Example Sales Letter – Five Examples Of Persuasive Sales Letter Elements

I’m about to share with you an example sales letter I wrote for a real product, and I’ll show you some of the elements I used to “hook” people in to keep reading, and to compel them to buy – which is the ultimate purpose of a sales letter.
Examples you see will help you to write your own sales letters, and it always helps to have a copywriter like myself explain what we’re doing so you get a “behind the scenes” look, as it were.
As you read, you might want to follow along with the actual sales letter by clicking the link at the bottom of this article, either now or later, so you can see how these examples all fit together.
Pre-Headline To Reassure
I often use a pre-headline before the main headline, which reassures the visitor that the material to follow is going to be relevant to them, assuming they’re my target audience. So the pre-headline in this example sales letter reads, “If you’re a writer, ghostwriter, copywriter or article writer…”
The Headline Hook
The purpose of a headline in a sales letter is to grab their attention, and to get them to read the next paragraph. For example: “Here’s how to ask for, and get, more money for your writing service right now…”
In this headline, I focused on the biggest benefit of the product, which is to get more money from your writing service. However, it doesn’t have to be the biggest benefit, as long as it grabs their attention and compels them to read on. Notice how I also phrased the headline: “Here’s how to…” You only get the solution IF you read on!
Paragraphs Of Power
The first two or three paragraphs are critically important, because it’s where the visitor will decide whether or not to give you their full attention. So in this example sales letter, I DON’T first talk about myself – instead, I ask the reader three “Have you ever…” questions, examples of which are:
“As a writer, have you ever found yourself frustrated…”
“Have you ever felt you wanted to charge more…”
This gets them involved, and if they answer “Yes!” in their minds to any of these, then I’ve got them thinking they want to find out more. Then I say, “If you’ve ever felt or experienced ANY of these things, then pay careful attention to what I’m about to tell you in the next 5 minutes.” This gives them a reason to keep reading. Remember, your visitors will read only so long as it’s INTERESTING and RELEVANT to them.
The Subheadline Story
My next section immediately starts with a subheadline: “I promise this will help.” In fact, I use subheadlines throughout my sales letters, and you’ll want to tell the story in your subheadlines too, because many readers will first SKIM THE SALES LETTER to determine whether they want to even bother reading it.
So I always make the subheadlines tell their own story. For example, these are the first four subheadlines in the example sales letter, and notice how they tell a story for the skimmer:
“I promise this will help.”
“It’s time we did something about it…”
“We face two big problems.”
“How to tackle them both, and make more money…”
Each one is also designed to “hook” the reader into wanting to read that section. For example, if you’re a sales letter skimmer and you saw, “We face two big problems”, you might want to know what those problems are! If so, you’ll read the sales letter more carefully.
Bullet Points Build Desire
I consider bullet points to be one of most important aspects of a sales letter, because they are easy to read, and they can “sum up” the benefits and reasons to buy, in an easy to view format.
Each bullet point should highlight a particular feature of your product or service, and the ultimate benefits of having that feature, or the consequences of not having it. For example, here’s a bullet point from the example sales letter:
* How Would You Like No Competition? How to COMPLETELY distinguish your writing service from everybody else, so clients want to use YOU, and ONLY YOU! (p44-54)
I have 19 bullet points in that sales letter. Personally, I recommend you have a bullet point for each feature of your product, convert them into benefits, and be sure to make them compelling!
These are some of the critical elements of a good sales letter. It’s great to able to see more examples, and to see what goes on “behind the scenes” of writing a persuasive sales letter.