The New Sideways Sales Letter

One of the first things I learned when I started getting serious about marketing was how to write a sales letter.

It's pretty much a rite of passage for copywriters new and old. You'll spend weeks learning how to write a sales letter, months copying old sales letters by hand, and years forgetting they exist.

Because it's not that often you'll see an actual sales letter in the wild, especially if you aren't in an industry that caters to direct response. They're excessively expensive, and time-consuming to make. Plus, there's no guarantee that if you make one, it'll even be a success.

That's probably why Jeff Walker created "The Sideways Sales Letter." So you could reap the rewards of having a sales letter, without all the headache that goes into creating one.

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With a sideways sales letter, you include all the information you would include in a regular sales letter. But you space it out over several pieces of content, usually in the form of emails, that you would have sent to your list anyway.

Jeff's version of a sideways sales letter includes 4 emails, each with their own mental trigger.

They are...

The Authority Email - Talk about their pain points.
The Opportunity Email - Share your solution.
The Anticipation Email - Make them even more excited about the solution.
The Scarcity Email - Talk about your offer, and give a reason for urgency.

And according to Jeff Walker, if you write these emails, all you have to do is sit back and wait for the cash to roll in.

But I don't really like the way he does this, or at least I think there's a better way.

Because if a person is on your list, they already see you as the authority. Or they should, if you've been nurturing your list during the pre-launch.

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The pre-launch includes all the emails and content you share with your prospects before you tell them about your offer. It depends on your business model, but usually the pre-launch will last anywhere from 4-8 weeks.

I also don't like the scarcity email, because most buyers are very sophisticated. Digital marketing has been around for a while now, and people are starting to get a sense for fake scarcity.

If it's real scarcity (like there's really a limited amount of what you're selling), that's cool.

But if you're creating scarcity, just so you can have a scarcity email... That's basically a recipe for creating distrust among your potential buyers.

So here's my version of a Sideways Sales Letter.

First off, I wouldn't launch an offer with just 4 emails. Sales letters are huge. A traditional sales letter could be 5,000-10,000 words. You're not going to be able to cover all of that with just 4 emails. I wouldn't even try.

Here's a list of the emails I would send, and what I would put in each one.

Emails #1 and #2 - Make your prospect feel seen.

Everyone on your list has problems that they probably don't like to talk about. You've got to make them feel seen.

Create a safe space for them. They need to feel like their problems are normal.

You also need to emphasize that their problems stem from external factors. Their problems are not their fault. Something happened to them, and that's why they're in pain right now.

Email #3 - Tell your story.

Here you have two choices. If you're selling a product that you personally have created; then you need to talk about why you made it, and who you made it for.

If you're selling someone else's product; you need to talk about how you found out about that product, why you love it, and why you're promoting it to your list.

Emails #4 - #8 - Anticipate objections and knock them down.

People are going to have reasons for why they don't want to buy whatever it is that you're selling. You've got to either anticipate those objections, or just ask for them if you're tight with your list.

Then once you have a list of objections, just knock them down one by one.

You should probably only include one objection per email. Don't overload people with information. They won't like it.

Emails #9 and #10 - Will it be the carrot or the stick?

While I think it's dumb to create fake scarcity, there's nothing wrong with giving people an incentive to buy.

Or at least give them an incentive to get off the fence. What's going to happen to them if they don't buy your offer? You don't have to be mean about it, but sometime people need a good reminder of what their life could be if they actually took action.

There you have it... My very own version of a sideways sales letter.

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Talk soon,

Diana