For most business owners, writing sales letters is perhaps one of the hardest things to do. But for those who have basic knowledge in copywriting, writing sales letters may not be as difficult as most people think it is. This is because there are proven formulas that work for almost all types of business letters. One of these formulas is the AIDA principle. The AIDA Principle is an acronym for Basic Guidelines in Copywriting. AIDA stands for (A) attention, (I) interest, (D) desire, and (A) action.

Attention

The first thing the reader would do upon receiving your sales letter is to scan the entire content. Most sales letters are quite long, and customers really wouldn’t take that long to read the entire content of your letter unless it catches their eye when scanning it. That said, the letters should be eye-catching enough to draw the reader’s attention to the letter.

This can be done by using an eye-catching and colorful title. The title should also have a different font size than the body of the letter. Using bullets and subheadings would also help grab your reader’s attention. Interest When capturing your customer’s attention, it is important to keep the customer interested in the following lines of the sales letter. The first paragraph is basically as important as the heading and therefore the second and the last paragraph. Each paragraph should achieve the purpose of keeping the reader interested in reading the next paragraph.

One way to keep your reader’s interest is by asking questions. Questions have been shown to spark interest, as the reader will be forced to think while reading the question. However, it is important that the question is relevant to the product you are selling.

Yearned for

In a certain part of the body of the letter, perhaps the second and third paragraphs, you need to stimulate the client’s desire to invest in the product. This part is crucial as it would provide the point of sale for the product. This could be done by citing the benefits and advantages of owning the product.

If you are promoting a laundromat, for example, you can mention that the laundromat is conveniently located across from a cafeteria where customers can have a coffee while they wait, or that the laundromat has its own Wi-Fi network which allows internet access in the inside.

Action

Finally, the last paragraph should encourage the customer to take immediate action to own the product. At this point, it is vital that you convince him to do whatever he asks of you. This can be done by mentioning the benefits that you could get if you had a product now. In the case of the laundry example, you can say that there is a discount for the first 100 customers.

Applying the AIDA principle not only makes your sales letter writing tasks easier, it also helps increase the number of customer responses to your sales promotion letter. Get more tips on writing sales letters.