Headline

Body Copy

There is a very useful structure for organising any direct mail letter. It has worked forever so there is no reason why it can’t work for you. Just remember AIDA (some people use AIDCA, which splits the procedure differently, but the effect is the same):

Attention – through the first line in the body copy (makes me want to read further).

Interest – by setting out the benefits (this seems relevant to me or my company).

Desire – by overcoming their scepticism (this could be of real benefit to me).

Action – what do you want the reader to do next? (I’ll take the follow-up call or send off the reply, whatever).

Attention: The first thing you need to do to get anyone to read your letter is grab people’s attention. You do this with a compelling first sentence. If this doesn’t grab attention the rest of the letter will never be read at all. Spend most of your time on the sentence and make it one of the following:

• Benefit-driven: ‘You can …’
• News-orientated: ‘Great new …’
• Curiosity-driven: ‘Are you …?’
• How-to orientated: ‘How to …’

Don’t make them too long (about ten short words work best). Think of at least 20 options and test them on your staff and maybe some customers.

Interest: After you have the reader’s attention you need to stimulate their interest in your service by explaining the benefits. Address yourself to an individual and their wants and don’t talk about your hotel and how good you think you are. Prospects only want to know how your offer can benefit them. And don’t confuse them by trying to sell more than one service.

To write really powerful copy you need to understand exactly what it is that motivates your target market. You need to reach them on an emotional, an intellectual and a personal level. Before you can do this you need to find out the emotions, attitudes and aspirations that drive them:

• Beliefs. What does your audience believe? What is their attitude towards your hotel or restaurant and the problems it solves?
• Feelings. How do they feel? If you are addressing meeting planners, what do they feel about their role in the process. How does their company treat them?
• Desires. What do they want from life? What are their goals and what do they want from their leisure time?

Generally people only want one of two things - either to gain pleasure or avoid pain. There can be a lot of pain for meeting planners so explore this before offering your own solutions, using strong and relevant benefits. For weekend guests your copy should be more about pleasure, again using relevant and appropriate benefits (see section on features and benefits in Chapter 2).

Desire: This is where you need to convert the prospect’s interest into a specific desire for your offer. The best way to do this is to overcome the consumer’s natural scepticism about claims or offers. Use a selection of these tactics and you will reduce the risk to the consumer:

• TestimonialsConsumers like to know that other people have been there before and were happy. For a local market it can be really effective to include a testimonial from someone well known, particularly if you can use their picture.
• GuaranteeIf your prospect likes your offer and there is no risk because you are guaranteeing satisfaction, what has he got to lose? Why would you not be prepared to stand behind your service? If you aren’t prepared to, then maybe you should think about improving the offer.Guarantees work really well when you are trying to get corporate or conference buyers to use you for the first time. Time guarantees for lunch are also popular and can help to keep your chefs on their toes.

• AwardsAlthough this is very much talking about yourself, it can give consumers confidence if they know that you have an award or have been inspected by a well-known organisation and achieved a high quality score. This is why Michelin Stars are so coveted.

Action: This is one of the most crucial aspects of your letter. If all the other phases go well and there is no action, then you have failed. You must say exactly what you want readers to do. ‘Call now,’ or ‘Visit our website now’ are the final triggers that enable prospects to take action on an offer that they have been stimulated by.

If you are including an order form then make it easy to send back. Have the name and address of the customer already completed and include on the form most of the salient points, just in case the form becomes separated from the mailing.

It can sometimes help to introduce an element of scarcity. ‘First come, first served’ or ‘Free to the first 50 callers’ can be very powerful incentives. It is particularly useful in special offers that are available for a limited period: ‘Special lunch price only available until 30 April.’