The Best Sales Letter Template Ever

Everything is easier with a formula, especially for a writer.

Crafting an effective sales letter requires a neat blend of art and science. With your research in place, it should be relatively easy to plug your ideas into the general template below.

Once all your ideas are set, get them down the first time with speed as your focus. You can continue to sand them down until your copy has a smooth, glossy finish later.

Follow the formula below. Write as fast as you can through each point to capture your most natural speaking voice.

1. Grab your reader’s attention with an engaging headline.

The opening headline is your first impression. If your promise isn’t compelling, you have zero chance of converting that reader into a buyer.

Make your headline impossible to ignore, and keep it congruent with the problem presented and solution offered, and the odds of pulling your reader into the first sentence, then leading them down the body of the copy, are greatly increased.

You can make your headline a question or a demanding statement that sets your reader’s eyes on the first sentence, but your initial “promise” must get your reader reading the body of your copy.

Here are three sample headlines that hint at a promise and would naturally compel your reader to keep reading. Keep in mind, these are generic and only meant to give you an idea. The meat and potatoes of your own headline must stem from the problems facing your market and the solution you have to offer:

1. Who Else Wants to End Their Suffering Once and For All?
2. Finally! An A-B-C Simple Way to ______.
3. Are You Sick and Tired of ______? So Was This _____!

2. Identify the precise problem your reader is facing by using the everyday vocabulary of your market.

If you can enter the conversation taking place in their mind, then you will gain instant credibility and the rest of your letter will have a more natural flow.

The more specific you are, the more effective your sales letter will be. You can cast a wide net, but you’ll catch more fish if you drop it where they’re swimming.

Keeping with our “Getting Your Children to Behave” example, you wouldn’t want to target “parents.” It would be best to aim for “parents of toddlers,” or even better, “parents with more than one child between the ages of three and 13.”

3. Provide a solution.

Like your target reader, and the problem presented, the more specific you can make your solution, the more compelling it will be to your potential buyer.

Cut the core from their problem by offering a tailored solution to a problem you clearly understand.

The best possible solution is the one that not only solves the problem, but makes it easy to resolve and allows the buyer to picture themselves waving the flag of victory.

4. Present your credentials.

There are countless people, both online and off, who would love to sell your reader on a solution to their problem. It’s your job to let your market know why YOUR empathy and experience make you the perfect person to help them.
All your brainstorming and research will pay off throughout the body copy of your sales letter by giving you effective language to use when speaking with your market. But your credentials must be honest.

If you don’t have years of experience dealing with the niche you’re writing in, then you must effectively highlight the experience you do have. If you have little or none, then you must borrow the experience of an expert by having them vouch for you.

If you have no experience and no one who can help you, chances are you shouldn’t be building a product for that particular market. In that case, you can become an affiliate by selling someone (someone who is an expert!) else’s product. You can then use the copy in this section to detail the credentials of the product’s creator.

5. Show the benefits.

Highlight the features of your product, but dig DEEP into the benefits to make it clear how your potential buyer’s life will be better after they use your product.

Make sure you are covering benefits rather than features. Go over your benefits at least a couple of times during your rough draft, then another couple of times during your revision. Because many writers and marketers confuse the two, this is an area of your sales letter that requires extra special attention. If there are two sales letters that are nearly identical except for the section on benefits, the letter that does the better job detailing the benefits will convert much better – every time.

Some questions to ask yourself:

• What does your product do for the buyer AFTER they use it?
• How are your benefits different from other products?
• Have you made a clear distinction between the features and the benefits?

6. Provide social proof.

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. If your readers see how your product or services have helped others like them, dealing with the same or similar issues, it will be easier to nudge them toward the buyer mindset.

Tweets, likes, comments, testimonials, and raw data all work. The more detailed your proof the better. Video testimonials work especially well, as do hard numbers. For example, don’t say “over half.” Say, “52.4%” instead. Vague or general numbers sound made up, even if they aren’t. Exact numbers serve as tangible proof.

