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Critique my Sales Letter. How did i do?

daftypunk

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Hey guys, after hours of reading books and doing nothing i finally ended up writing my first sales letter/email. I recently started learning copy and heres one of my first attempts at writing sales/email letter.
I wrote this mock- sales/email letter for a clothing company in my city. How did i do? Feel free to criticize me and tell what went wrong.

Would you be convinced to buy clothes after recieving this? And would you buy these clothes?

Also are there any other places i can send my samples and get critique? Would appreciate if you can link to some of those websites/groups.
Anyway here's what i wrote.

SUBJECT: Everything is on SALE. Limited TIME OFFER.

Hey Ali,

Ever wanted to get those stylish brown Khakis and that black polo? Did you ever look at them and wonder how good you would look rocking those Khakis and that polo shirt? Looking absolutely dapper, everyone staring at you – from hot girls to the cool muscular lads who were always having fun. You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.

Why worry?

There’s no need to.

After all, our WHOLE COLLECTION is on SALE

Up to 75% discount
on everything, so you can buy your favorite clothes at unbelievably low prices.

Simply go to our website, filter out what you want and order! Its that easy. No difficulties in deciding what to buy.

So ORDER NOW before it ends

P.S You may regret it if you don’t. Our stock runs out quickly and we don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime.

(200 words)

And here's my planning for this;

Sales letter- Clothes letter

I want to create awareness about the recent sale at Gul Ahmed/ Charcoal to boost sales

Why?
All of our products are up for sale at unbelievably low prices from Tees to Polos and Jeans and Khakis

Why?
Because its for a limited time and stock will run out quickly so its best if your purchase it right now or else you won’t be able to buy the shirt you dreamed of getting
 
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ApparentHorizon

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Everything is on SALE. Limited TIME OFFER.

I'm instantly clicking spam.

Ever wanted to get those stylish brown Khakis and that black polo? Did you ever look at them and wonder how good you would look rocking those Khakis and that polo shirt?

No.

Looking absolutely dapper

What year is it?

everyone staring at you – from hot girls to the cool muscular lads who were always having fun.

What?

Paint a picture here. Hot girl and cool muscular lad, is generic and cringe.

Talk about the "popular kids standing in a circle by the window with the cute blonde smiling who you've avoided talking to. The clothes on your back didn't give you the confidence to approach, and you only have 1 shot to make a great first impression."

You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide?

I'm lost

After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.

Needs pictures

Why worry?

There’s no need to.

My anxiety just spiked

After all, our WHOLE COLLECTION is on SALE

I don't care about you

After all, our WHOLE COLLECTION is on SALE

Up to 75% discount
on everything, so you can buy your favorite clothes at unbelievably low prices.

Simply go to our website, filter out what you want and order! Its that easy. No difficulties in deciding what to buy.

So ORDER NOW before it ends

Decent, but the transition to this section needs work.

---

Your overall structure is not bad, you just need to tighten it up.
 

daftypunk

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I'm instantly clicking spam.



No.



What year is it?



What?

Paint a picture here. Hot girl and cool muscular lad, is generic and cringe.

Talk about the "popular kids standing in a circle by the window with the cute blonde smiling who you've avoided talking to. The clothes on your back didn't give you the confidence to approach, and you only have 1 shot to make a great first impression."



I'm lost



Needs pictures



My anxiety just spiked



I don't care about you



Decent, but the transition to this section needs work.

---

Your overall structure is not bad, you just need to tighten it up.

Thanks for the critique.
Perhaps the subject line can be "You only have one shot to make a great impression"

I get the "worry part"- i didn't really create a worrisome mood, and it was rather positive so i should have cut that out and dived straight to the sale part ig. No need of 'you didn't have money' either.

Here's my learnings-
Create an image that the customer can relate to and describe it in detail. Should be one that makes people want your product

Exclude any irrelevant things.

Should be 'you'focused. Why should people buy your product?

@lex would also like your opinion on this.
 

Bigguns50

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@daftypunk , can you PM me your website ? I'll give this a crack. Your letter needs to reflect your site and what you're selling. If not, that's cool.
 
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ApparentHorizon

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Thanks for the critique.
Perhaps the subject line can be "You only have one shot to make a great impression"

I get the "worry part"- i didn't really create a worrisome mood, and it was rather positive so i should have cut that out and dived straight to the sale part ig. No need of 'you didn't have money' either.

Here's my learnings-
Create an image that the customer can relate to and describe it in detail. Should be one that makes people want your product

Exclude any irrelevant things.

Should be 'you'focused. Why should people buy your product?

@lex would also like your opinion on this.

Absolutely. You're in the right frame of mind. I struggle with the same thing. Knowing the theory behind it, but taking 3-4 revisions before it even counts as passable.

