A sales letter is one of your most powerful marketing tools. It is your personal salesman for your product that never tires, never sleeps, and never asks for payment. The effective sales letter will bring you great rewards with traffic and sales. On the other hand, the ineffective sales letter will not only cause you to lose potential sales, but it will cause you to lose money as well. These seven tips will help you develop a sales letter that will sparkle and draw customers and make sales.

1. Keep a Swipe File.

Take a look at sales letters that have been written by other people. If you see a sales letter online or receive on in the mail and it tempts you to purchase the product or service, make a file and keep it there. This is called a swipe file. When you have to write a sales letter, use your swipe file of accumulated sales letters and use them for inspiration. Analyze the wording, layout, presentation, and offer. Also, pay attention to the things that dissuade you from buying. Think of possible improvements.

2. Use Testimonials in Your Letter.

When you include comments from satisfied customers and official sources that exist outside of your company, you will add credibility to your company and to your product or service. It can also work to generate interest from your prospects regarding your product or service.

3. Give the Order or Request Form Special Attention.

The order or request form that is located at the end of the letter is one of the most often neglected parts of the sales letter. Try to restate the actual offer on the form so that the customer knows exactly what he or she is ordering.

4. Place Your Contact Information in Plain View.

You want your prospects to easily find your contact information. Include your contact address, email, phone number, fax number, and fax number in plain view. You may also want to refer your prospects to a web site.

5. Use Three P.S.'s.

Good marketers know that when someone first views a sales page that they scan the headline first then go down to the bottom of the page and read the P.S. They do this because the P.S. usually offers a summary or a synopsis of the offer. You want to make sure that your P.S. does this. If you think that one P.S. does not adequately cover all of the benefits that you offer, use three as opposed to two. Marketing research shows that three P.S.'s are more effective than just two are.

6. Test Everything in Your Sales Letter When Possible.

Sometimes a simple change such as modifying the offer, price, typeface or how the customer is persuaded to respond can make such a huge difference to your response rates. If you are short on time and can not test every part of your sales letter, at least test a few headlines. Just altering the headline can cause your response to double or even more.

7. Always, Always Analyze Your Results.

After your sales page has been in front of your prospects for a while, do an analysis of your results. Review how many sales you actually made. When you first began writing the sales letter, you should have had a goal in mind as to what you wanted to accomplish with the letter. If you did not reach that goal, try to pinpoint the reasons why. If you realize that your sales letter cannot sell your product or service it may be too complex for your customers to understand, too busy without adequate organization or you may not have adequately expressed the benefits well enough. You may need to tweak it a little.