The indispensable condition for a newsletter to work
The greatest newsletter in the world cannot be successful
without a special condition. And this indispensable condition is
the following: If you want your newsletter to work, you have to
enter a conversation that is already taking place in your
reader’s mind.
Speaking in other words, you must tap into a pre-existing
desire. For example, if a person is not looking to buy a car,
you will never succeed in selling him or her car. As a matter of
fact, the quality of your newsletter is of minor importance.
Once you’ve found out that this person is looking for a car to
purchase, the newsletter work can begin. You can build your
arguments for why the car you are selling is the best. But we
can assure you that nothing will come of your reasons if your
recipient doesn’t want to buy a car, is not going to search for
a new car for several months or even a year, or has already got
a new car.
Your efforts, no matter how skilled, are useless with this
person. It is also nearly impossible to sell a product that
addresses a problem or need that your prospective customer has
never heard of. Newsletters yield results because they appear at
exactly the right time. We mean, the time when your (let’s say)
future customer is searching for buying a particular product, no
matter whether this product is from you or from rivals. The
question then is not whether your reader will buy, but from whom
will your reader buy. If your letter comes along at just the
right time; if it’s convenient for your reader to buy from you;
if you make a good case for your product; and if the price is
right, you have a great chance to make the sale. So to be
successful, what you need is a way to find qualified leads
relatively inexpensively—to find those people who want what you
are selling. A poor sales letter can be successful when mailed
to the right list, but a great sales letter is likely to fail
when mailed to the wrong list.