Dan Kennedy - The Ultimate Sales Letter

Since i t s first publication in 1991, this book has inspired and guided tens of thousands of people in diverse businesses and sales activities in creating and using "the ultimate sales letter." Here are a few of their remarkable stories:

"I first read The Ultimate Sales Letter in July1991-and have reviewed my highlighted, underlined, and dog-eared sections dozens of times. Ishamelessly and repeatedly use Sec- tion #6,and it has added buckets of money to my political fundraising letter. I bought an extra copy for the National Director of the Libertarian Party-he also swears by it!"

-Michael Cloud, Nevada

"This afternoon my wife and I were being poled down a jungle waterway so we could see 20 different kinds of monkeys and 100 different kinds of parrots . . . the alligators are slithering into the water, and I'mreading your book, The Ultimate Sales Letter-quite a scene! So you can quote me: The Ultimate Sales Letter is more interesting than a jungle full of monkeys and a river full of alligators!"

-Don Berliner, California

"I have followed your examples, used your three-step letter campaign, and had tremendous results-l spent $1500 and created $20,200 in income! Thanks!"

-Randy Thomas, Real Estate Quest, Illinois

"Carefully following the instructions in The Ultimate Sales Letter, I put together a long sales letter, for the purpose of securing appointments with top decision-makers in my industry. In over 20 years in this business, I'venever sent anything longer than a one-page letter, and frankly, I doubted your approach. But this time, instead of fighting through secretaries, and making follow-up call after follow-up call, these prospects were calling me. I had an outstanding response. So far, I'vewritten over $50,000 in new businessfrom mailing only 2500 letters."

-John Cummings, Michigan

"Could direct-mail work for a little store like ours? Following The Ultimate Sales Letter, we sent out a four-page letter to all the people in our area, followed by three postcards, and we brought in over 100 new customers, and immediately got back our little investmentten times over."

-Mary and Walter Bruchan, Washington

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

TO THE FIRST EDITION

One of the most challenging things to me about a sales letter (as opposed to direct interaction with a customer) is that it requires you to think about the customer's needs and desires well in advance. As Dan Kennedy makes clear in this excellent book, when you master the skill of moving a potential customer to action through a finished sales letter, you take that preparatory work and put it into action-and truly understand salesmanship as both an art and a practice. I first learned about Dan's remarkable skills when we began working with him on "infomercial" scripts for our company. (An infomercial is essentially a 30- minute sales letter brought to life on television.) We have used many of the techniques outlined in this book to reach hundreds of thousands of customers-and the result has been over $20 million in sales in our first year of business!

Once you learn the fundamentals Dan sets out in this book, you'll find yourself recognizing good sales copy wherever you