The Art of Writing a great Query Letter
Using
individual names is not a challenge if you're only sending out a few letters.
But if you're serious about self-promo, you're going to send out far more than
8 or 10 letters at a time. You should be sending 50 to 100 ... or more.
Personalizing
a large number of letters presents problems - unless, that is, you master your
word processor's "Mail Merge" function. Don't let those words scare
you away. Using Mail Merge is not difficult ... if you take a couple of hours
to learn it.
The best way
to master Mail Merge is have someone who's used it a lot teach it to you ...
and then practice. The next best way is to use a good instruction book ... and
then practice. (If you're working with MS Word, we highly recommend PeachPit
Press's excellent Visual Quickstart Guide for Microsoft Word.)
The three
major steps in creating personalized letters with Mail Merge are to: (1) type
pertinent company information into a database, (2) write your self-promo letter
with merge fields, (3) merge the two parts ... and print.
Since you
have to type all this information anyway, why would you want to use Mail Merge?
The answer's
simple. With Mail Merge, you'll save at least 50% or more of the time it would
take to type the personalized parts of your self-promo letter. And you have
less chance of making errors. You'll also save time typing envelopes and other
components of your self-promotional package, which you can personalize as well.
Finally, you're building a database of potential clients that will be a
valuable tool for you in the future.
Here are
three steps for building your database. (We're using MS Word as our model - but
it will be pretty much the same no matter what word processor you have.)
1. GET THE
NAMES/ADDRESSES
You can go to
a large number of places to get information on companies you'd like to work
for.
- Get the information from
Target Marketing's Directory of Major Mailers (www.majormailers.com). Though it's
expensive, this is one of your best sources. It has 5,000 listings of
companies that are mailing, along with what they're mailing.
- Get the information from
Fortune 1000 listings (www.fortune.com).
Click the "Fortune 1000" link on the side panel, then click the
"501-1000: The Rest of the Best" link. You get access to the
database of the top Fortune 1000 companies by subscribing to Fortune
magazine for $4.95 for six issues on their secure website.
- Check out the Oxbridge
Directory of Newsletters (www.mediafinder.com).
Search for other directories using the Google Advanced Search option.
- If you're interested in the
fundraising market, go to www.idealist.com .
- And you can get information
on local businesses from your local Chamber of Commerce.
Once you get
the basic information on companies you may be interested in, call to get the
exact name, title, and mailing address of the person who's responsible for
marketing.
2. SET UP
YOUR DATABASE
MS Word uses
its "Tables Function" as its Mail Merge database. Your word processor
may use something similar ... or it may use a separate database program.
Set up the
document and name it something that makes sense (like "Self-Promo
Database01"). We recommend using the "Landscape" (horizontal)
orientation.
Insert a
table at the very top of the document. Do NOT use a title or introductory copy.
Specify at least 12 columns for the table. You don't need to specify a certain
number of rows, because they will be added automatically as you enter
data.
Name the
columns something like: Company_Name, First_Name, Last_Name, Position, Address,
City, St, ZIP, Phone, Email, Other1, Other2. These columns represent the
"Fields" in your database.
3. ENTER
INFORMATION INTO YOUR DATABASE
Enter the
information you've gathered in the appropriate fields. You'll save time by
using the Tab Key to move from field to field.
"Position"
means the position the person you're contacting holds in the company. In mot
cases, this will be "Marketing Director" - but it could be something
else.
"Other1"
and "Other2" are used for special information about a company that
you might want to include in your personalized letter. For instance, if the
company recently received an award for a product, this field could be
"Congratulations on XYZ Corporation's recent award for having the best
widgets in 2005. Your company richly deserves this honor."
The secret to
making the Mail Merge process work is to be sure your data is accurate and to
be careful when entering the data.
Michael Masterson, reprinted with permission from AWAI - American Writers Association - www.awaionline.com
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