Business Correspondence, Anonymous [classic reads .txt] 📗

The “proper” size and shape of sheet and envelope immediately make a favorable impression. Various tints may be used to good effect and, instead of a flaring lithographed letterhead, the firm’s monogram may be stamped in the upper left-hand corner. The return card on the envelope should not be printed on the face but on the reverse flap. Such a letter is suggestive of social atmosphere; it is complimentary to the lady.

In beginning the letter it should strike at some vulnerable spot in feminine nature—but it must be so skillfully expressed that the motive is not apparent. If the line is anything that can be shown by sample, manage to work into the very beginning of the letter the fact that samples will be mailed free upon request. Women never tire of looking at samples; they pull thousands of orders that could never have been landed with printed descriptions or illustrations. A most successful house selling suits and cloaks has proved conclusively that nothing will catch the attention of a woman so quickly as an offer of free samples or some reference to style and economy in woman’s dress. It urges upon its correspondents the desirability of getting in this appeal in the very first sentence.

Letters from this house begin with some pointed reference: “Becoming styles, we know, are what you want, together with quality and the greatest economy.” Or, “You know we guarantee you a perfect-fitting suit, of the prettiest materials in the market—whatever you may select.”

This letter has the personal signature of the sales manager:

 

Dear Madam:

I have been intending to write you ever since you sent for your REPUBLIC Style Book, but I have been so busy in connection with our new building as to hardly find time.

But you are no doubt now wondering just why, out of the many, many thousand requests for the REPUBLIC Style Book, I should be so particularly interested in yours. And so I am going to tell you frankly my reason.

It is this: In your community there is only a very small number of all the ladies who wear REPUBLIC Suits, and they ALL should wear them—and WOULD wear them if they could but be made to know the real beauty of our suits. I want to show them just how beautiful a REPUBLIC Suit can be.

So I ask you, would you like to have made for you this season, the most beautiful suit you ever had?

Would you like now, a suit more stylish, better fitting, more becoming, better made—MORE PERFECT—than any other suit you have had?

If this interests you at all, then I am ready personally to see to it for you.

A suit that is different from the ones worn by your acquaintances is what I am now speaking of; not different because made of some unusual material, or in some over-stylish design, but different because BETTER. It is the difference of QUALITY, of genius in its cutting, that I want your friends and neighbors to see and admire in your suit.

Now I am going to say to you very frankly that I have a reason for wanting to make your suit attract the admiration of your friends. I wish your suit to convince THEM that they, too, should have their suits made by the REPUBLIC.

Would you care to have me tell you just how I propose to put this unusual grace and style into your suit? First, everything depends upon the LINES of a suit—if its lines are beautiful, the suit is beautiful. Now we have at the REPUBLIC a chief designer, who is a genius in putting the greatest beauty and grace into the lines of his models.

We say he is a genius, because a man can be a genius in designing just as a musician or any exceptionally skillful man may be said to be a genius. And when a highly trained cutter and an expert tailor make up one of this man’s designs, the result is a suit that stands apart from all others, by reason of the attractiveness there always is in grace and style and beauty.

Such is the suit I offer to have made for you.

But there is to be no increased cost to you for this special service. The price of every REPUBLIC Made-to-Measure Suit is plainly stated under its description in our Style Book. That is all you’ll have to pay.

If you wish you can have a dressmaker take your measurements and we will pay her for her trouble, as explained on the enclosed Dressmaker’s Certificate. Please read this certificate.

“Now, what am I to do?” you ask. Simply send your order to me personally. Just say, “Make my suit as you agree in your letter.”

Now if you wish other samples or information, write to me personally and I will take care of it for you. But, the sooner you get yojir order to me the better.

Please consider that we, at the REPUBLIC, will always be glad to be of service to you. I, especially, will be pleased to have the opportunity of making you a suit of which you can be proud and of which we will be glad to have you say, “This is a REPUBLIC Suit.”

Shall I hear from you soon?

Yours very respectfully, [Signature: G. L. Lawrence]

 

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This letter was sent out on very tasty tinted stationery. It was written by someone who understood the subtle processes of the feminine mind. In the first place the lady is flattered because the sales manager himself writes to her and offers to give her order his personal attention. Surely an opportunity to secure the very best suit the house can turn out!

