Business Correspondence, Anonymous [classic reads .txt] 📗

your profession, I hope you will overlook the familiarity.

As a physician you realize the importance of having good clothes and also of having them kept in good order, both from a social as well as a professional standpoint.

Being situated in your immediate neighborhood and having my store open a greater part of the day, I am sure the proximity will be a great convenience to you.

I have had twenty-seven years’ experience in making clothes and cleaning, pressing and repairing them. I do not think you need question my ability to do your work satisfactorily as I have made clothes for some of the most fastidious and aristocratic people in the world.

Sixteen years in London, England, making clothes for Lords, Dukes and other titled people should entitle me to your consideration.

Perhaps you may have some lady friends who need garments remodelled, cleaned, pressed or repaired, who would be glad to know of my shop.

I assure you I will attend to all orders promptly and do your work as you want it.

Yours very truly. [Signature: M. B. Andrews]

 

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This letter begins with an apology and there is no inducement to patronize the tailor except his unbacked assertion that he made clothes for “titled people” for sixteen years

 

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He starts out with an apology and his sentences are involved. His boast about the work he has done for titled nobility abroad indicates that he is a snob—the whole letter lacks conviction.

Sometimes a man-to-man appeal may have the heart interest that strikes a responsive chord.

 

Dear Mr. Smith:

[Sidenote: A statement that every man agrees with. Good description.]

An extra pair of dressy, well-made trousers is something every man can use—no matter how many suits he has. Here is an opportunity to get a pair at exceedingly moderate cost.

[Sidenote: Effective method of dealing with a real bargain.]

You know how we make trousers—what substantial, well-selected patterns we carry; how carefully we cut, so as to get perfect fit in the crotch and around the waist; how we whip in a piece of silk around the upper edge of the waist; put in a strip to protect against wear at the front and back of the leg at the bottom; and sew on buttons so that they won’t pull off.

[Sidenote: Sending of samples greatly increases power of letter.]

Our season is winding up with a lot of patterns on hand containing just enough for one pair or two pairs of “Burnham-made” trousers. See the enclosed sample. There’s a good variety in dark patterns and a few light patterns, not a one sold regularly at less than $6.50 and some sold as high as $7.50.

[Sidenote: This consideration for the old customer is sure to have a good effect.]

These remnants won’t go into the windows until Saturday morning. We are notifying you, as a regular customer, that as long as these remnants last you can get a pair of trousers from any piece for $5.50, or two pairs at the same time from the same measure for $10—workmanship just the same as if you paid the regular price.

[Sidenote: The last half of the closing sentence has much subtle power.]

This is a REAL bargain, and we hope to see you before the best of the patterns are picked out.

Truly yours, THE BURNHAM COMPANY

 

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Here is a letter sent out by a rival tailor. It grips attention in the first sentence and carries conviction. It prompts immediate action and every sentence carries an appeal. Unlike the preceding letter, it does not talk about the writer but about the goods he has for sale—the bargains he offers

 

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The manager and owner of a business which was in immediate need of money had tried out different sales letters with but fair success. His product sold to men; it would stand up under trial; the difficulty lay entirely in awakening interest in a highly competitive product.

As there seemed scarcely a chance that the business might be made to live, the manager decided to take the public into his confidence—partly, perhaps, as extenuation for the failure he saw ahead. So he led out with a sales letter beginning with this appeal:

 

Suppose you had put every cent of money—every bit of your wide experience—every ounce of energy—into a business wouldn’t you want to see it go—live?

And if you knew—positively knew—that you had the test product of its kind in the world—wouldn’t it spur you to still greater efforts—if you knew that there was danger of failure simply because the public was not prompt enough in responding?

You, like hundreds and thousands of others, have had it in mind to buy of me sometime. It is vital to the life of my business that you make that sometime NOW!

 

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The pulling power of this letter was phenomenal; not only did thirty-five per cent of the list order, but twelve per cent in addition answered, stating that their orders could be depended upon later. In addition, there were scattering letters of encouragement and comment, making the total result a marker in the era of solicitation by mail.

What made this particular letter pull, when dozens of other letters, written by the same man to the same list on the same proposition, had attained only mediocre results?

The last letter made a distinctive appeal—to men—and particularly to men in business. For, since the time of “playing store,” every man has met, in its many varied guises, the wolf of Failure—and once a fellow business man is in the same plight, the man who loves fairness will do his part to help out.

