Business Correspondence, Anonymous [classic reads .txt] 📗

his imagination. He must put himself mentally in the place of the typical customer he is addressing and use the arguments and facts that would convince him. The writer should try to see himself enjoying the foods or service—picture his satisfaction. Then he has a better chance of reproducing his picture in the mind of the reader.

For instance, read this paragraph of idle assertions:

 

“Buy our hams once and you will buy them always. All of our meat is from young hogs, and is not tough, but is high-grade. Nothing but corn-fed stock is used. We guarantee the quality. We use good sugar in curing our hams, the best quality of saltpeter and some salt. The result is a natural flavor that can’t be beat. We challenge competition.”

 

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And now contrast it with this real description of the same product, calculated to create confidence in the trademark it bears:

 

“This mark certifies that the hog came from good stock, that it was corn-fed in order that it might be firm and sweet—that it was a barrow hog, so that the meat would be full-flavored and juicy—that it was a young hog, making the ham thin-skinned and tender—well-conditioned and fat, insuring the lean of the ham to be tasty and nutritious. The mark certifies that the ham was cured in a liquor nearly good enough to drink, made of granulated sugar, pure saltpeter and only a very little salt; this brings out all the fine, rich, natural flavor of the carefully selected meat, and preserves it without ‘salty pickling.’”

 

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Note how much more graphic the second paragraph is than the first, and every statement is backed up by a logical reason.

The testimony of other people, especially of those in positions of authority and those who would not be suspected of bias, has much convincing power. There is nothing in the contention that “testimonials are out of date.” They constitute the strongest kind of support. But get testimonials that really say something. The man who writes and says that he got out of the book he bought from you an idea that enabled him to make a profit of $50 the first week, says a thousand times more than the man who writes and merely says that he was pleased with his purchase.

Let price come in the letter just about where it would come in an oral canvass. The skillful salesman of high-priced shirts doesn’t talk about the $3 price until he has shown the shirt and impressed the customer. If price is the big thing—is lower than the reader is likely to imagine it would be—it may be made the leading point and introduced at the outset, but unless it is an attraction, it should be held back until strong description has prepared the reader for the price.

The method of payment and delivery must be treated effectively in the closing paragraphs. The following plans all have their use:

Offer to send on free trial for ten days or longer;

Offer to send for free examination, payment to be made to express agent when examination has shown article to be satisfactory;

Offer to send on small payment, the small payment to be a guarantee against trifling, balance payable on examination;

Offer to sell on easy-payment plan;

Offer to sell for cash but with strong refunding guarantee;

Offer to supply article through local dealer on reader’s authorization. With such an authorization, the advertiser has a good opening to stock the retailer.

The price feature offers one of the best opportunities to give the letter real inducement. If the price is in any sense a special price, make it clear that it is. Sometimes you can hang your whole letter on this one element.

Reduced price, if the reduction is set forth logically, is a strong feature. One publisher uses it in this fashion:

 

“We have just 146 sets of these books to sell at $18.50. When the new edition is in, it will be impossible to get a set at less than $25. The old edition is just as good as the new, but we are entirely out of circular matter describing the green cloth binding, and as we don’t want to print a new lot of circulars just to sell 146 sets, we make this unusual offer. Now is your chance.”

 

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Advance in price is almost as strong. It’s a lever to quick action:

 

“On the 1st of October the rate of the MESSENGER will go up to one dollar a line. If you place your order before the thirtieth of this month you can buy space to be used any time before January 1 next at seventy-five cents a line. After the thirtieth, positively no orders will be accepted at less than one dollar a line. As a matter of fact our circulation entitles us to a dollar a line right now.

“Don’t let this letter be covered up on your desk. Attend to this matter now, or instruct your advertising agent to reserve space for you, and get a big bargain.”

 

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Price, in this case is, in fact, a part of the close. It spurs the reader to “order now.”

Setting a time limit, in which a proposal holds good, is also a strong closer. A large book publisher finds it effective to make a discount offer good if accepted within a certain number of days.

Guarantee offers are strong. Don’t content yourself with the old “absolutely guaranteed” expression. Be definite. “Order this buggy, and if, at the end of a month, you are not entirely satisfied that it is the biggest buggy value you ever had for the money, just write me, and I’ll take the buggy back without quibbling. Could any offer be fairer? I make it because I’ve sold 246 of these buggies since January, and so far no man has asked for his money back.”

The sum-up is as important a part of the sales letter as it is of the lawyer’s speech or brief. It should concentrate the whole strength of the letter at the close, as, for instance:

 

“So you see that though our machine is apparently high-priced it is really cheaper by the year than another machine. Our offer of a free trial right in your own plant gives you absolute protection. It is quite natural, of course, for us to be desirous of getting your order, but we do not see how you can, from your own point of view, afford not to put the Bismarck in your factory.”

 

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And finally, help the prospect buy. The sales letter designed to bring the order must provide an easy method of ordering. In the first place, a great many people do not understand how to order. To others, making out an order is a task that is likely to be postponed. By making it easy for the reader to fill out a blank with a stroke or two of the pen, while the effect of the letter is strong, a great many orders will be secured that would otherwise be lost.

It should be axiomatic that if a letter is expected to pull business through the mails it must place before the recipient every facility for making it easy and agreeable to reply and reply NOW. How this can best be done will be taken up more fully in a separate chapter on “Making It Easy to Answer.”

One thing to remember particularly in the case of the original sales letter is that if possible it should have a definite scheme behind it. A reason for the offer, a reason for the letter itself.

A safe-deposit vault was well advertised by sending out letters that contained a special pass to the vault with the name of the reader filled in. Of course the letter gave a pressing invitation to call and allow the custodian to show the vault’s interesting features.

Still another clever letter soliciting rentals of safe-deposit boxes proposed that in case the reader now had a box elsewhere, they would take the lease off his hands. In reality they merely gave him free rental until his other lease expired, but the scheme was cleverly planned.

A buggy maker wrote enclosing duplicate specifications of a buggy he had just had made for his own personal use, and suggested that he would have another made for the reader exactly like it and turned under the same careful supervision.

Letters that give the reader something or offer to give him something have similar effect. The letter about a new facial cream will command extra attention because of the small sample of the cream enclosed. In fact, one cold cream company finds it an effective plan to send a sample and a sales letter to druggists’ mailing lists or to names taken from telephone books, telling the reader in the final paragraph that the cream can be purchased at the local drug store.

A letter offering a sample can of a high-grade coffee for the name of the reader’s favorite grocer will bring a good response and afford the advertiser a strong hold on the grocer.

A favorite method of securing savings depositors is to send a good “savings letter” that offers a free home-savings bank or a vest-pocket saver.

Even calendars may be given out more effectively by sending a letter and telling the reader that a good calendar has been saved for him and asking him to call at the office.

A striking paragraph of a real estate dealer’s soliciting letter is one that asserts that the dealer has a client with the cash who wants just about such a house as the reader of the letter owns.

A real estate dealer, whose specialty is farms, has this telling sentence in his original letter: “Somewhere there is a man who will buy your farm at a good price; I should like to find that man for you.”

There is hardly a product or a proposition that does not offer opportunity to put some scheme behind the letter. And such a plan doubles the appeal of the original sales letter. But once more, remember, not to put all your ammunition into the first letter. Be prepared to come back in your second and third letters, not simply with varied repetitions, but with more reasons for buying. Make your first letter as strong as you can, but at the same time—pave the way.

 

The Letter That Will BRING an Inquiry