The more proof you can give your potential buyer, the more you will be able to relax them. This helps with the initial purchase, but even better, it makes for a more confident buyer who will be more likely to love your solution.

• Have you mined all possible avenues for potential testimonials (forums, comment sections, social media streams, etc.)?
• Do your testimonies sound authentic?
• Are your testimonials displayed in the best possible medium? Text alone offers the weakest proof. Audio is better and video is best. And the more detail you can offer, the better off you will be. Last names are great, so are cities and states. Verbal testimonials given behind a smile are best of all.

7. Make your offer, and make it GREAT!

You’ve managed to lead your reader this far down the page, that’s fantastic – you’re now ahead of the pack. It’s time to give your reader an unbeatable offer that it’s difficult to click away from.

Your reader wants a solution, otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted their time reading this far. Yet, not just any solution will do. Phone it in, lose the sale. Create the right blend of price and product, with an appropriately compelling hook that makes your offer impossible to ignore, and your reader will stay on your page a bit longer.

• Have you researched the competition to see how your offer measure against other similar offers?
• Would you buy your product if you were in your target market’s position?
• Are there any small tweaks you could make that would take your offer from good to GREAT?

8. Inject scarcity.

You want to give your buyer a reason to buy immediately, but you never want to use false scarcity to trick your buyer into a purchase.

Supplies are NEVER limited when it comes to digital downloads. Be honest and use discounts, but never be insincere or say anything that will soil your hard won reputation.

• Bonuses limited to the first X number of sales.
• Additional coaching or access.
• An additional discount offered for buyers who act immediately.

9. Offer a guarantee.

Your buyer wants reassurance, so let them know they are 100% safe. Risk is one the biggest buyer objections, make sure it belongs only to you.

The guarantee is a great place to go over the top and really elevate the perceived value of your product. Create a guarantee that is as much in your buyers’s favor as possible (without it actually costing you money).

• Does your buyer still have any risk? If so, your guarantee isn’t good enough.
• Does your guarantee make your potential buyer feel safe?
• Is there any way you can make your guarantee so good, it almost becomes part of the offer?

10. Tell your potential buyer EXACTLY what you want them to do.

Again, be specific. If you want them to “click the button below,” you must say, “Click the button below!”

What may seem clear to you won’t necessarily seem as clear to your buyer. Leave no room for ambiguity. Spell everything out for your reader with step-by-step instructions and don’t worry that you might be oversimplifying.

A confused reader rarely clicks the buy button.

Things to consider:

• Does your button stand out? A pretty button that blends in with your website’s design isn’t nearly as effective as a big ugly button which draws attention!
• Are there too many choices or hoops to jump through to purchase your product? The simpler your offer and the easier it is to click the buy button, the more likely you are to make a sale.

11. Give your reader a warning.

Paint a vivid picture of what might happen to their life if they decide not to buy your product or service. Will their world be worse off than it was the day before? Will their problems escalate if they don’t take action immediately? Will your solution give them the happiness, relief, (or sanity!) they seek?

Restate the primary benefits of your solution, but do so in a way that your reader is left wondering what will happen if they leave the page.

• What will life be like if the solution is ignored?
• Can a comparable solution be found elsewhere, or is continued suffering inevitable?
• Is your warning strong enough? Have you pulled your potential buyer into the picture?

12. Close with a reminder.

Post scripts are perfect for this. Summarize your solution, along with all the potential benefits and overall offer. Give your potential another reason to click.

P.S.’s are often the first and final thing a reader sees.

Nearly a 1/3 of readers will scroll down to the post script, reading that first, before returning to the top of the page.

Make yours outstanding. This will help you increase conversions when readers reach the bottom of the page, but it will also multiply the number of readers you have in the first place.

If you follow the 12 step formula, outlining your sales letter should be fairly straightforward and fun. Even better, when you’re finished, you’ll have a high quality professional rough draft.

To get the FREE video training, Sales Letter Sellout, which walks you through the outlining, writing and revision of a professional sales letter, simply enter your email address into the box below.