Why are sales letters selling only 1-4%?

[MRiabov]

Any good businessman had to become a good salesman at some point. For some, if was direct mail advertising, for some it was selling exterior cleaning outside of prospect's doors, and some got away with affiliate marketing.

For Robert Collier - one of the direct mail salesmen of 20th century, a good rate of conversion was 1.5%. 2% and people started looking at his copy. 3% and they threw a party. 4% and they published it in his book.

1-4%! Ask a man on the street to tell you time, and you'll get a "yes" almost every time you approach someone. But ask a man to order something with a risk-free guarantee by mail, and suddenly 1 in 50 - if you can write really good copy 1 in 25 - agrees to buy something he from you.

Not to be the starry-eyed entrepreneur, but can't we really get a commitment from 1 in 10 people? What does it take to raise a conversion of cold audience to such level?

Where is the man who did 10x ROAS on this forum? :-D

 

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[Johnny boy]

You can get 10x ROAS with a 1% response rate.

Cost per advertising unit delivered: $1

Deal rate: 1%

Cost per deal: $100

Average deal profit: $1000

1000/100=10x ROAS

Now you see why selling T-shirts to a broad audience on facebook where you make $6 profit on a sale becomes hard, but selling something that nets you $1000+ each sale targeted to a specific niche that needs your solution and can afford it, can be very lucrative.

My opinion is that the most important thing, if you are selling something normal and not the cure to cancer or anything, is to work backwards from the delivery and targeting of your outreach.

You need to be able to find the people you want to present your offer to...

And you need to be able to present it in bulk...

And it needs to be dirt cheap compared to the units of attention you get from each delivery.

For example:

I found software that scrapes the info of facebook groups and then sends 100 messages a day to the members one by one as to avoid getting banned.

I would see THAT as my business, just as much as the thing I'm actually selling.

Then you need to solve a problem for type of person who is on a facebook group who has that problem, and craft them an irresistible offer.

If you can't find the people and get in front of them for cheap, you are relying on selling something so good that everyone needs it immediately and tells people about it. That's very hard. You should have a business that does that ideally, but it is NOT easy.

If you succeed in business, there will be a REASON for it. This is a very important thing to understand. Something must be fundamentally different for there to be an edge that will explain your growth, unless you want average results.

You can make it cheaper. You can make it faster. You can have a unique product/service that is so much better than anyone else's.

But your ability to attract leads and convert can make you lethal in any business.

We mow lawns.

If you're in a facebook community group, your a$$ is getting a message from me.

If you call in and look for a service we don't offer, no worries, a local partner is showing up and giving you a quote for a deck or whatever you need, and we give them coupons for a free month of lawn care to give to you so it sweetens the deal for you to signup, they get paid commission for a referral, and now you have our advertisement coupon in your hands.

I get lists of phone numbers and send out ringless voicemails for 1.2 cents. So it costs $12 to tell $1000 people "hey, my name's John I have a local lawn care company in (city), and if you wanted lawn care services just give me a call! We do great work!". I just pick all numbers in an entire area code 0000-9999, someone's gonna call back.

To answer your post directly, you should focus on targeting, the method of outreach, being creative, presenting a good offer, and offering something where your LTV affords a ridiculous amount of outreach to be worth it.

There's a combo in there somewhere.

Something where it costs a very little to deliver
They'll pay attention to it
You know they are potentially in the market for what you offer
Scalable
etc.

Things like scraping fb groups and sending messages automatically.

List of businesses in an industry and sending ringless voicemails to them.

Stuff like that.

 

[MRiabov]

You can get 10x ROAS with a 1% response rate.

Cost per advertising unit delivered: $1

Deal rate: 1%

Cost per deal: $100

Average deal profit: $1000

1000/100=10x ROAS

Now you see why selling T-shirts to a broad audience on facebook where you make $6 profit on a sale becomes hard, but selling something that nets you $1000+ each sale targeted to a specific niche that needs your solution and can afford it, can be very lucrative.

My opinion is that the most important thing, if you are selling something normal and not the cure to cancer or anything, is to work backwards from the delivery and targeting of your outreach.

You need to be able to find the people you want to present your offer to...

And you need to be able to present it in bulk...

And it needs to be dirt cheap compared to the units of attention you get from each delivery.

For example:

I found software that scrapes the info of facebook groups and then sends 100 messages a day to the members one by one as to avoid getting banned.

I would see THAT as my business, just as much as the thing I'm actually selling.

Then you need to solve a problem for type of person who is on a facebook group who has that problem, and craft them an irresistible offer.

If you can't find the people and get in front of them for cheap, you are relying on selling something so good that everyone needs it immediately and tells people about it. That's very hard. You should have a business that does that ideally, but it is NOT easy.

If you succeed in business, there will be a REASON for it. This is a very important thing to understand. Something must be fundamentally different for there to be an edge that will explain your growth, unless you want average results.

You can make it cheaper. You can make it faster. You can have a unique product/service that is so much better than anyone else's.

But your ability to attract leads and convert can make you lethal in any business.

We mow lawns.

If you're in a facebook community group, your a$$ is getting a message from me.

If you call in and look for a service we don't offer, no worries, a local partner is showing up and giving you a quote for a deck or whatever you need, and we give them coupons for a free month of lawn care to give to you so it sweetens the deal for you to signup, they get paid commission for a referral, and now you have our advertisement coupon in your hands.

I get lists of phone numbers and send out ringless voicemails for 1.2 cents. So it costs $12 to tell $1000 people "hey, my name's John I have a local lawn care company in (city), and if you wanted lawn care services just give me a call! We do great work!". I just pick all numbers in an entire area code 0000-9999, someone's gonna call back.

To answer your post directly, you should focus on targeting, the method of outreach, being creative, presenting a good offer, and offering something where your LTV affords a ridiculous amount of outreach to be worth it.

There's a combo in there somewhere.

Something where it costs a very little to deliver
They'll pay attention to it
You know they are potentially in the market for what you offer
Scalable
etc.

Things like scraping fb groups and sending messages automatically.

List of businesses in an industry and sending ringless voicemails to them.

Stuff like that.

By the way, how much is your conv rate for voicemail?

... And the corrolary of conversion rates is this your post is this: if emails are personalised and they maybe pull 5% conv rate, there are at least 20, and probably 40-50 emails that need to be sent out before you can expect any results.
Because as of recent I've been spending 15-20.

For anyone new reading this: learn copy! I've tried to emulate pros by doing the exact same things, phrases and structures, but if you can't evoke the principles behind them, it'll never work.

Robert Collier's Letter Book is a godsend. I don't know the exact reasons behind the last 24 chapters other than source copy, watch Robert succeed and look Robert succeed, but I guess it'll be more necessary as I'll start actually sending it out. Read it if you know the basic rules of copy, and written a few letters, because without it you will not ever understand it. It's the practice which he reinforces, as well as good knowledge.