That these talking points that appeal to men are efficient is proved by such cases as just cited; once the man-to-man appeal is actually brought out, the response is immediate.

While such appeals occasionally make a ten-strike, the average correspondent must rely upon logic and “reasons why” in making his appeal to men.

The ability to reason from cause to effect, omitting none of the intermediate or connecting steps, has long been held to be a substantial part of the masculine mind. Orators have found that logic—conviction—may have little or no effect on a feminine audience and yet prove the surest means of convincing an audience of men. School teachers early note that the feminine portion of the school lean towards grammar—which is imitative and illogical—while the boys are generally best in mathematics, which is a hard and fast “rule” study.

Similarly in business, the average man is used to “working with his pencil,” and will follow a logical demonstration to the close, where a woman would not give it a passing glance.

One of the latest selling campaigns, marketing town lots in various new towns between St. Paul and the Pacific Coast, appeals to the logical note in the masculine mind, and grants a concession in a follow-up, even before it is asked for. This makes a particularly strong appeal to the man who has begun to think about the proposition and who senses that, somehow, it is not quite logical.

 

We have a letter from a man who, like you, read our advertisement and sent for more information, including a copy of our contract, and he wrote as follows:

“I don’t like the forfeiture clause in your contract. Under it, if a man paid you $950, and then lost his job and couldn’t pay any more, you would have the right to gobble up all of his money and keep the lots too. You wouldn’t dare to make a contract with me under which as soon as I had paid you $300 you would deed to me the first lot mentioned in my contract—the lot at –—,—and then with each $100 paid in on the contract, deed me the next lot named in my contract. If you would do this, I would take your contract in a minute, because I would have some land for my money I paid in, if I had to quit before I paid you the full $1,000.”

We took this man at his word, and have since thought that possibly there were others who regarded our contract as being too severe.

If this was the reason that you did not invest with us, we ask you to examine the enclosed proof sheet, from the printer, of our new contract, and write us not only if it suits you, but if you can think of any other way to make it any more fair and equitable.

 

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The illustration given is particularly good because it is anticipatory—nips an objection that may be just forming in the mind of the prospect.

 

Dear Sir:

We sent you a sample of our Royal Mixture tobacco in response to your request some time ago. We are anxious to know what you think about it.

This is the best tobacco on the market today at the price, and as we know you would not have asked for a free sample unless you intended to buy more if you liked the sample, we hope to receive your order by return mail.

Very truly, [Signature: Morton and Morton]

 

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A flat, insipid letter entirely without order-pulling force. The attempt to, twist the request for a free sample into an obligation to place an order strokes a man’s intentions the wrong way

 

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Dear Sir:

Well, how did you find the tobacco?

I’m anxious to learn your opinion of Boyal Mixture, now that you’ve burned a bit of it in your pipe.

I believe in this tobacco, and back it up with a guarantee that removes all risk so far as the customer is concerned. I refund money without argument if you are not satisfied.

Royal Mixture is not intended for smokers who are satisfied with any old stuff that will burn and give off smoke. It is used by people who want nothing but the best and know it when they get it. It’s the perfection of pipe tobacco.

Men who smoke my Mixture for a month can’t come down to common mixtures again. It spoils the taste for cheap tobacco. Smoke a dozen pipes of it and you’ll wonder how you ever got any comfort out of ordinary smoking tobacco.

Royal Mixture is skillfully blended from clean, ripe leaves of the very best tobacco grown. It is neither too strong nor too mild—it is precisely what a knowing pipe smoker likes: fragrant, satisfying, delightful to nerves, nostrils and palate.

There’s a glorious, natural aroma about Royal Mixture which appeals to a gentleman’s nostrils most favorably. Particular pipe smokers praise it in the highest terms, and prove the sincerity of their praise by ordering it from month to month.

Shall I number you among the “regulars?” Remember, you can’t buy Royal Mixture from the retail shops. It goes direct from packer to purchaser and reaches you in perfect condition.

The cost is so small, and as you take not a particle of risk but can secure full refund of money if dissatisfied, why hesitate to order? The responsibility is entirely upon me.

Every day you delay ordering means a distinct loss to you of greater pipe pleasure than you have ever experienced.

Won’t you sit down now, while the matter is right before you, fill enclosed blank and mail me your order TODAY—THIS MINUTE?

Yours very truly, [Signature: L. W. Hamilton]

 

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Here is the letter rewritten, explaining why