Insurance Marketing Ideas – The Better Sales Letter Checklist
Have you heard of the Selling Power Analysis? It’s an offer on my Web site that allows prospective clients to test drive my services. I conduct a few Selling Power Analyses every month, and without fail, I make a lot of recommendations. Usually I can identify at least 10 ways to improve a letter. That is, until last week. Last week, I received a letter with which I could find no fault. I had to really, really think to identify just a couple of ways to improve it. The amazing part was that this letter was a short one-pager. Usually, the best letters are multi-pagers, but this one got the job done well with one sheet.
Would you like to know the secret to writing better letters? The checklist below will help you recreate some of this letter’s notable qualities.
The Better Letter Checklist:
- Is the audience clearly identified in the first few lines of the letter? Does the reader immediately know that this communication is written just for her?
- Is a strong emotional hook used to grab attention?
- Does the letter begin strong – with a crescendo – and then maintain urgency and interest like a great novel?
- Is urgency established? Does the reader feel he should take action right away… or else?
- Does the letter give more than one reason to take action? Does it appeal to a variety of motivations by presenting multiple arguments?
- Is authority established? Does the reader think the writer is an expert?
- Does the letter include testimonials, statistics or third-party endorsements to boost credibility?
- Is it packed with action words – e.g. disappear, devastate, ruin….?
- Is the letter about the reader? Does the reader know for sure what’s in it for him?
- Have the features been transformed into meaningful benefits? Is the emotional hook woven into the benefits presentation?
- Are the words “You” and “Your” used more frequently than the words “We” and “Our?”
- Have you eliminated insurance jargon, catchphrases and big, hard-to-understand words? Is the letter easy to read?
- Is the letter personalized with the recipient’s name?
- Did you address and overcome all potential objections?
- Is there a strong call to action and an offer that’s different from the standard free quote?
- Have you made it as easy as possible for the reader to respond?
- Does the P.S. stand alone? Will the reader get the point from the P.S. even if she never reads the letter?
Author: Heather Sloan is the President of InsuranceCopywriting.com. Heather has been helping insurance professionals grow their businesses for more than 15 years.
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