Sales Letters and E-Blasts

A sales letter is a business letter that attempts to persuade the recipient to buy a product. Sales letters can be expanded into more elaborate direct-mail packages. An e-blast is an email message that often has a similar goal—but e-blasts can have a variety of other purposes, such as delivering newsletters or product information to recipients. Increasingly, companies have detailed customer-information databases that allow them to send highly personalized sales messages via letters and other media. Organizations can purchase detailed lists of potential customers or donors from list brokers. Successful sales letters and e-blasts rely on database-driven knowledge of individual consumer preferences. Unlike most other business letters, sales letters highlight key passages with design elements such as boldface type, different-colored type, underlining, capital letters, subheadlines. Teaser headlines usually use a different typeface—and often a different color—from the rest of the type. Like sales letters, the usual medium for direct-mail packages remains traditional paper and the postal service.