The AMA Handbook of Business Letters, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 6

Sales, marketing, and public relations letters

The object of a sales, marketing, or public relations letter is to elicit a positive response from your reader toward the product or service you are trying to market. Successful sales, marketing, and public relations letters must therefore grab readers’ attention and convince them that your product or service will satisfy their needs or desires.

Use a friendly, personal tone. Customers, whether they are consumers or business users, crave personal attention, and a very formal letter suggests just the opposite.

While all the letters in Part II could be considered sales and marketing letters in the broad sense that they are trying to convince a reader to take some sort of action, the letters ...