The Highest Valued Writing Project for Freelance Writers (Direct-Response Sales Letters)
Believe it or not, even BIG Tech is using it.
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Facts: We all live in a digital age. And digital marketing is becoming more powerful and useful than it has ever been.
With that said, it’s easy to forget about traditional marketing channels, such as direct response, particularly direct-mail… and more specifically physical sales letters.
What few people realize is that printed sales letters have been used by direct marketers for hundreds of years.
In fact, you can trace their use as far back as the early 1800s, when merchants sent out printed circulars in the mail to their customers. Often those circulars served as their primary advertising medium.
The only other mediums available were newspaper and magazine ad space. But circulars were less expensive and did what was expected … driving consumers to take immediate action.
The Purpose of a Direct-Response Sales Letters
The main purpose of direct-response marketing is to get people to take action, whether it’s signing up for more information, calling a company’s sales or customer service team, or making a purchase.
But when the internet came along, marketers slowly began to switch their focus to online activities, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and paid ads through search engines, such as Google and Bing.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Those activities are important elements to your overall marketing mix in order to not only help you to survive, but also to thrive. However, just because something is old, doesn’t mean that it no longer works or is effective.
You see, what is happening is more and more companies are beginning to realize that direct-response sales letters are just as important as online marketing activities — as they have always been.
Often, the “collateral” content messages you see online — social media ads, emails, squeeze pages, e-newsletters— are used to support and drive traffic to a long-form sales letter.
