Three Reasons to Pre-Produce Prospecting Letters

Pre-Produced Prospecting Letters

When I was a kid, I remember my father complaining about receiving what he called “bed-bug” reply letters from companies at various times.  What he meant by a bed-bug letter was that the letter was an uncaring, pre-written, form-letter response to whatever his concerns were with that particular company.

I guess the name bed-bug letter comes from somewhere in the past when a person stayed at a hotel (or actually, on a sleeper railroad car) and complained about finding bed-bugs in his or her room.  Presumably, the hotel management was hearing this complaint so often, they prepared a pre-written letter to reply to such complaints.  Of course this was back before computers, laser printers and seamless mail/email merges.  The letters looked cheap and impersonal.  Addressed to, ” Dear Sir,” the implication was that the company didn’t really care because it was providing a canned response rather than a sincere reply.

To a large degree, pre-produced letters have lost their stigma today.  A well focused and timely response that provides accurate and desired information is appreciated, rather than disdained.  Today, I can analyze the common requests for “more information” that I hear from new prospects and break those requests down into categories of response.  Sometimes a custom letter is still required, but, whenever possible, I pre-write and pre-produce responses to marketing inquiries for more information.  There are at least three major reasons that make pre-writing and pre-producing your prospecting letters a good idea:

1. You can better control the quality of the content.  Pre-writing responses in advance gives you a chance to think things through and provide a well thought out reply to certain types of requests for more information.  It gives you an opportunity to carefully edit marketing material and be more creative.  You can also take the time to have others proofread and provide feedback to be sure your message sounds right and makes sense.
2. Pre-produced content can be presented in different forms, so you can track the effectiveness of the message and the format over time.  Use mail/email merges to make letters sound more personal, when possible.  Put a code on your letters or use web tracking statistics to determine the efficacy of web-based “landing pages” and any other key email or internet based replies.  For physical letters, create a source code and include it in the footer.  Track replies based on the number of messages sent and the number of favorable responses.
3. Pre-produced marketing material is fast and convenient.  I know of folks who take a couple of days to get back to a prospect with a response for more information.  Taking so long to reply is a killer in this day and age.  People want information as quickly as they can get it.  Further, if you have to stop and write a custom response for every inquiry, it will take you too much time.

So, spend some time categorizing and pre-producing your marketing responses.  Pre-produced marketing material helps you use your time more efficiently, it helps you keep track of the effectiveness and it helps the prospect get what he or she wants on a more timely basis.

Originally posted 2009-05-24 12:37:02.