The Power of P. S.
Studies show that when people receive personal, and even printed, letters, they read the salutation first and the P.S. next. So your P. S. should contain your most attractive benefit, or your invitation to action, or anything that inspires a feeling of urgency. There is an art to writing a P.S. and you should not sell such a brief comment short.
Some personal letters contain handwritten P.S. messages. I recommend this. A handwritten P. S. proves beyond doubt that you have created a one-of-a-kind letter that it is not a mailing piece that went out to thousands of people. In an age of technology, personal touches like that stand tall.
Letter-writing guerrillas keep in mind ten sage suggestions about what to say when they say P.S.:
1. Motivate the prospect to take action; tell that person to place his order now. Waiting is fatal to your cause.
2. Reinforce your offer. Make it the same as you made in the body of your letter but make it more urgently, more cogently.
3. Emphasize or introduce a premium or a bonus. The power of freebies cannot be overestimated.
4. Introduce a surprise benefit. It might be just enough to get that prospect off the fence and onto your customer list.
5. Emphasize the price or terms of your offer. If that financial enticement is the heart of your offer, be sure to restate it in your P.S.
6. Stress the tax deductibility of the purchase. If this additional justification to buy is true, here's a good place to mention it.
7. Highlight your guarantee. Present it with pride and excitement, remembering that to your prospects, it removes all element of risk.
8. Tell how many customers you've satisfied in the past. Be specific so that readers will realize that buying from you is the normal thing to do.
9. If you're asking readers to call a toll-free number, repeat it in the P.S. to make it as easy as possible to respond to your offer.
10. Stress an element of urgency. Tell them the date the offer expires, the limited quantities available, the reasons now is the time to order.
As with a great advertisement, a great personal letter should tell the reader what you are about to say, then tell what you want to say and finally tell what you just said. This may seem repetitious, but believe me, it's practical in these days of mailboxes filled with direct mail.
from Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson
