How to Write Blockbuster Sales Letters

higher interest rate. Or if there’s a 0% interest rate offered, it’s an
introductory interest rate and will soon go up to ordinary levels, or
possibly extraordinary levels.
You’ll sometimes see 0% financing for offers by auto dealers. This
is an eye-catcher, but just understand that the cost of offering a 0%
interest rate must be captured somewhere else: higher price for the car,
bigger down payment requirement. But these can be effective offers,
mostly because they are eye-catching.
Pre-approved
This is another staple of credit card marketing. What the marketer is
telling us is that there will be no hard work involved in getting this
card—no pain-in-the neck application to fill out. Just tell us you want
the card and we’ll send it to you.
This approach is also taken by retailers who offer special store
credit cards that are good only in that store.
Mail-in rebate
The mail-in cash rebate offer allows the marketer to hype a lower
price, a tactic that is often used by sellers of computers, software,
televisions, and electronics equipment. The ad will hype the price of
the computer as “$850 after your $100 mail-in cash rebate.”
Notice the tiny print.
So you still have to pay $950 for the computer, and then jump over
all kinds of hurdles and wait for weeks or even months for your $100
to be refunded. Many of these companies make it so difficult to get the
cash rebate that buyers just give up. You have to mail in your receipt
(the original, not a copy), cut the bar code off the carton, find the serial
number of the product, write the name and address of the store where
you bought the product, list the name of the salesman, and then wait
eight weeks. You will then likely get a notice telling you no rebate is
coming because you missed some step. You then have no chance of
fixing the problem because you’ve already sent them your original
receipt and bar code from the carton.
I’m not a fan of the rebate tactic because most often it’s a lie. The
price hyped in the ad is really not the price.
...Blockbuster Sales Letters 39