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Articles on Sales Matters:

Using Niche Markets to Write Successful Sales Letter

Maybe you've written dozens of sales letters for your business, or maybe you are just starting to work on your very first sales letter. Whatever the case, keeping abreast of the information needed to craft a successful sales letter is the key to creating letters that make sales. If you already know that you need to introduce your product or service, outline the features and benefits, compare your product or service to your competitor's, and convince customers to make a purchase, you're doing well. But there is another technique that can be used to develop more successful sales letters. It's called niche marketing.

Niche marketing is a more focused form of marketing that concentrates on one specific segment of a larger market. When you select a niche, you are essentially looking at the potential customers in your field and narrowing your marketing efforts to target only a segment of these potential customers. There are many niche markets in the world, and with a little imagination, you can develop your own niche. Consider the following true-life examples of niche markets:

A CPA chooses to work exclusively with non-profit organizations

A furniture dealer focuses only on selling bedroom furniture

A book dealer focuses on selling only second hand books

A real estate agent works only with renters as opposed to buyers

As you can see from the examples above, there are many ways to narrow your focus into one specific niche. Once you find your new niche, you can think about what will appeal to these potential customers. What might appeal to the market as a whole may not appeal to your smaller niche market. Let's look at the example of a CPA who works exclusively with non-profit organizations. Because non-profit organizations deal with charitable contributions, the government requires these organizations to complete paperwork each tax year. This CPA can offer to complete this tax paperwork for potential clients. If he was dealing with the larger, overall market, not as many potential clients would be interested in this type of service.

When you start to write your sales letter, try to find ways to narrow your focus and introduce a product or service that has specific benefits. Instead of focusing on offering clarinet lessons to everyone, offer clarinet lessons for pensioners and list the benefits pensioners will get from taking lessons from you, and also offer a small discount if they present their pension card. Rather than introducing software that has many benefits for many potential customers, focus your sales letter on how the software will benefit medical professionals and outline all of the benefits that can be derived by these individuals. Once you develop a narrow market focus, you can develop a niche market-specific listing of features and benefits.

You may not like the idea of narrowing your focus when you first start out writing sales letters, however once you see the response rate of each individual sales letter compared to the response rate of one market-wide letter, you will be a true believer in the power of niche marketing. Use this technique wisely and you'll continue to reap the benefits.

Gilbert Griffths
13 Dec 2006

Gilbert Griffiths helped thousands of people during a professional career that spanned more than 35 years. He recently came out of retirement with a passionate goal to help one million people improve their lives. Would you like to be one of those people? If you would, go to http://www.rockettosuccess.com

Qualify Your Prospects

The single biggest reason that salespeople fail is simply the unwillingness or the inability to qualify prospects, or should I say, qualify prospects out. Most salespeople will run out to anyone who will meet with them because they're so excited to have found a willing prospect.

Most sales managers today are failures because they value appointments over sales. I dealt with entirely too many managers in my career who only cared about setting two new appointments a day or whatever their magic number happened to be. It didn't matter whether or not any of these appointments were qualified - they merely wanted appointments ro - activities.

Unfortunately, most salespeople have this same problem. They're so excited to have set an appointment that they wouldn't even consider trying to disqualify the prospect. Heaven forbid losing an appointment! So they'll set appointments with anyone who is willing to meet with them, and spin their wheels and waste a lot of time on unqualified prospects who never had any real intention to buy.

One of the biggest problems I have with cold calling is that the leads and appointments that generally come from it tend to be of the highly unqualified variety. Time and time again I'd look at my sales at the end of every month and come to the realization that less than 5% of my sales always came from cold calling despite the fact that cold calling took up the majority of my selling time. Nearly all of my sales consistently came from the people who had responded to one of the elements of my "mini-marketing program" or who came to me by way of a referral.

The reality is that the good, qualified prospects who will buy without wasting your time and requiring 4 appointments and 6 months to make a decision typically don't accept cold calls or agree to meet with salespeople who cold call them. I don't. When I need something for my business, I go and find someone who can provide it to me, and I make my decision quickly without the need for a long sales process. (By the way, this completely shocks most salespeople who are used to the exact opposite.)

I'd say yes, it's a waste of time to chase prospects who came to you as the result of your "mini-marketing program." If they responded to you, they were probably more than qualified and not just agreeing to meet with a salesperson out of idle curiosity. If you haven't read "How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling" by Frank Bettger, go get it. It's one of the all-time classics and one thing in particular from that book stands out in my mind. The author kept detailed records of his activities for several months and those records revealed an astounding fact:

70% of his sales were made on the 1st appointment 23% were made on the 2nd appointment 7% were made on the third and after However, 50% of his time was spent chasing that 7% who bought the 3rd time or after! By only dealing with those customers who bought on the 1st and 2nd try and writing off those who did not, he immediately doubled his sales production.

In addition, the act of calling a prospect after quoting them to "find out if they've made a decision" is annoying and some take it as an insult to their intelligence simply because if they had made a decision to buy, they would have called you. And doing so makes you look needy and desperate for their business, something you definitely don't want to communicate. As a business owner who is friends with several business owners, I can tell you firsthand that it's extremely annoying to have salespeople do that to you.

Calvin Yeo
Serial Entrepreneur
Singapore
16 Dec 2006
www.fantabulousservice.com
www.servicedelights.com
www.thewheelofwealth.com

Calvin is an expert in the area of Customer Service and on how using customer service techniques to acquire fantabulous sales results without the obnoxiousity of a salesperson. Calvin is also a professional speaker in the areas of wealth management and motivation.