The One Pager Manual is a, “teach you to fish, and you can eat for a lifetime,” guide to writing prospecting letters. Every business has a story (or, several stories) to tell. One pagers are a concise, effective way to help you tell that story. Once you nail down the formula for one pagers, you will have acquired a basic platform for communicating with prospects. From this platform, you can begin to engage in higher level marketing strategies that can make a big difference in your overall marketing results.
What is a One-Pager?
A one-pager is a one page letter or message, usually a printed form, but can also be a PDF or a webpage. Its purpose is to develop, identify and prompt inquiries to your business from currently interested, new business prospects.
- Whether you use one-pagers for direct mail or for web pages (i.e. as squeeze pages, landing pages, etc.), the one pager can provide a base from which you can begin testing your results.
- By using split testing and analytics that are launched from a consistent platform, you can start taking some of the guesswork out of your marketing and begin to gain some real marketing power.
The One-Pager Manual is a PDF workbook that contains a detailed description of how to write and produce one-pagers. It includes worksheets and asks questions about your business that, once answered, allows you to “plug-in” the required information to create customized one-pagers.
Features of a One-Pager
Here are a few features of one-pagers:
- They are designed to be “turnkey” prospecting letters.
- They are produced in fill-in-the-blank format (not mail merged).
- They are generated in a variety of styles (from very plain, to professional looking, to lighter, more active formats).
- They use a simple, yet precise, formula that remains consistent from one one-pager to the next, even though the appearance of one pagers may vary greatly.
- In most cases, one-pagers are pre-produced in mass so they can be mailed or handed out to prospects at a moment’s notice.
Once you go through the process of creating your first one-pager, you will have learned the basic skills necessary to create an infinite number of one-pagers in the future.
Giving a Call to Action
Personally, I spent years struggling with what to send to prospects in the way of a marketing letter. I have always been dissatisfied with general “puff” types of marketing letters that have no clear call to action. A marketing piece with no call to action either prompts a prospect to say, “So what?” Or, worse, leads the prospect to buy from someone else who is actually willing to ask for his or her business.
Too many marketing messages say, “Here is some information.” Then, they say nothing. A typical company newsletter is a good example of this. All fluff and no call to action. A much better message is, “Here is some information, and, what’s more, here’s something you can do about it.” Therefore, one-pagers are all about a proactive call to action and always include a reply prompt, a link, or an email capture in the event the prospect has current interest.
One-Pager Basics
A few of the fundamental elements of a one-pager include:
- A tag or subject line relating to your business or a particular product.
- A paragraph (or two) relating to the tag line.
- A general description of your business.
- A reply prompt.
- A reply section.
- Your complete contact information.
As far as formatting goes, there really are no boundaries. One pagers have produced results in a variety of visual formats from very basic to more complex. However, the fundamental “formula” for the one pager remains the same.
One Pagers and Do-Not-Call Lists
One-pagers are an excellent way to communicate with prospects you can’t call due to do-not-call restrictions. In fact, before widespread do-not-call lists were ever enacted, one-pagers helped me communicate with folks I could not contact by phone. I developed the first one-pagers in the early 1990’s. They were used in an outbound b2b telephone-prospecting environment to fulfill the requests of prospects who would ask that information be, “sent through the mail.”
I find it astonishing today when a telemarketer calls me who has no way of sending me further information through the mail. Telemarketing campaigns should always be designed with a mail or email fallback, or both (see Prospect Factory, pages 97-102). Campaigns that seek to hard close everyone on the call are not only annoying, they disrespect and deny the comfort levels people have for buying. Consequently, they step over business that could have been facilitated through the mail and net less effective results in the long run.
As time went on, I started sending one-pagers to prospects who were habitually unavailable or otherwise unreachable by telephone. In the do-not-call world, there are millions of people who are now unreachable by telephone. One-pagers can be a big help in engaging some of these folks.
Send Me a One Pager!
Of course, individual results will vary, but one-pagers have been a great assistance to me, and I certainly would not be as far along today in my sales career without them. I think you will find The One-Pager Manual to be highly informative. After you’ve read through it and completed the worksheets, please send me a sample of any one-pager you create. Someday, I would like to add a one-pager library to this site. You may get a little free publicity, and help me spread the word about one pagers all at the same time!
As always, best of luck to you with your prospecting!
