, these pointers work for more than just potential Web design & SEO clients. Try it with whatever service you peddle.
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