Autoresponders Are The New Sales Letters

Sales letters are OUT… autoresponders are IN.

The traditional sales letter is over 100 years old. It was created by business people who needed to move large amounts of product. Robert Collier was one of the pioneers (his book tells the story).

In the typical scenario, a manufacturer was overstocked. He had too many yellow raincoats, or too many leather shoes, or too many makeup sets.

In many cases, the products were sold via a fire-sale, at a loss to the manufacturer (or simply thrown out).

So when a dude like Robert Collier walks in and tells business owners he can make money – a LOT of money – with their overstocked products, they listened.

Thus Began The Days Of Direct Mail
And Direct Response Advertising

To cut a long story short, the new industry made Robert Collier rich.

Filthy rich.

And it made many others rich. With more money than they knew what to do with, these forward-thinking entrepreneurs fell in love with direct response advertising and the sales letter.

Fast forward to 2013 and sales letters are everywhere.

Only, they’re not working like they used to…

There’s A New Virus That’s Making The Rounds…
It’s Called Information Overload

Did you know that the typical 14-year-old girl in America has access to more information at the click of a button, than the president of the U.S. did just 25 years ago?

Information overload makes people do funny things.

You see, with torrents of information that overwhelms their senses, they pull back and put up their guard.

Especially when it comes to buying stuff.

Hell, I’m one of ’em.

I’m a copywriter and even I rarely read sales letters for products anymore.

But if I don’t read sales letters, how do I know what to buy?

Trust.

I’m gonna be the first (not quite) tell you something revolutionary…

In 2013 And Onwards, It’s About Relationships

Whew!

Revolutionary, huh?

A quick Google search will show you that I’m far from the first to think of this “revolutionary” concept (and I certainly won’t be the last). So if you’ll forgive my “stealing” the concept from my fellow marketers, let’s continue.

It’s about relationships.

It’s about trust.

I buy stuff because I either trust the product creator or because I trust someone who told me the product is good. Conversely, if someone I trust says not to buy something, the best copy in the world won’t change my mind.

Does This Mean You Should NEVER Use Sales Letters?

NO!

Not. At. All.

I write sales letters. Even now. You can hire me to write yours if you’re game.

To understand when to use a sales letter, it will help to understand what a sales letter does.

Sales letters are relationship builders. When you send someone a sales letter, you take someone who has never heard of you and give them the full rundown of you, your company and your product. Since it’s a cold lead, the sales letter does the job of a salesman. It sells a cold prospect on your product.

But once someone knows you, likes you and trusts you, a sales letter becomes redundant.

Once they trust you, many of their objections go out the door.

Because when they trust you, they’ll take your word for it that your product is good. They will buy on faith.

Now – there is still a HUGE need for good targeting, a killer offer and compelling copy (headlines, bullets, calls-to-action, etc), but the sales letter is no longer a big deal.

That’s where email autoresponders come in.

Autoresponders Are The New Sales Letters

If trust is the “linchpin”, the key element that makes a sales letter redundant, that begs the question – how do we build trust?

First, you do it by having a BOMB product. (Note: a BOMB product is a KILLER product – I thought “BOMB” sounded cooler).

Your “product” is everything related to your product – from the product itself, to the quality of your support team.

Second, you do it by building a relationship with your marketplace (prospects and customers).

You treat them like real people (instead of “pageviews” in Google Analytics).

You check in with them on a regular basis. You help them solve their problems without asking for anything. You go out of your way to make them feel comfortable and understood.

Remember what Steven Covey said?

“Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival – to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”

To borrow from Steven Covey, you want to understand, affirm, validate and appreciate your prospects and customers.

THAT is why they will buy from you instead of your competitor, NOT because you have a shit-hot sales letter.

Autoresponders are perfect for this.

Understand, Affirm, Validate And Appreciate
With An Email Autoresponder Sequence

With an autoresponder, your first priority is to build a relationship with your subscriber. I go into full detail about this in my autoresponder crash course. Let me give the basics here.

An autoresponders allows you to build a relationship with your prospect. In each email, you demonstrate empathy (the key to marketing). You understand them and their problems. You not only understand them, you actively go out of your way to help them with their problems. You take the time to find out what frustrates them in the context of your industry and you help them relieve that frustration.

With an autoresponder, you do it regularly. You check in with them, daily, weekly or monthly, just like any good friend would.

And instead of pitching them like a salesman after too much coffee (ie. most email marketers), you take your time with them. You NEVER straight-out pitch. You softly suggest your product but ONLY if it will actually help them.

You use what Jay Abraham calls The Strategy Of Preeminence, by actually caring about what happens to them, regardless of whether or not they buy your product.

As for writing the actual autoresponder, here’s a video about how I write autoresponders:

What’s the lesson here?

Think Relationships (Not “One Hit Wonder”)

And hey – if you’re worried about money, just know that this strategy will lead to generating more money than you know what to do with.

Often people take the easy path… they look for magic bullet solutions to weight loss, making money online or selling products to consumers. But while the magic bullets create short-term results, in the long-term they fail miserably.

So if you want to be wealthy in the long term, use an autoresponder.

Autoresponders are the new sales letters.

Cheers,

The Autoresponder Guy

P.S. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a believer in the long-form sales letter, but only in the right context. In almost every case, long copy beats short, but that doesn’t mean that times haven’t changed. It’s time to evolve baby!