The subject line is much better, but still too long.

I recently took a marketing course, and I'm receiving their email newsletters. On average, their subject lines are 4 words long.

Talk about gaining X. Gaining confidence. Gaining approval. Increasing your perceived value.

These imply the reader is lacking in these areas. Without putting them down.

There's a time and place to agitate, and you can do it within the email. But like the blonde picture, paint a specific scenario within 1 line. 1-2 sentences max. Otherwise, it's best left to your landing page.
 

itizjr

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SUBJECT: Everything is on SALE. Limited TIME OFFER.

If this were sent to anybody who doesn't know the brand, it would be spam right away. So I'm assuming that this is targeted to people already on the companies newsletter.

I would add the amount of the sale. Numbers pull people in. A sale of 75% will get me more intrigued than a sale of 25%. Also add specifics to the limited time. Being specific helps "make it real". Ex:

75% off EVERYTHING (but only for the next 5 hours!)

Ever wanted to get those stylish brown Khakis and that black polo? Did you ever look at them and wonder how good you would look rocking those Khakis and that polo shirt? Looking absolutely dapper, everyone staring at you – from hot girls to the cool muscular lads who were always having fun. You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.

Text would need to be broken up more for ease of reading. maybe like this:

Ever wanted to get those stylish brown Khakis and that black polo?

Did you ever look at them and wonder how good you would look rocking those Khakis and that polo shirt?

Looking absolutely dapper, everyone staring at you – from hot girls to the cool muscular lads who were always having fun.

You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.


Did you feel how less tiring reading my version was vs how tiring it was to read your block of text?

You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.

Could have put a little variety in this part by making it a bullet list (people like bullet lists. Makes things easily digestible) ex:

You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from:

- fashionable black leather jackets
- comfortable jeans
- fitted dress shirts
- casual tees


Why worry?

There’s no need to.

This part just feels a bit cringy to me.

After all, our WHOLE COLLECTION is on SALE

Up to 75% discount
on everything, so you can buy your favorite clothes at unbelievably low prices.

This is where I would have put bullet points of examples of things on special. Ideally including pictures. (there should be pictures all over this salesletter actually)

Simply go to our website, filter out what you want and order! Its that easy. No difficulties in deciding what to buy.

I wouldn't put the process of how to online shop. Filtering out implies doing "work". You don't want to create barriers before they're even on the website. Maybe keep it simple with just...

So go on our website and ORDER NOW before it ends!

P.S You may regret it if you don’t. Our stock runs out quickly and we don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime.


"Opportunity of a lifetime" is a bit much. This is only about clothing, it's not really that rare to get these types of sales. Doesn't really work for this particular situation.

Anyway, those are just my .02$.
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Good effort but when copy reaches a certain level of badness, it's difficult to critique, since everything is bad. I think this is one such case, sorry to say. If I get that, your believability is ZERO, because you are obviously exaggerating. ZERO believability = ZERO trust = ZERO sales.

Try to make it more believable. If you had to convince your friends to buy one of those clothing items, how would you speak to them? Write that. No exaggeration, no gimmicks - just what a prospect needs to hear.
 

daftypunk

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Good effort but when copy reaches a certain level of badness, it's difficult to critique, since everything is bad. I think this is one such case, sorry to say. If I get that, your believability is ZERO, because you are obviously exaggerating. ZERO believability = ZERO trust = ZERO sales.

Try to make it more believable. If you had to convince your friends to buy one of those clothing items, how would you speak to them? Write that. No exaggeration, no gimmicks - just what a prospect needs to hear.

Ngl i would speak to my friend about how he may look more attractive but i also would cut out some parts of it.

And this is exactly what i needed to stay on track. Thank you for being honest.
 

NewManRising

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I've written tons of emails for autoresponders, marketing campaigns, and lead gen.

I'm not going to go through your entire email sample point by point. But I will offer some suggestions to improve it.

Titles can be really tricky to write because this is the most important part. I like to approach email writing in several stages: title, content, call to action.

You have to make sure your title is good or else no one is going to read the email and the contents will never be read.

No one really cares that you're having a sale. Never approach emails/marketing by begging people to buy. Instead, offer incentives to them.

Think to yourself, what would be an incentive to get people to stop and open the email? Offer a descriptive benefit in the title. Using curiosity or cleverness can work too but you have to really nail it.

Example:

Say, I am selling shoes. A title I might use is:

Get Your Favorite Shoes At Reduced Prices

Save On Your Next Purchase Of Shoes

Grab The Kids A New Pair Of Sneakers Before School Starts

Time To Replace Those Worn-Out Shoes?

