Business Correspondence, Anonymous [classic reads .txt] 📗
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This letter was sent to lady customers by a mailorder house:
Dear Madam:
You want a dress that does not sag—that does not grow draggy and dowdy? Then you want to make it of Linette—the new dress goods.
You have seen the beautiful new look and rich luster charm of a high-priced fabric. You can find this same quality in Linette at only thirty-nine cents a yard, and then—just think—it will stay in your dress through wearing, washing and wetting, and you will be surprised to see how easily dresses made of it may be washed and ironed and what long service the material will give.
Very truly yours. [Signature: Anderson & Anderson]
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In this letter there is not the faintest suggestion of the profits that the writer hopes to make by the sale. A man is going to listen just as long as you talk about him; a woman will keep on reading your letter as long as you talk about her. Shout “You” and whisper “me” and your letter will carry home, straight to the heart of the reader.
A capitalized “YOU” is often inserted in letters to give emphasis to this attitude. Here is a letter from a clothing concern:
Dear Madam,
Remember this—when we make your suit we make it for YOU just as much as if you were here in our work roomed and, furthermore, we guarantee that it will fit YOU just a perfectly as if you bought it of an individual tailor. We guarantee this perfection or we will refund your money at once without question, and pay the express charges both ways.
We have tried hard to make this style-book interesting and beautiful to you and full of advantage for YOU.
Your friends will ask “Who made your suit?” and we want you to be proud that it is YOUR suit and that WE made it.
Yours very truly, [Signature: Adams & Adams ]
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And there is yet another quality that is frequently most valuable to the correspondent in making his letter personal. It is the element of news value. News interests him especially when it is information about his business, his customers, his territory, his goods, his propositions. Not only does the news interest appeal to the dealer because of its practical value to him, but it impresses him by your “up-to-the-minuteness” and it gives a dynamic force to your letters.
Tell a man a bit of news that affects his pocket book and you have his interest. Offer to save him money and he will listen to your every word, and clever correspondents in manufacturing and wholesale establishments are always on the alert to find some selling value in the news of the day.
One correspondent finds in the opening of lake navigation an excuse for writing a sales letter. If the season opens unusually early he points out to the retailer just how it may affect his business, and if the season opens late he gives this fact a news value that makes it of prime interest to the dealer. A shortage of some crop, a drought, a rainy season, a strike, a revolution or industrial disturbances in some distant country—these factors may have a far-reaching effect on certain commodities, and the shrewd sales manager makes it a point to tip off the firm’s customers, giving them some practical advance information that may mean many dollars to them and his letter makes the reader feel that the house has his interests at heart.
Another news feature may be found in some event that can be connected with the firm’s product. Here is the way a manufacturer of stock food hitches his argument onto a bit of news:
“No doubt you have read in your farm paper about the Poland China that took first prize at the Iowa State Fair last week. You will be interested to know that this hog was raised and fattened on Johnson’s stock food.”
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This is the way a manufacturer of window screens makes capital out of a new product:
“Throw away that old, rusty, stationary fly screen that you used last season. You won’t need it any more because you can substitute an adjustable one in its place.
“How many times when you twisted and jerked at the old stationary screen did you wish for a really convenient one? The sort of screen you wanted is one which works on rollers from top to bottom so that it will open and close as easily and conveniently as the window itself.
“That’s just the way the Ideal screen is made. It offers those advantages. It was placed on the market only a few months ago yet it is so practical and convenient that already we have been compelled to double the capacity of our factory to handle the growing business.
“All the wood work is made to harmonize with the finish of your rooms. Send the measure of your window and the colors you want and get a screen absolutely free for a week’s trial. If you are not perfectly satisfied at the end of that time that it’s the most convenient screen you ever used, you need send no money but merely return the screen at our expense.
“The Ideal screen is new; it is improved; it is the screen of tomorrow. Are you looking for that kind?”
