With a crowded global marketplace, and with thousands of products and services crowding supermarket shelves, shop windows, and magazine pages, more and more companies are employing clever methods to market their wares. Advertisements run for mere seconds on television, but with enough noise and color to both attract and annoy prospective customers. Billboards crowd city skylines and feature models and movie actors endorsing a product they might not even care about. How can you break through the thousands of marketing ploys and make your voice heard?

Although advertisements, billboards, and sound bytes can often be clever and attractive, they are now so abundant, many prospective customers will actually be saturated with them. Hard sell methods, in fact, can turn customers away, as some companies can alienate people with their aggressive marketing strategies. This fact is something you can use to your advantage. Your marketing strategy should simply be more personal, and should address customers individually.

Such a method may appear difficult, but with a sales letter, it can be possible. A sales letter is simply a letter addressing individual customers, advertising your products and services, introducing your company to a wider market, and giving more people the chance to purchase your wares. This may seem simple, but a good sales letter is actually difficult to write. It should persuade, and not force people to pay attention to you. It should be attractive, but not annoying or showy. It should also be well worded: simple enough to be understood, but forceful enough to be convincing.

Before you attempt to write that sales letter, take note of the following tips for effective sales letter writing.

?When you start a sales letter, address the person directly, say, as Mr. Orlando Griffith, or Ms. Elizabeth Sparrow. Avoid ?To whom it may concern? or ?Dear Sir or Madame.? Customers need to know that you care before they care what you know. If your letter is as direct and personal as possible, customers will trust in you more. If you begin your relationship with trust, then you may have more customers who will patronize your products and services for a longer time.

?In as few words as possible, build your company's credibility. If you have quotes from people who have used your products, or people who have availed of your services, then use these quotes sparingly. Your letter has to catch a recipient's attention within the first few lines. If you praise your company, you can appear narcissistic; if you do it too humbly, you can appear groveling. If you hit the balance, however, you can make customers as excited about your product and service as you are, simply because they believe in the strength and credibility of the company that you represent.

?In as simple wording as possible, sell your product or service. You need to show how the product or service benefits the recipient directly. When showing off your wares, use simple language, and don't be too aggressive. Customers are sensitive to hard sell methods, and they can easily be turned off by overblown language like ?The only product on the market that can offer your car the luxurious shine that it needs, and the look that you desperately want!? Remember: the best advertisements do not make their customers look silly, helpless or stupid. They make their customers appear good, but better after they purchase the product or service.

?If you have any incentives, such as discounts or free offerings, to go with your product or service, then mention them explicitly. Scientific studies show that sales increase when customers know that gifts or incentives are involved.

?Make your sales letter as useful as possible. You can include your newsletter, or, better yet, place a sidebar or box with useful information for the recipient. For instance, if you sell fire extinguishers, you can include important emergency numbers in a boxed area of the letter. If you sell ball pens or pencils, you can include a list of the top ten grammatical mistakes people make when they write letters. Chances are, your sales letter can find itself tacked to a bulletin board or pinned on the refrigerator door.

The simpler, but more useful your sales letter is, the easier it will be for you to reach out to your prospective customers and increase your market size. Marketing need not be hard sell to work. It should be personalized and convincing, and it should take note of the customer's wants and needs. If written well, a sales letter can do exactly that.