100 EASY WAYS TO BEGIN A SALES LETTER (Part Three)
by Herschell Gordon Lewis
The number of ways to begin a sales letter is infinite. However, the key lies in understanding what separates a good letter opening from the vast number of bad ones out there.
'Do you really have a hundred ways to begin a sales letter?' No, I don't. I have closer to 200. And anyway, the question isn't valid, because you left out the key word-effective.
Without that word, any of us has a thousand ways to begin a sales letter. But I certainly hope that any professional who reads this series of articles- and you're a professional or you wouldn't have this magazine in your hands- recognizes the difference between a way to begin a sales letter and an effective way to begin a sales letter.
51. The best just got better.
This is a solid, serviceable boilerplate opening which incorporates a major advantage: It's comparative without stating a specific comparison, because it's an implicit statement of superiority.
Where this old dependable can fall flat isn't in the statement itself; rather, it's in failure to follow up the statement with specific ostensible proof: The best just got better in this way.....
Now, what if you can't generate such a follow-up? No problem. You've just proved 'The best just got better' is the wrong opening for the message at hand. Try a different start.
An example of 'The best just got better' is a letter which does follow up the claim, but the example is flawed by presenting a generality as a specific:
The best value in the computer industry has just gotten even better. Every new Swan 486 system you buy (V line and above) includes a complete package of free hardware, software, and service designed to insure more than your machine-it insures your productivity!
A couple of questions here. First-and I offer this as opinion, not fact-
'has just gotten even better' is considerably more ponderous than 'just got even better.' Second, the parentheses make the statement before them a weasel rather than a fact. Using commas in this instance would have solved that problem.
If you're asking why this letter opens with generalities instead of specifics, I cheated. Specifics appear in a typed Johnson Box effect before the greeting. Actually, I'd have chosen a more inspirational overline and saved the meat for the first paragraph. You decide: Is that opening better than this suggested revision?
The best value in the computer industry just got even better. Every new Swan 486 system you buy, V line and above, includes an internal modem, two-year on-site service, one-year toll-free software helpline, and a whole bunch of other goodies-all free.
If your next question is, 'What about the software the original letter mentioned? What software?' Beats me. The letter never does tell us.
But none of this detracts from the dependability of this venerable opening.
52. If I can show you how to...will you...?
Here's another 'If' opening, joining all-time favorite #1, 'If you're like me,' #3, 'What if...,' and #42, 'If you like that, you'll love this.' I'm a fan of 'If' openings because they're a nonthreatening provocative. The assumptive attitude attached to 'When...' doesn't apply to 'If...' and the reader becomes involved in the 'If' just as he/she would become involved in a question.
The one huge caution about this opening is the relevance requirement. Suppose I say to you, 'If I can show you how to poach an Albanian squid, will you agree to try my exclusive Albanian Squid Poacher?' Chances are I'm aiming at a nonexistent target. Any 'if...then' statement needs relevance to survive.
Does this example survive?
Dear Mr. Lewis,
If we could show you a way to increase your sales potential, generate higher income, and reduce your overall Marketing costs . . . would you be interested?
Opinion: Borderline. The thought is a mild cliche, and eliminating any one element would make it stronger: 'If I could show you a way to generate higher income while reducing your marketing costs . . . would you be interested?'
I eliminated 'increase your sales potential' because it's the most generalized of the three components: as long as we were in the operating room I also de-capitalized 'marketing.' And I changed first-person plural to first-person singular because, although you can't see it, the letter is signed by the company president.
Keep up the silent three-word scream as you write a letter opening:
'Relevance and specificity!' Your response doesn't have any choice-it has to go up.
53. Let's face it.
I admit, I don't like this opening. It always strikes me as being too smug to establish reader rapport. But some writers I respect use 'Let's face it,' so it deserves inclusion among the 'Hallowed Hundred.'
I offer a single caution for 'Let's face it': Whatever follows has to be a problem-solver, an approach differing from opening #32 ('We're solving your tough problem'). The difference between #32 and #53 is the potential of this one to establish immediate rapport and the ugly uncoupling if it doesn't. Here are two recent openings which exemplify how this opening can connect or disconnect. The first example: Dear Herschell Lewis, Let's face it: if you want real tax reform, you'll just have to do it yourself. Now you can- simply by using TurboTax®, 's #1 tax preparation software. This one does qualify under our empirical set of standards. I wouldn't have used the weakener-word 'simply,' and I'm not sold on that double greater than symbol in mid-text when other solutions to the legal requirement exist; but these are picky objections.
Now let's look at the second example:
Dear Creator:
Let's face it.
Your job is unique.
Unlike your friend, the accountant, you have to do more than put numbers in little squares all day long.
