Successful sales people dress their best when in front of prospects. And so do successful sales letters. Here are some tested sales letter design and layout tips, some of them from direct mail designer Ted Kikoler, and excerpted from The Lead Generation Handbook by Bob Bly.

FONTS

• Use a serif typeface for the body. A popular choice is to set the body in Times Roman and the headlines and subheads in Helvetica bold.
• Type the body of the letter in black. Use an accent color for subheads if you wish.
• To add emphasis to your headline, make it bold, a larger point size than the letter, and center it.
• Make sure your typeface is large enough for your readers.

MARGINS

• With a standard 8 '' x 11'' letter, set your margins at one inch on all sides.
• Make the right-hand margin "ragged right" (also called "left justified"; never justify it).

INDENTATIONS

• Indent all paragraphs five characters.
• For block quotes and other copy that you want to highlight, indent the entire paragraph by 10 characters on each side.

PARAGRAPHS

• Keep your first sentence and first paragraph short.
• Limit all paragraphs to seven lines.
• Single space the letter.
• Put one blank line between all paragraphs.
• Never end the last sentence on the page with a period. Always break the sentence in two so that the reader must turn the letter over and keep reading.
• Do not add "Over, please" to the bottom right. That's patronizing.

SUBHEADS

• If you want your letter to look like personal correspondence, do not use subheads.
• If using subheads, center them and make them bold.
• Do not set subheads in all caps.

EMPHASIS

• Use emphasis sparingly. If you emphasize everything you emphasize nothing.
• Underline words or phrases that should be emphasized.
• If you have facts to present, render them as a bulleted list.
• If you have a number of points to present in order, render them as a numbered list.

THE END

• Shorten the first name of the writer to sound friendlier and to close the gap between reader and writer: Bill sounds better than William, Kathy sounds better than Kathryn.
• Make the signature legible.
• If you are mailing small quantities (say, a few hundred at a time), print the letter without a signature, then sign each one individually with a blue pen. This creates a look and a feel very close to a personal letter.
• Indent the entire body copy of the P.S. by five characters so the letter's P.S. stands out.

Alan Sharpe

Alan Sharpe is a business-to-business direct mail copywriter and lead generation consultant. As President of Sharpe Copy Inc. Alan specializes in helping businesses generate leads, close sales and retain customers using cost-effective, compelling direct mail and email marketing. Alan also uses his direct mail advertising services to help charities raise funds and raise awareness of their causes, using fundraising letters. Sign up for Alan Sharpe's B2B Direct Mail Tactics e-newsletter. Every Monday morning, receive in your inbox a short, helpful article on direct mail lead generation.

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