Selling personal loans.

• Author: Wachtel, George
• Position: THE LETTER CLINIC - Webster Bank personal loan letter

THIS PERSONALIZED LETTER FROM WEBSTER BANK (Connecticut) is part of the banking trend back into the loan business--this one selling a fixed-rate personal loan.

(1) Overall Look: When readers open up the envelope and take out this letter, their eyes will jump around the page looking for a place to land. There needs to be one strong focal point to draw them in and keep them reading.

(2) What are you selling?: Assuming the reader starts with this Johnson's Box, they may not know what the bank is offering them. Better to be clearer AND speak more to the borrower's need with something like: "You can have up to $25,000 and a fixed rate as low at 7.99% APR"

(3) Local Branch: They do a good job of using a variable data lookup table to provide each prospect with the location of the branch nearest their home.

(4) Salutation: This is a weakness. Rather than "Stephen C Morris," it would have been better to either use "Dear Stephen" or "Dear Mr. Morris."

(5) First Paragraph: This letter was received in January; so the message timing is correct ... but the wording isn't. Not many consumers will think taking out a loan is "starting the new year off right." They might be more inclined to read: "Start the new year off right by paying off or consolidating your higher interest rate debt..."

(6) Consumer Benefits: Financial comparison grids are powerful additions to loan letters and this one is good. But rather than showing how much TIME consumers could...