Any opening that has be asking, 'Huh?' isn't a barn-burner.
I enjoy being called the Creator (Oh, all right-Let there be light), but what does the assumed uniqueness of my job have to do with 'Let's face it'? Does this use establish rapport or damage it?
54. It's late and I'm tired, but I have to tell you this.
This one is a favorite of fund raisers, and you can see why: The touch of martyrdom reaches out to the best prospects.
This opening is underused by commercial mailers, many of whom feel they're taking off their pants in public. In that objection is the nucleus of why #54 can work when no other opening can grab and shake your target. If you seem to be firing blanks, that's the time to strip for action.
A fund-raising letter is an archetype of 'It's late and I'm tired, but I have to tell you this': It's 11:30 P.M. on a Tuesday night and I'm tired. I need a shower, and I want to go to bed.
But I can't sleep . . . not until I finish this letter and pray that God will fill your heart with compassion for the poor of Appalachia -as he did mine in 1957.
See how the writer's agony coats the reader's attitude? Try it the next time you're mounting a commercial letter test.
55. We've chosen you . . . or . . . You have been chosen.
This is the cousin of two other openings, #17 ('Because you are who you are, you'll get special attention') and #18 ('Stroke, stroke - 'You're a rare bird''). The difference between this one and the other two is that #55 puts the writer, or the organization the writer represents, in a parental position.
The obvious determinant of whether to use #55 in place of #17 or #18 is who is sending the letter. If the recipient accepts the sender as a superior, then this is the preferred opening: If God walks among mankind, He's less Godlike - which would be the impression #17 or #18 would transmit in this circumstance.
A subscription letter begins:
Each year we invite selected candidates to join the largest private non-profit scientific and educational organization in the world.
Your name has been selected as a candidate for membership in the National Geographic Society.
Notice that word 'candidate.' It's in key with the posture the writer takes.
Let's hoist a few danger signals. As each installment of this compendium appears in print, I hear comments such as, 'I never knew I had such a big menu of letter openings to choose from.'
Careful now-not because that statement ends with a preposition, a position I endorse, but because these openings aren't universally interchangeable. The purpose of listing 100 ways to begin an effective sales letter isn't to enable the writer to pick blindly, like pinning a tail on a donkey; it's to enable you to choose the one opening that best fits what you're writing and to whom.
So if you've been writing customer or subscriber resuscitation letters, leaning on that old dependable, 'We've missed you' (opening #31) -- and response is gradually sinking-don't stab out at the list and wind up with #24, 'Are you paying too much?' Instead, consider #39 ('I'll get right to the point') or #14 (The cry of 'Fire!') or #50 ('Wouldn't it be lovely if...'). Matching the message to the offer is one of three indicators of professionalism.
(The other two: Finishing the job on time and establishing rapport.)
If we're to finish this job on time, let's add five more from the huge Pandora's Box of openings:
56. I'm surprised I haven't heard from you.
Danger signals explode in every direction from this supercharged opening. Because 'I'm surprised I haven't heard from you' can make you a hero or a bum. Think of it as dynamite with a short fuse. If you don't get out of the way it'll demolish you instead of your reader's apathy.
A better simile: It's the old 'Frankly, I'm puzzled,' laced with strychnine. The question you have to answer in the very next sentence: 'Who is this person and what right does he/she have to expect a response from me?'
The clarity and persuasiveness with which you answer that question determines who gets wiped out by the dynamite. And this adds another caution, a universal rule of force-communication:
Don't use dynamite to kill a butterfly.
A letter to my wife from a company pitching a refrigerator service contract begins:
Dear Margo Lewis:
We are surprised we haven't heard from you about our recent offer of Extended Service coverage. Maybe one of the following applies:
- You haven't received our previous letters
- We did not sufficiently cover the benefits of our Asure program
- You are not interested in the extended protection
And some more bullets, followed by a warning that the first year's warranty is about to expire.
See the hole here? Who the devil is the woman who signed this letter to try to nail us with the nasty mantle of causing an unpleasant surprise? Who is she to draw any supposition?
That's the key: We've never had any relationship. In this non-relationship, the writer had a plethora of alternative openings that wouldn't have been abrasive - for example, #22, #9, #3, #32, #41; or on a lesser plane #1, #10, or #23. If you can see the usefulness of each and the risk of this one or #40, #45, #49, #15, or #6, you're getting as much usefulness from this series of articles as I am.
57. How would you like to...
'How would you like to...' is a more personable cousin of #3, 'What if...' The difference is that this one implicitly suggests you can; no 'if' factor exists.
So the very natural follow-up to this opening is, 'It's as easy as...'
What the writer has to consider is whether the reader actually wants to accomplish or enjoy whatever the offer includes. This is a classic example of the benefit of demographic/psychographic/creative matchup.
