Present Your Sales letter in Comic Strip Form!

To return to the TV analogy: when many of us think of infomercials, we think of the same basic structure: a desk, a host, a product demonstration, a few arguments in favor of the product, and then ordering information. We tend to think along these lines because most of the infomercials we see never reach beyond this basic, safe format. and when we think of typical sales letters, we tend to think of basic, safe letters: letters that get the job done without necessarily entertaining the reader.

But there have been other infomercials on the airwaves. For example, a popular "adult" infomercial in the 1990s tried to sell a male enhancement cream to customers not by offering a product demonstration--a dicey proposition on any channel or network, considering the product--but by making their infomercial into something entertaining in its own right. The infomercial producers hired adult film stars, built sets, and turned what could have been a boring (yet salacious) infomercial into a quiz show, complete with innuendo, double entendres, and genuinely engaging content. The result was a memorable infomercial--which meant a memorable product and increased sales.

Your sales letter can aspire to the same level. As long as you keep to the three basic parts of any good sales letter--inform, persuade, convert readers into customers--you have infinite freedom in terms of content. You might present your sales letter in comic strip form, for example, or you might write your sales letter in engaging verse. you might write your sales letter in dialogue form, or your might write about a new piece of software as if it had come through a time portal from a technologically advanced future.

Don't bore the reader, of course, by getting too cute with your sales letter--but don't bore them by keeping your sales letter bland, either. What your readers think of your sales letter will be, if you do your job right, what they think of your product. So if you can pull off a unique, entertaining sales letter--or if you're willing to pay for the services of someone who can--do it. A simple sales letter will get the job done, yes--but an entertaining sales letter will get the same job done better.

Once you have your sales letter, your website, and of course your product, your work is almost done. It's time to take a look at the last (and from the point of view of selling products, the most important) component of your successful direct response website: your commerce system, and managing the overall revenue and costs of your site both online and offline.