Book SummaryThe Ultimate Sales Letter, by Dan S. Kennedy

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Ultimate Sales Letter

In The Ultimate Sales Letter, multimillionaire entrepreneur and direct-response marketing consultant, Dan Kennedy, shares strategies for crafting powerful sales letters that capture customers’ attention and make them want to buy the products and services you’re selling.

Kennedy, who says he found success as a copywriter despite not having a college degree, argues that anyone can learn to write persuasive copy and turn it into profit—you just have to believe in yourself, trust your intuition, and know your product better than anyone else.

Kennedy is the author of 13 business books, including 10 in the No B.S. business book series. Originally published in 1990 and updated in 2011, The Ultimate Sales Letter provides time-tested foundational strategies in the art of persuasive writing that translate and remain relevant across media in the ever-evolving...

The Ultimate Sales Letter Summary Part 1: Gather Your Sales Letter Intel

In this section, we’ll discuss the background information Kennedy says you’ll need to write a powerful sales letter. First we’ll cover how to identify and understand your target customer, then we’ll talk about getting to know your product inside and out.

Step 1: Identify and Understand Your Target Customer

Kennedy says that before you write your sales letter, you have to first identify and understand your target customer so you can address their priorities and pitch your product in a way that resonates with them.

Kennedy recommends that you narrow your focus to people who would buy your product (as opposed to taking a mass marketing approach) and try to find out the following things about them:

• Their greatest worry, fears, frustrations, and dreams
• Their age, income, hobbies, political affiliations, and magazines they read
• Their biases and how they communicate
• Trends impacting their business and life
• Whether anyone else has tried and failed to sell them a product like yours

To home in on your target customer and gather this information, Kennedy suggests immersing yourself in the applicable industry by reading industry publications and websites,...

The Ultimate Sales Letter Summary Part 2: Craft Your Sales Letter

In the previous section, we covered the background information you need to write your sales letter. In this section, we’ll go over five steps for crafting a letter that captivates, engages, convinces, and compels customers to buy your product. We’ll then discuss how to get this well-crafted letter into your customers’ hands.

Step 1: Write Your First Draft

Now that you have all the information you need about your customer and product, Kennedy says the first step of crafting your sales letter is to simply sit down and start writing. He notes that this step is intentionally brief since your goal is only to get your ideas on the page, not to worry about editing or getting things perfect.

How to Draft a Sales Letter

Kennedy doesn’t provide additional or explicit steps on how to write your first draft, but here’s a step-by-step outline you can use to draft a sales letter:

• Write a catchy headline that grabs your customer's attention.

• Say why your product or service will benefit your customer.

• Provide key information about your product using bullet...

The Ultimate Sales Letter Summary Conclusion

Kennedy offers some final thoughts on how to strategically use your sales letter, and how to expand its purposes in the future.

Use Your Sales Letter Strategically

Kennedy says that you can improve your brand recognition and increase customers’ response rate to your first sales letter by sending a second (and possibly third) follow-up letter 45 to 60 days after your first.

(Shortform note: Kennedy doesn’t provide specific information on what content should go in your follow-up letter. To get ideas and learn how to boost response rates to email sales letters, consider these templates for a series of follow-up emails. While wording is important, the key is persistence—not quitting until you get a firm yes or no.)

Use Your Sales Letter and Its Fundamental Elements Elsewhere

Kennedy says that in addition to using your sales letter to sell products and services to new and...

Shortform Exercise: Plan a Sales Letter

Kennedy says that writing a powerful sales letter starts with identifying and understanding your target audience, then getting to know your product inside and out.

Think about the industry where a product that you want to sell is typically sold. Now think about where, in this industry, you could learn more about customers who might be interested in your product (this might be online resources, events you could attend, or people you could talk with).nnList three to five places where you could gather more information about prospective customers.