刚在九九外贸论坛无意看到一个关于开发信的帖子，驻足停留了一会， 觉得很有启发， 无论是用在开发信或和国外客人交流方面， 在此借花献佛， 希望对米友们也能带来帮助.美国进口协会网址：http://www.americanimporters.org/
Guide to Successful Marketing and Selling to US Importers.
Direct marketing (sending a sales letter by mail) is the most effective way to market your products and find new buyers. With all the new technology we have today (internet, fax, B2B, etc) more than 8 out of 10 US importers say they prefer to be contacted by sales letter. But you cannot send just any letter. The sales letter that you send represents your company. If it looks good, you look good. If it looks bad, you look bad. If there are mistakes in the letter then the quality of your product is questioned.An estimated 97% of all sales letters go into the trash. It is important that your sales letter looks nice and is effective in order to be part of the 3% of letters that stay on the importer’s desk. Importers generally look at the first paragraph first. If they are still interested they skip down to the last paragraph to look for the seller’s web site address. Our research showed that US importers generally do not look at the second or third paragraph.Sales letters don’t sell anymore. Your web site does that now. Your sales letter has two functions. The first is to introduce your company and your products and the second is to direct the reader to your web site. Effective sales letters generally have four paragraphs and are arranged in the following manner:Paragraph 1: Attracting AttentionA recent research study showed that US importers generally spend seven seconds looking at a sales letter to determine if they are interested or not. If within that 7 seconds you have convinced the reader that you have a product they would like to buy and resell then they will continue reading. Otherwise the letter goes into the trash.Paragraph 2: Building Interest and DesireOnce you have the reader’s attention you must give the basic details. Your goal is to show that you have a reliable product that the importer can buy from you and then easily resell in the US for a profit.Paragraph 3: Convincing The ReaderAt this point you have the reader’s interest and have given the basics. This paragraph tells the importer the benefits of buying your product. Here you show the buyer how he/she will benefit from buying your product.Paragraph 4: Request for ActionThis paragraph is short and has only one function: go to your web page for more information. It is very important that you put your web site address in this last paragraph and encourage the reader to go there to see more about your products.
How Not To Write A Sales Letter1、Every word in your sales letter must be chosen carefully. Do not use words that are pushy, like "prompt", and "ASAP", and "at your convenience". US importers do not like to be pushed into making a decision.2、Do not try to flatter the buyer with words like "esteemed" and "respected". US importers will give you an order because you have a product they want. Not because you tried to inflate their ego.3、Do not use abbreviations. Using "B. Rgds" for "Best Regards" and "Tkx" for "Thank You" implies that you are lazy. No US importer wants to do business with someone who is lazy.4、Do not misspell any words or use bad grammar. Your sales letter is the only representation of your company that the buyer sees. In their eyes a poorly written sales letter means poorly produced products.5、Do not make the reader hunt for your web site address. The goal of your letter is to get the prospective buyer to go to your web site for more information and hopefully to give you an order. Put your web site address in the last paragraph and also in the contact information at the top of the letter. Make it easy for the buyer to get the information he/she wants and to contact you for more details and possibly a price quote.
Don't Try To Market Your Product By E-Mail (SPAM)
A good opt-in e-mail marketing strategy can be very effective in finding new customers. More detailed information is in the section Marketing and Selling By E-mail. However, sending an e-mail sales message to someone you don’t know and who has not given you permission to send that message is a bad and ineffective way to market your product. These messages are called SPAM and they are considered the “poor man’s marketing”.It may sound like a good idea to be able to send a sales message by e-mail. It’s fast and free. The problem is it’s ineffective. Think of it this way. When is the last time you personally ordered a product from someone who sent you a SPAM e-mail message? Probably you never have. And importers do not order products from SPAM e-mail messages either. They don’t trust these messages. They don’t take them seriously. And they don’t buy from them.Here are some of the reasons you should not use SPAM e-mail to market your products:1) Your e-mail message gets lost in with all the other spam messages. The importer probably will not see it. It is in with the Viagra, cheap watches, phony university diplomas, and Nigerian scam messages.2) SPAM e-mail is considered a cheap way to market. It cheapens your product and your company.3) Spam e-mails are not trusted, not taken seriously. US importers don’t give orders based on some SPAM message they received.
Do Not Have a Free E-mail Address
As Your Business E-mailHaving a free (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, vsnl, sina, etc) e-mail address is one of the worst things you can do in business. It’s fine for your personal messages to friends. But free e-mail accounts used for business purposes are very, very bad for your business. US importers do not trust free e-mail addresses. The exporter could be the largest food exporter in that country, but if they have an e-mail address of goodfood@yahoo.com then to US importers they automatically become small. No big companies who know what they are doing use free e-mail addresses for business
Don't Send Sales Letters that Have Spelling/Grammar Mistakes or Use Out-of-date EnglishThe sales letter that you send to a prospective buyer is your representative of your company. If it looks good then you look good. If it looks bad then you look bad. More detailed information is in the section Sample Sales Letters. Check your letter to make sure there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. These mistakes make your company look sloppy and inefficient. Do not use abbreviations as if you are using a telex. For example, using "pls" for please and "u" for you make the prospective customer think that you are lazy. Do not use out-of-date sentences like "Would you be so kind..." and "Under separate cover please find..." These old sentences show that you are old fashioned.
Never push the buyer to do somethingSentences like, "I am looking forward to your favorable reply" are pushy and should not be used. Never use words like "prompt", "ASAP", "at your earliest convenience" etc. They are rude and pushy. US importers are professionals. They will answer you because it's the business-like thing to do. Not because you push them.Don't Send Letters that Use the Word "introduce" in the Opening ParagraphLetters that start something like "We would like to introduce ourselves" are in fact screaming "I'm a boring sales letter!" Do not use the word "introduce" when trying to sell your products. It's an immediate turn off.
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