A 'solid' cross-sell concept.

• Author: Wachtel, George
• Position: THE LETTER DOCTOR

SHORTLY AFTER OPENING A MONEY MARKET ACCOUNT with SunTrust Bank, I received this cross-sell letter, promoting their CD options. The concept is excellent: talk to a customer who has just opened a fluid MMA and try to lock him or her in to a longer-term CD product. The concept is good; but the execution could have been improved.

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1 Headline: The headline (which showed through an oversized window envelope) is basically the bank's current marketing theme, but doesn't really speak to the consumer's needs. Better to transform and use their subhead into something like, "How you can feel more secure in today's economy ..."

2 Personalization: They could have cleaned up both the address block and the salutation to at least drop the middle initial. And somewhere in the letter, they should recognize that I am an existing customer and thank me for my business, which they do not.

3 Layout: This is a nice, neat layout that is easy for the consumer to read; and the key points listed on the right side do a good job of summarizing the benefits. The only improvement would be to take the deadline ("Hurry ...") and put that element down in the empty white space to give the page a little better balance.

4 First paragraph: Instead of focusing on "we, the bank" this opening paragraph should answer the basic "What's in it for me?" question the reader will be asking.

5 Product details: For an otherwise clean and crisp presentation, this paragraph ends up having too...