Browse Top Brand Of Shoes At Low Cost

Then, build off of this. Write the content in the email following the benefit you offered in the title. Write only enough that is necessary to get the point across while offering them the option to act.

Don't use cheesy sales lines, appear desperate, or ramble on.

Word usage and slang (if used) should depend on the audience.

Reasons people might buy new shoes?

1. Old pair is worn-out
2. Need a new wardrobe for an upcoming event (birthday, graduation, party, wedding, going back to school, etc)
3. Good prices, easy ordering process, and good customer service (a lot of trust in the system)
4. Vanity

I would make sure to hit all or some of these elements in your content. Really think about the person on the other end. Relate to them. Why do they need new shoes and why should they buy them from you right now?
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Ngl i would speak to my friend about how he may look more attractive but i also would cut out some parts of it.

And this is exactly what i needed to stay on track. Thank you for being honest.
It's important not to exaggerate in your copy. Remember what the purpose is. It is to get ONLY people who already have those interests and desires to read. Nobody else. So you don't actually help yourself if you exaggerate. You're NOT going to CREATE those desires or interests in anyone if they are not already there to begin with. Desires are not created in an instant, through a simple short message. If that's how things worked, then it would be easy to become a millionaire. Desires take a long time and education to create, and that's not the business of advertising because it takes a long time and it's expensive to do. That's what Hollywood, movies, books, culture, the sum of all advertising, and so on do. In other words, the market already puts the desires and the interests there.

Your job is to call out to the people who have those desires, intensify them, get them to identify with your copy so that they say "Yeah, he gets me!", and keep it believable. If you do that, AND there is a BIG number of people with that desire/interest out there, then you can be rich. But both conditions must exist - good copy AND a real market. Otherwise good copy by itself cannot magically create the market.

"Does it ever happen to you that hot girls that catch your eye just look ahead, as if not even aware you're passing by? Well, this time, as she passed by me, she turned around, and had another look" -> this is a way to intensify that emotion in a believable way, without being cringey. Why does it work? Well, first you ask a question that EVERYONE will answer with YES. It's guaranteed that even the hottest guy out there will have had a time when a hot girl passed by him without even noticing him. So the reader immediately identifies, "yeah, that's me homie!". So he starts trusting. Then it becomes easier for him to trust that the girl actually turned around to look that time. And then obviously the association between your clothes and that event is installed in their mind. Also - be subtle. Your readers are not idiots. You don't have to spell it out "my hot yoga pants made her look back". The fact that she looked back when you were wearing those pants is enough. It seems fake when you point it out, and is insulting. Your readers are not dumb. They are perfectly capable to put 2 and 2 together.
 
Last edited:

daftypunk

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What would you write?
It's important not to exaggerate in your copy. Remember what the purpose is. It is to get ONLY people who already have those interests and desires to read. Nobody else. So you don't actually help yourself if you exaggerate. You're NOT going to CREATE those desires or interests in anyone if they are not already there to begin with. Desires are not created in an instant, through a simple short message. If that's how things worked, then it would be easy to become a millionaire. Desires take a long time and education to create, and that's not the business of advertising because it takes a long time and it's expensive to do. That's what Hollywood, movies, books, culture, the sum of all advertising, and so on do. In other words, the market already puts the desires and the interests there.

Your job is to call out to the people who have those desires, intensify them, get them to identify with your copy so that they say "Yeah, he gets me!", and keep it believable. If you do that, AND there is a BIG number of people with that desire/interest out there, then you can be rich. But both conditions must exist - good copy AND a real market. Otherwise good copy by itself cannot magically create the market.

"Does it ever happen to you that hot girls that catch your eye just look ahead, as if not even aware you're passing by? Well, this time, as she passed by me, she turned around, and had another look" -> this is a way to intensify that emotion in a believable way, without being cringey. Why does it work? Well, first you ask a question that EVERYONE will answer with YES. It's guaranteed that even the hottest guy out there will have had a time when a hot girl passed by him without even noticing him. So the reader immediately identifies, "yeah, that's me homie!". So he starts trusting. Then it becomes easier for him to trust that the girl actually turned around to look that time. And then obviously the association between your clothes and that event is installed in their mind. Also - be subtle. Your readers are not idiots. You don't have to spell it out "my hot yoga pants made her look back". The fact that she looked back when you were wearing those pants is enough. It seems fake when you point it out, and is insulting. Your readers are not dumb. They are perfectly capable to put 2 and 2 together.

I am a bit confused though. How would you continue after "had another look"? I was thinking of telling my story to the reader about "how i felt amazing wearing those clothes, and after a long time this had happened-turned out to be a great day and gave me the confidence to ask her out" some story like that which everyone can relate to? And then go on to tell about the Sale and why they should buy from there.