An eight-page letter begins with a printed headline and a 10-line explanation of what the letter contains (a technique with which I don't agree), then launches into high gear:
Dear Friend:
How would you like to earn $1,000 a day-every day?
Imagine! Making more money in one day than most people do in a week. You can do it! (You'll even earn big profits while you sleep!)
Cash in on the most profitable field in the modern world.
How? By publishing information.
To many, that last four-word paragraph is a letdown because it doesn't seem to validate the claim and doesn't seem easy to do. I would have used a comma, not a colon, after the greeting, and would have softened the apparent letdown with 'How? Believe it or not, by being a respected publisher.' Still, I understand this letter has been successful; and anyway, what matters is the choice of opening, not any particular use.
58. It gives me great pleasure to...
Readers of Direct Marketing know I'm not enamored of messages beginning with the word 'It.' Neither I nor anyone has the guts (or the folly) of making this a blanket condemnation and 'It gives me great pleasure to...' is a logical enough opening for a pleasant offering.
That's the key: What follows has to be pleasant for the message recipient. If you're writing, 'It gives me great pleasure to tell you your account has been assigned to me,' not only are you losing stature by being recipient of the assignment instead of its instigator; you're announcing a nonevent that brings pleasure to you, not to your target.
So focus your pleasure on a tight beam aimed outward.
An example of this opening:
Dear CorelDRAW Registered User:
It's with great pleasure that I advise you of a brand new CorelDRAW User's Group that is forming in your region!
If this series of articles had a different theme you and I might attack the double us of 'that' in the same sentence, the standoffish 'advise,' and the over-encompassing 'region' instead of 'area.' Instead, let's reach agreement on the value of pleasure-suggestion.
Suppose this letter opened, 'A brand-new CorelDRAW User's Group is forming in your area. Don't you want to be part of it from the word go?' Would that be stronger or weaker? If you're undecided, don't use the 'pleasure' approach. Save 'pleasure' for more obvious pleasure.
59. I used to think that, but now I think this.
Once again we have a double-edged opening. If what you now think is immediately beneficial for the reader, you've established rapport on a level comparable to opening #1 ('If you're like me'). In fact, the rapport could be stronger because the ploy isn't as transparent.
But if your reference is abstruse or inconsequential-not to you but to your reader-ugh. It's too late for the caution flag because you've already wrecked your vehicle.
As you read this example of opening #59, ask yourself: What might I have done to use this same device, with parallel wording, more effectively... and what's the tip-off that the writer is unsure of the device?
Dear Fellow Executive:
I used to think that less was more when it came to managing people.
I believed, in other words, that the less management interfered with the daily routine, the happier and more productive their people would be.
Perhaps you once felt the same way,
Perhaps, too...
OK, it's no barn-burner; but we aren't tampering with individual words, such as substituting 'maybe' for 'perhaps'; we're using the same basic words to drive closer to a point. And one of the Great Rules of force-communication, applicable more to letters than to any other component, is:
GET TO THE POINT.
If you can master this opening by being both relevant and pointed, you'll be well under way with a strong selling argument.
60. Does this sound (seem) familiar?
Properly used, this one can't miss.
What does 'properly used' mean? Simple: It means matching whatever sounds familiar to an individual to whom it should sound familiar. This opening should find increasing favor as databases refine themselves and enable communicators to achieve near-perfect pinpointing.
(I'm using 'sound familiar' instead of 'seem familiar,' because even though letters don't usually talk, 'sound' is closer to actual conversation than the dreamier 'seem.')
A highly targeted letter selling a newsletter subscription begins, after the usual display type at the top of the page:
Dear Network Administrator:
C-R-A-S-H
Panic rages. Confusion reigns. Voices scream: 'The network's down!'
Sound familiar?
Network Administrators like yourself face this nightmare every day. You're the one they turn to when...
Yeah, whoever sent this might have handwritten the 'C-R-A-S-H' and cleaned up that muddy 'they' reference; but what terrific guts this opening has.
Now, suppose I'm not a Network Administrator and I get this letter? Then the company should take issue with the list company or the database compiler, not the writer... who came up with a dynamic and readable opening.
Not only is there a seemingly endless number of letter openings to pick from, there are also other methods than the traditional 'Dear...' to consider. This month's tip from the author: Whatever you choose, stay in character.
This series of articles may be a misnomer. The title '100 of the Easiest Ways to Begin a Sales Letter' includes a word that isn't always valid. The troublesome word is 'begin.'
to Begin a Sales Letter' includes a word that isn't always valid. The troublesome word is 'begin.'
That's because the first words of about a third of today's sales letters aren't the traditional beginning-'Dear Friend"