The Structure of AIDAS... For Successful Sales Letters

Staying on the topic of sales letters, there’s a well-known structure in successful sales letters described by the acronym AIDA.

AIDA stands for:
• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

First, you capture your prospect’s attention. This is done with your headline and lead. If your ad fails to capture your prospect’s attention, it fails completely. Your prospect doesn’t read your stellar copy, and doesn’t order your product or service.

Then you want to build a strong interest in your prospect. You want him to keep reading, because if he reads, he just might buy.

Next, you channel a desire. Having a targeted market for this is key, because you’re not trying to create a desire where one did not already exist. You want to capitalize on an existing desire, which your prospect may or may not know he already has. And you want your prospect to experience that desire for your product or service.

Finally, you present a call to action. You want him to pick up the telephone, return the reply card, attend the sales presentation, order your product, whatever. You need to ask for the sale (or response, if that’s the goal). You don’t want to beat around the bush at this point. If your letter and AIDA structure is sound and persuasive, here’s where you present the terms of your offer and urge the prospect to act now.

A lot has been written about the AIDA copywriting formula. I’d like to add one more letter to the acronym: S for Satisfy.

In the end, after the sale is made, you want to satisfy your prospect, who is now a customer. You want to deliver exactly what you promised (or even more), by the date you promised, in the manner you promised. In short, you want to give him every reason in the world to trust you the next time you sell him a back-end offer. And of course you’d rather he doesn’t return the product (although if he does, you also execute your return policy as promised).

Either way, you want your customers to be satisfied. It will make you a lot more money in the long run.

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Long Sales Copy vs Short Copy... The Debate Continues...

In the last couple of days, I've been involved in a discussion on a popular forum about Long Sales Copy vs Short Copy... and it inspired this post...

The More You Tell, The More You Sell. Period.

The debate on using long copy versus short copy never seems to end. Usually it is a newcomer to copywriting who seems to think that long copy is boring and, well…long. “I would never read that much copy,” they say.

The fact of the matter is that all things being equal, long copy will outperform short copy every time. And when I say long copy, I don’t mean long and boring, or long and untargeted.

The person who says he would never read all that copy is making a big mistake in copywriting: he is going with his gut reaction instead of relying on test results. He is thinking that he himself is the prospect. He’s not. We’re never our own prospects.

There have been many studies and split tests conducted on the long copy versus short copy debate. And the clear winner is always long copy. But that’s targeted relevant long copy as opposed to untargeted boring long copy.

Some significant research has found that readership tends to fall off dramatically at around 300 words, but does not drop off again until around 3,000 words.

If I’m selling an expensive set of golf clubs and send my long copy to a person who plays golf occasionally, or always wanted to try golf, I am sending my sales pitch to the wrong prospect. It is not targeted effectively. And so if a person who receives my long copy doesn’t read past the 300th word, they weren’t qualified for my offer in the first place.

It wouldn’t have mattered whether they read up to the 100th word or 10,000th word. They still wouldn’t have made a purchase.

However, if I send my long copy to an avid die-hard golfer, who just recently purchased other expensive golf products through the mail, painting an irresistible offer, telling him how my clubs will knock 10 strokes off his game, he’ll likely read every word. And if I’ve targeted my message correctly, he will buy.

Remember, if your prospect is 3000 miles away, it’s not easy for him to ask you a question. You must anticipate and answer all of his questions and overcome all objections in your copy if you are to be successful.

And make sure you don’t throw everything you can think of under the sun in there. You only need to include as much information as you need to make the sale…and not one word more.

If it takes a 10-page sales letter, so be it. If it takes a 16-page magalog, fine. But if the 10-page sales letter tests better than the 16-page magalog, then by all means go with the winner.

Does that mean every prospect must read every word of your copy before he will order your product? Of course not. Some will read every word and then go back and reread it again. Some will read the headline and lead, then skim much of the body and land on the close. Some will scan the entire body, then go back and read it. All of those prospects may end up purchasing the offer, but they also all may have different styles of reading and skimming.

Let the debate continue...

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Article Writing Tips - 3 Simple Tips to Improve Your Articles

By Steven Wagenheim

Not everything has to be complicated. Lots of folks who I speak to, when looking for article writing tips, expect to discover some complex formula for churning out killer articles. Well, as much as I hate to have to disappoint you, there is nothing complex about writing a good article. Writing is as old as mankind itself. There is no mystery to it. Yet, it seems that many beginning article writers don't have clue one where to begin. Well, this article is going to provide you with three simple tips to improve your articles...dramatically.

The first tip actually starts before you even write one word of the article itself. I'm talking about the title of your article. Just like the headline of your sales letter, your article title is critical to getting people to actually read your article. It's very simple to write a good title. Just tell the person what they're going to learn from reading the article. It doesn't have to be fancy. For example, the title of this article makes it perfectly clear what you're going to find out from reading the article...3 simple tips to improve your articles. No mystery there.

The next tip is to keep the article structure simple and well broken up. By simple I mean, provide the reader with a brief introduction telling them what they're going to get out of the article and then, taking a paragraph for each point, give them what you told them you're going to give them. So if you write an article, "3 Ways To Wash A Cat" make sure you have one paragraph for each way. Yeah, I know it sounds simple, but you'd be surprised how many people don't do this one simple thing.

The final tip has to do with your summary. Yes, you want to summarize your article. Why? Because people have short memories. So you want to reinforce, briefly, what you told these people in the body of your article, in the summary. The summary should be very short. Remember, you've already given them the meat of the information so there is no need for a long dissertation.

I told you it was simple. By providing a good title that tells the reader what he's going to read, a simple structure that's easy to follow and a summary that goes over the main points of the article, you'll write articles that people will enjoy reading and actually get something out of.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people's attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find Right Here - This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Wagenheim

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