Would that be ideal?
 

Lyinx

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Hey guys, after hours of reading books and doing nothing i finally ended up writing my first sales letter/email. I recently started learning copy and heres one of my first attempts at writing sales/email letter.
I wrote this mock- sales/email letter for a clothing company in my city. How did i do? Feel free to criticize me and tell what went wrong.

Would you be convinced to buy clothes after recieving this? And would you buy these clothes?

Also are there any other places i can send my samples and get critique? Would appreciate if you can link to some of those websites/groups.
Anyway here's what i wrote.

SUBJECT: Everything is on SALE. Limited TIME OFFER.

Hey Ali,

Ever wanted to get those stylish brown Khakis and that black polo? Did you ever look at them and wonder how good you would look rocking those Khakis and that polo shirt? Looking absolutely dapper, everyone staring at you – from hot girls to the cool muscular lads who were always having fun. You weren’t able to buy them either because you didn’t have a lot of money with you or you couldn’t decide? After all there are so many good options to choose from- fashionable black leather jackets, comfortable jeans, fitted dress shirts and casual tees which you can wear whenever you want to.

Why worry?

There’s no need to.

After all, our WHOLE COLLECTION is on SALE

Up to 75% discount
on everything, so you can buy your favorite clothes at unbelievably low prices.

Simply go to our website, filter out what you want and order! Its that easy. No difficulties in deciding what to buy.

So ORDER NOW before it ends

P.S You may regret it if you don’t. Our stock runs out quickly and we don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity of a lifetime.

(200 words)

And here's my planning for this;

Sales letter- Clothes letter

I want to create awareness about the recent sale at Gul Ahmed/ Charcoal to boost sales

Why?
All of our products are up for sale at unbelievably low prices from Tees to Polos and Jeans and Khakis

Why?
Because its for a limited time and stock will run out quickly so its best if your purchase it right now or else you won’t be able to buy the shirt you dreamed of getting
I'm not your target audience, so take it for what it's worth.

If I'd get this in my email? Spam box within 4 seconds, if I'm reading slow. If it's auto filtered into promos then it will be put into the spam box along with the 20 other emails that I'm spamming that day (or unsubscribing via rollup)

_____________________
What is the feel of the email? My feelings:
- Cheap product
- Maybe made in China/3'rd world country sweatshop/stolen truckload from a warehouse?
_____________________

First thing that I would do? Figure out what I'm trying to project unto the customer, am I just trying to get this batch of stuff sold? Am I trying to get repeat business customers?
Where/how did I get these goods so cheap? Maybe I bought a Storage locker and it had a skid of Khaki pants? in that case, here is my sales copy:

Subject: Found a skid load of Khakis, trying to sell them!
Main body: I'm a bounty hunter that buys storage lockers and tries to sell the things inside for a markup, and bought this storage locker (without knowing what was in it) and it had a whole skid of Khaki pants in it!
I'm willing to get rid of them at a good price, and I've decided to sell them by the dozen ( so I can move them without spending a lot of time and you get to save some money!)
Free shipping if you buy 2+ boxes (12 pr Khakis per box) or $7.99 flat-rate shipping if you buy one box.
[photo]
Contact me here or here, my youtube channel showing my finds is here, and my eBay store is here.
I've also started a mailing list for certain finds, which you can find on my website here, select which items you would like to know when I find and I'll send you an email with links!

NOTE: if I were selling as a brand and want repeat sales, then it would be phrased in an entirely different way :)
 
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Black_Dragon43

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Subject: Found a skid load of Khakis, trying to sell them!
Main body: I'm a bounty hunter that buys storage lockers and tries to sell the things inside for a markup, and bought this storage locker (without knowing what was in it) and it had a whole skid of Khaki pants in it!
I'm willing to get rid of them at a good price, and I've decided to sell them by the dozen ( so I can move them without spending a lot of time and you get to save some money!)
Free shipping if you buy 2+ boxes (12 pr Khakis per box) or $7.99 flat-rate shipping if you buy one box.
[photo]
Contact me here or here, my youtube channel showing my finds is here, and my eBay store is here.
I've also started a mailing list for certain finds, which you can find on my website here, select which items you would like to know when I find and I'll send you an email with links!
Interesting take. I wouldn't be the target audience for that because I would feel it's scammy and not a serious business, but then I think safety in business is more important to me than to most consumers!
 

Lyinx

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Interesting take. I wouldn't be the target audience for that because I would feel it's scammy and not a serious business, but then I think safety in business is more important to me than to most consumers!
At the end of the day, if you can sell with something that looks like junk, then it's not a bad idea, it all comes down to the dollars :)

had to think of a website: Funnyjunk ... if it works, it's not stupid :)
 

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