Learn the structure of writing a good Direct Response letter and you are well on your way to building your ?list? and selling your products and services. There is some debate as to whether this is a Craft or a Science and this is something we can leave up to the experts, but for our purposes, what matters is that there are important ingredients that must be present in order to write a good Sales letter.

Like any good process there is a Principle. This one has a name and her name is AIDA.

AIDA stands for::

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

The first element of a great sales letter is to capture the attention of the reader. This is done in the Headline or title. This one piece of the letter is so important that you can actually purchase headlines or ?swipe files? as they are known. If you can arouse curiosity and get the customer to read some more, then the headline has done its job.

Next is the element of Interest. The interest is written into the body of the letter using appropriate copy. Copy is just the text or words that you choose to use. The interest is generally attained by using case studies, examples, history and testimonials, in other words using persuasion by showing proof.

Desire is achieved by showing the BENEFITS of your product or service and what it can do for the customer.

Lastly is Action- this is where there is a call to Action. This is where you ask your reader to give their name or join or purchase the product or service.

There are three more elements that are known to be successful as well.

One is the Post Script or P.S. This has sometimes been so successful that a 30 or 40% conversion rate has been attributed to this element alone.

The Guarantee -- this is not necessary, however, if you can take away any reason that a customer shouldn't do business with you, it can't hurt.

There is one more element that you can add and it is called Inducement. This is an ?offer you can't refuse? kind of offer. It may be that if they sign up right now they will receive something of value and it is usually time sensitive in nature.

There are also ways of tracking to see where in the letter you have captured your target. This can be done using tracking devices. You can get these from www.Hotscripts.com or any link tracking on google.

Why not start with these ingredients, tweak it over time and most of all, write from your heart.