Message Strategies: Marketing and Sales Messages

[LO-3] Th e daily mail oft en brings a selection of sales messages. Find a direct-mail package from your mailbox that includes a sales letter. Th en answer the following questions to help analyze and learn from the approach used by the communication professionals who prepare these glossy sales messages. Your instructor might also ask you to share the package and your observations in a class discussion.

a. Who is the intended audience?

b. What are some of the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the intended audience?

c. What is the purpose of the direct-mail package? Has it been designed to solicit a phone-call response, make a mail-order sale, obtain a charitable contribution, or do something else?

d. What technique was used to encourage you to open the envelope?

e. Did the letter writer follow the AIDA model or something similar? If not, explain the letter’s organization.

f. What emotional appeals and logical arguments does the letter use?

g. What selling points and consumer benefi ts does the letter off er?

h. Did the letter and the rest of the package provide convincing support for the claims made in the letter? If not, what is lacking?