Not so long ago, when the computer was first mass-produced for selling to the public, a lot of industry experts predicted that nobody will want a box that does nothing besides handling data and hogging up the entire garage. What a joke. They were obviously wrong – nearly every household has at least one computer in the United States which has maybe the highest update of desktops, and most even have two or three desktops!

The same thing was said about the TV. Some of the leading companies CEOs at that time decided that no one will sit and watch a box all day. What a joke that is today, most of the population watch TV and some literally sit in front of the box all day.

However, that said, there were many products in the history of sales and marketing with brilliant development, genius engineering that no one heard of and died and fast and painful death to their creators, which didn’t make a cent.

This little bit of history tells us that no matter how good your product is, you cannot earn even a penny from it if you have either lousy marketing or sales people. Likewise, in direct marketing no matter how good your product is, you cannot sell even one item with a weak salesletter. Hence, once you know you have a good product it is vital to have a great marketing and sales plan.

Sales plan can be in direct marketing and then you would need to have a compelling salesletter that will pull the prospect right into it and see clearly the benefits that are presented against the very reasonable price you are charging.

Sales plan can mean affiliate programs that are brilliant and strong affiliate to send you leads to sell the product.

Sales plan can mean many things on the internet and all strategies must be considered and combined to have a brilliant sales machine.

Because the internet is a medium that often closely resembles direct marketing and sales, let’s look at salesletters in a close view. Salesletters are often written as you know by copywriters. Even though this is true, as an online marketer you must learn and understand as much as possible salesletters and copywriting. You may even need to check the work of a copywriter, how will you do this without understanding the elements of successful salesletters?

A good salesletter will first catch the attention of the reader by resonating with the reader's needs and desires. That's why you often see headlines such as “Have you ever felt...” or “Does ... sound familiar”? They work because they empathize with the reader's needs, problems or desires. The Internet is like a very busy freeway and everyone's in a rush. Only a strong headline like that in big, bold letters will stop your target audience dead in their tracks to read through your salesletter.

Once you've obtained your reader's attention, you want to spend the first few paragraphs on telling your story – how you have gone through what your reader probably has, the agony of the whole experience, etc. Once you get your reader thinking “he's one of us”, you would be perceived as an understanding individual offering a solution and not an anonymous marketer looking to sell his product.

Next, you have to elaborate on the benefits of the product you are selling. List them all on a piece of scrap paper until you have quite a long list; then write your salesletter from there. In your salesletter, highlight the benefits in point form and elaborate on each benefit. Be sure to point out how your product helps the reader instead of pointing out the features of the product. For example, instead of saying “this gizmo cures headaches”, say “this gizmo can relieve your headaches”. Make it relevant to the reader.

Then, write a paragraph or two on how the reader's life could be changed if the problem he is facing can be totally solved with your product. It is important to use very descriptive words so that the reader can fall into the imagination more easily.

Last of all, make a strong call for action! Your final objective is to make your readers buy your product, so it is important to make a final, strong call for action, be it “click the Buy button”, “click here to buy” and so on. Do not make the mistake of forgetting such an important step after coaxing your reader through the lengthy paragraphs.

In short, on the internet you will have to sell, that is a plain fact if you want to make money online and enough to make a living at least. You products must be of great value, but if your sales plan and your salesletters are not very good you will have less conversion rates, which means less sales, which means less money.

If you are an internet marketer make sure you learn about salesletters and copywriting, testing your copy and then testing some more until you optimize your sales.