Whether you are door dropping leaflets, sending direct mail packs or putting inserts into newspapers you have a limited amount of time to make your appeal to your prospect. Assuming that your envelope has been opened, or your leaflet has been destined for a glance at the least, you have a matter of seconds to make your case and convince your prospect to carry on reading.



Now, you can't outright make a call to action straight away, you need to convince first, so lets get started. Initially, you need to pique your prospect's interest. You can do this visually, with some eye catching design. You can do do it literally by making an appealing offer, or just by spelling out a benefit of your product. Better still, you could use both approaches.

Never forget though, that people buy benefits and not features. Your prospect isn't that concerned that the television on offer draws only 30 watts, but they may be interested to find out that it helps the environment and saves on the electricity bill.

The sole purpose of your "attention grabber" at this stage though is to get them reading. Now you have to keep them reading, and in the process sell.

Assuming that your product has a market, whether it's very specific or not, you need to address that market. It needn't be as specific as "as a teacher" which is more likely to apply for direct mail. It could be as simple as "loans for homeowners" if the item in question is a leaflet.

It needs to be clear to whom the information will be of interest to. It doesn't matter if you alienate 80% of the recipients at this stage, you aren't interested in them. You are only trying to convince a small percentage to avail themselves of your product or service.

Once you've addressed them as a group you've indicated to your prospect that the material may be relevant to them; at this stage you need to start explaining the proposal. "Our new widget will be useful to you because", or "try our new home service". Obviously this is going to change depending on the proposal, but a brief outline of the product or service is a good idea at this point. This should be done literally but of course it's even better if you can deomstrate it with a picture too.

Now you need to start spelling out benefits, and quickly too. (there are some benefit aren't there?). As many as you can, lay them on thick and fast, one after the other. Don't beat around the bush, you need to convince, and you need to do it quickly. Keep them engaged.

Once you've spelt out all the benefits, a very brief summary is your next step. There's no need to repeat what you already have said, but just reiterate as much as you can in short, sharp words. Then make your call to action,and make it clear how they should do it. It's really quite astounding how many marketers neglect this last stage, even after all the hard work they've put in to getting the prospect to this point.

Tell them exactly what you want them to do, "Call me on this number" or fax, or email, or whatever particular method of communication suits you best, but make it clear. Make it big and bold, provide alternative methods of communication if you feel that would suit better, but leave them in no doubt about what you want them to do and how you want them to go about it.

Never lose sight though of the fact, that each stage in the process is designed to lead on to the next stage. You can't convince someone straight away, you have to build up to it. If your prospect decides that they're convinced at an early stage, then great, but if you take it through these logical stages, then you'll increase your likelihood of getting the repsonse you want.