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The news element may have its origin in some new feature, some attachment or patent that is of interest to the prospect. A manufacturer of furniture uses this approach effectively:
“The head of my designing department. Mr. Conrad, has just laid on my desk a wonderful design for something entirely new in a dining room table. This proposed table is so unique, so new, so different from anything ever seen before, I am having the printer strike off some rough proofs of this designer’s drawing, one of which I am sending you under separate cover.”
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This letter is manifestly a “today” product. It wins attention because it is so up to date, and a new article may possess the interest-compelling feature that will lead to an order.
Then there are the letters that tell of the purchase of goods. A retailer puts news value into his letter when he writes that he has purchased the entire stock of the bankrupt Brown & Brown at thirty-eight cents on the dollar and that the goods are to be placed on sale the following Monday morning at prices that will make it a rare sales event. This is putting into the letter news value that interests the customer. It is original because it is something that could not have been written a week before and cannot be written by anyone else.
Then there are other elements of news of wide interest—the opening of a new branch office, the increase of facilities by the enlargement of a factory, the perfecting of goods by some new process of manufacture or the putting on the market of some new brand or line. These things may affect the dealer in a very material way and the news value is played up in the most convincing style. The correspondent can bear down heavily on the better service that is provided or the larger line of commodities that is offered. Search through the catalogue of possibilities, and there is no other talking point that it seized upon more joyfully by the correspondent, for a news item, an actual occurrence or some new development that enables him to write forceful, interest-impelling letters, for the item itself is sufficient to interest the dealer or the consumer. All that is required of the correspondent is to make the most of his opportunity, seize upon this news element and mount it in a setting of arguments and persuasion that will result in new business, more orders, greater prestige.
Making The Form Letter PERSONAL
Over ONE-HALF of all the form letters sent out are thrown into the waste basket unopened. A bare ONE-THIRD are partly read and discarded while only ONE-SIXTH of them—approximately 15 per cent—are read through. This wasteful ratio is principally due to the carelessness or ignorance of the firms that send them out— ignorance of the little touches that make all the difference between a personal and a “form letter.” Yet an increase of a mere one per cent in the number of form letters that are READ means a difference of hundreds—perhaps thousands of dollars to the sender. This article is based on the experiences of a house that sends out over a million form letters annually
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There are three ways by which you can deliver a message to one of your customers: you can see him personally, you can telegraph or telephone him, or you can write him a letter. After you have delivered the message you may decide you would like to deliver the same message to 252 other customers.
To see each customer personally, to telegraph or telephone each one, or to write each a personal letter, would prove slow and expensive. So you send the same letter to all your customers, since you wish to tell them all the same story.
But you do not laboriously write all these letters on the typewriter; instead, you print them on some kind of duplicating machine.
But it is not enough to print the body of the letter and send it out, for you know from your own point of view that the average man does not give a proposition presented to him in a circular letter, the same attention he gives to it when presented by a personal appeal. And so little plans and schemes are devised to make the letter look like a personally dictated message, not for the purpose of deceiving the reader, but to make your proposition more intimate. This form of presentation is merely a means to an end; just because a letter is duplicated a thousand times does not make the proposition any the less applicable to the reader. It may touch his needs just as positively as if he were the sole recipient. The reason the letter that one knows to be simply a circular fails to grip his attention, is because it fails to get close to him—it does not look personal.
So, if form letters are to escape the waste basket—if they are to win the prospect’s attention and convince him—they must have all the ear-marks of a personally dictated communication. If a proposition is worth sending out it is worthy of a good dress and careful handling.
All the principles of making the individual letter a personal message hold good with the form letter, except that greater pains must be taken to make each letter look personal. Nothing should be put into the letter to a dozen or a thousand men that does not apply to each one individually.
From the mechanical standpoint, there are five parts to a letter: superscription, body of the letter, signature, enclosures and envelope. In each of these five parts there are opportunities for original touches that make letters more than mere circulars.
The superscription and the way it is inserted in a form letter is the most important feature in making it personal. No semblance of a regularly dictated letter can be given unless the date, name and address are filled in, and if this is not done carefully it is
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