Sales Letter Creation Software

[jas511]

[JosephRatliff]

[jas511]

Hi Joseph,

I appreciate the response on this. I haven't actually created this software - this is actually a business venture I am considering but wanted to survey the field before I started on this.

I think step one of this project will be to ask current sales letter writers what THEY want in a software - what is their ideal software package that does not exist. More specifically, what functionality do they like in current software, dislike, and would like to see. It gives specific sales letters writers and opportunity to build a piece of software "from the ground up."

If you are interested in providing any input as to current tools you may already use or what you would like to see or not see in new software, that would be great -but I also certainly understand if you are not interested - I won't take it personally at all .

Thanks again for your post.

Sincerely,
Jeff

[JosephRatliff]

[Alan Petersen]

Nice idea. Not sure if I would use it but it could a good niche.

Some ideas...

- Not only format the letter but provide choices (i.e. long copy, short copy, squeeze page style, etc).

-Somehow for it to check keyword relevancy and density. Sort of like a keyword analyzer software that would provide feedback, for example: use more keywords or decrease your keyword density.

- Also if it could check and provide warning that your sales letter is looking to spammy for email campaigns.

- One button publishing to my website so it's online at the touch of a button.

- Auto suggest paragraphs, based on a db of professional sales letter. Not sure if that's possible.

- Option to generate HTML and text version for email campaigns instead of a web page.

A few ideas.

[jas511]

Thanks! Those are some great ideas to get started with...although the thing that caught my eye most is that you said you don't think you would use it. Could I ask what the turn off is?

Thanks again,
Jeff

[Alan Petersen]

The reason I'm hesitant is that I'm thinking of those web based translation programs where you enter the text and the translation is poor quality and unusable. I would be untrustworthy that it could easily generate a decent sales copy but I don't know much about software development. Don't get me wrong, I would be interested in the software but it would need to generate a sales letter that I can use and not produce choppy copy. Does that make sense? I realize it can't replace a professionally custom written sales letters by a human but I think this would be something internet marketers on a budget would try out. Think Xsitepro but for sales letter generation. Veteran sales copywriters and Internet marketers might scoff at something like this but this would have legs for the newbie marketers or affiliates cranking out sales copy pages.

I thought of a few other things…

- Very important: spell check and grammar check!
- A nice selection of bullet point graphics for breaking out items in list order (sales copy 101).
- If you select the long copy for it to follow the proven sales copy layout, i.e. the attention grabbing paragraph near the top, usually in larger font and attention grabbing color.
- Also a nice selection of sales letter related graphics like the "100% Satisfaction Guarantee" badge, etc.

The design portion of the software could be like a dialog box:

Box one - user enters attention grabbing header here. (select color, red, blue, black)
Box two- Enter items for bullet point list here. (select bullet point)
Box three- Enter main text here.
Etc. then click a button to put it all together and generate the sales letter.

Give the option to select a mostly pre-written one or for them to write their own in the design portion like described below. They can copy and paste into the corresponding "box" click generate and boom their text is formatted following the sales letter format we love to hate.

Hey this is fun just throwing out the ideas part!

[Alan Petersen]

Just thought of these few more things…

Make it easy to embed your auto responder code so you have nice looking web form to capture email addresses. For example, I use Aweber. I setup an auto responder, they generate the code in html or using javascript. It would be awesome to have an "insert your autoresponder" button so you just paste the code and your software produces the email web form wherever you want it without the user having to mess with tables, etc.. For example, click where you want it on the site, in the center on the side like in sidebar, etc. Maybe even generate nice web form backgrounds or templates so all you do is select the webform template, copy and paste the code and you have nice looking, attention grabbing web form for people to enter email addresses so folks can build their list even if the sales letter might not convert to a sale.

Back in the design area one of those boxes is for testimonials. So the user can select box style, color, font, make it easy to drop an image (for picture of the dude or dudette), url box so they can enter the testimonial givers url, text area for the actual testimonial, click a button and puts it all together in a nice testimonial box wherever you want it on the page.

Also make it easy to add audio message or flash video on the sales letter.

[jas511]

I appreciate all of the ideas and in due time, I hope to start developing some software to have more concrete things to look at. But, I think the key thing is that this program doesn't necessarily need to generate an entire letter, specifically for the reasons you stated - it's not likely that a machine could generate great text. It would (if possible like you said) contain a database of copy to give users ideas and most importantly help with the formatting and smaller pieces. The main text is still up to the user. This is more of a support tool, not a do it for you tool - does that make a little more sense?

Thanks,
Jeff

[Alan Petersen]

[Richard Hackworth]

[secret33.com]

[JosephRatliff]