“It is the difference of QUALITY, of genius in its cutting, that I want your friends and neighbors to see and admire in your suit.” No fulsome flattery here; it is so delicately introduced that it appears entirely incidental, but the shaft strikes home. There is just enough left unsaid to stir the imagination. The logic and the matter-of-fact argument that would appeal to the man gives way to suggestion and persuasion and the necessity for prompt action is tactfully inserted at the proper place.

In another letter from the same house the prospect was impressed by the great care used in making up garments:

 

“In order that your measurements may be taken exactly right, we send you with this letter a ‘Republic’ Tape Measure. This is the same kind that our cutters use and it is entirely accurate.

“We send this tape measure to you because we want to avoid the least possibility of variation in your measurements. We want to make your suit perfect, and we will personally see to every detail of its making.”

 

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No battery of arguments and proofs could make the same appeal to the woman as the tape line sent in this way. The suggestion is more powerful with a woman when skillfully handled than statements, assertions and arguments. Compare the subtle appeal in the above to the paragraphs taken from a letter sent out by a house that was trying to enter the mailorder field:

 

“We want you to read our booklet carefully for it explains our methods of doing business fully. We are very particular about filling orders and know you will be pleased with any suit you may buy from us.

“Our financial standing should convince you that if anything is not right we will make it so. We guarantee satisfaction and solicit a trial order.”

 

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In the first place, the average woman would know nothing about the financial standing of the house. It is evident that the man who wrote the letter had been handling the correspondence with dealers and firms that necessarily keep posted on the rating of manufacturers. And the way the proposition is stated that “if anything is not right we will make it so” suggests that possibly the suit might not be satisfactory.

But while women are susceptible to flattery there is danger of bungling, of making the effort so conscious that it is offensive. “Your natural beauty will be enhanced by one of our suits for our cutter understands how to set off a woman’s form and features so she is admired wherever she goes.” The average woman is disgusted and reads no further.

 

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HOW DIFFERENT ARGUMENTS APPEAL TO WOMEN

Style Foremost consideration Price Secondary consideration Quality Slight Exclusiveness Valuable Service Minor importance Sentiment Effective Flattery Expedient Testimonials Impressive Reputation Desirable

 

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Mere cleverness in expression will fall wide of the mark and facetiousness should be strictly avoided. It is better to depend on a very ordinary letter which will have little effect on the reader one way or the other than to offend her by too obvious flattery or an apparent attempt to make capital from a feminine weakness.

Arouse her curiosity—the curiosity of woman is proverbial, and a general store at Nettleton, Mississippi, found a “Cousin Elsie” letter, mailed at Atlanta, Georgia, to be the most effective advertising it ever sent out, for it aroused the greatest curiosity among the women of Nettleton. Here is a letter just as it was sent out, the name of the recipient filled in on the typewriter:

 

My Dear Cousin:—

I know you will be surprised to get this letter. I spent such a delightful Winter in California and wished so often that my dear Nettleton kin could be with me.

On my return trip, I met the Wilson Piano Co’s Manager. He told me the Nettleton Supply Co. was giving away one of its $400.00 pianos this year in advertising. I do hope that some of my ambitious Cousins will get to work and get it. It will certainly be worth working for.

Then what do you think? The first thing when I came to the office this morning, I made an invoice of the Millinery that the Nettleton Supply Co’s buyer had bought of our house and I was certainly surprised to know that such beautiful stuff is sold in a small town like Nettleton. Our salesman said that this is one of the nicest bills that he has sold this season.

I met the buyer and talked with her about all of you and promised to attend the Spring opening. I know it will be one of the best the house has had, as it will have so much pretty stuff to show.

I will have only a day or two and I want to ask you and all my Cousins to meet me at this opening. I am anxious to see you and this will be a good opportunity for us to meet. Don’t fail to meet me.

I have lots of work to do and must bring this letter to a close. With a heart full of love for all the dear old Nettleton folks and an extra lot for you, from,

Your Cousin, Elsie.

P.S.—Don’t fail to come to the opening. I will be there if possible. Miss Smiley will let you know when to come. Buy a pair of Peters’ shoes this Spring; you will never regret it.

 

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Such letters could not be used very often but occasionally they are immensely effective. “Mrs. Elliott’s troubles and how they were cured” have become famous in some parts of the country. Written in long hand, they bore every resemblance to a social letter from a lady to some old neighbor and told how many of her housekeeping troubles had been ended by using a