Business Correspondence Part 40

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]

_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_

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]

_Here is the letter rewritten, explaining why this tobacco is superior. The appeal is cleverly worded to flatter the recipient into believing he is one of those who know and demand something a little better than common. The cost is kept in the background by the guarantee of satisfaction and the clincher prompts immediate action_

Appeals to men can be peppered with technical description and still interest and get results. The sales manager of a house selling cameras by mail says, in speaking of this principle:

"We found it necessary to use an entirely different series of letters in selling our cameras to men and to women. Generally speaking, men are interested in technical descriptions of the parts of the camera; women look at a camera from the esthetic side--as a means to an end.

"In writing a sales letter to a man, I take up, for instance, the lens. This I describe in semi-technical terms, stating why this particular lens or combination of lenses will do the best work. Then follows a description of the shutter--and so on through the princ.i.p.al parts until, if the prospect be seriously interested, I have demonstrated, first, that the camera will do the best work, and, second, that it is good value for the money.

"In writing a letter, under the same conditions, to a woman, I put all technical description in an enclosure or accompanying folder and write a personal note playing up the fact that in after years it will be very pleasant to have pictures of self, family, baby, and friends.

"These two appeals are the opposite poles of selling--the one logic and conviction, the other sentiment and persuasion."

Logic and conviction, in fact, are the keynotes to selling men by mail. Men fear being "worked." On those occasions when they have been "worked," it has generally been through sentiment--through the arts of persuasion rather than a clearly-demonstrated conviction that the proposition was right. As a consequence, persuasion alone, without a ma.s.s of figures and solid arguments, does not convince a man.

A land company uses a novel method of conviction along this line, aiming to get the prospect to furnish his own figures. The idea is, that these figures, prepared by the prospect himself, and the accuracy of which he himself vouches, will work conviction.

The letter reads in part:

Suppose, ten years ago, you had paid down, say $10 on a piece of cheap land.

Then from time to time you had paid in say $10 per month on the same land. Had you been able to buy then as you can buy from us now, your land would have been secured to you on your first payment.

Now figure out what you would have paid in at $10 per month in ten years. Now, remembering that well-selected land doubles in value once, at least, every five years, what would you be worth now, from your $10-a-month investment?

The letter proved the best puller of a series of try-outs sent to professional men and men on salaries.

Every man has, as a by-product of his every-day experience, certain more or less clearly defined impressions. With some men these are still in a sort of hazy formation; with others these vague ideas are almost a cult. The letter-writer who can tap one of these lines of thought gets results in a flash. Such letter takes a basis of facts common to most men, blends them in the letter written, so as to form fixedly from the _prospect's own ideas and experiences_, a firm conviction that what the writer is saying is absolute truth. A single sentence that does not ring true to a man's experience is an obstacle over which the message will not carry.

A company selling land in the west, sent out a five-page letter-- enough to smother whatever interest might have been attracted by the advertis.e.m.e.nt. Here is the third paragraph from the letter:

"As you were attracted by this investment opportunity after reading the straight facts regarding it, I have come to believe in your judgment as a careful and prudent person who recognizes the value of a good, permanent, promising investment."

That's enough! It is barely possible that the first few paragraphs might arouse the reader's interest enough to glance through the five pages, but this crude attempt to flatter him is such palpable "bunk"

that he is convinced there is not the sincerity back of the letter to make it worth his while--and five pages more are headed for the car-wheel plant.

The "man appeal" is one that draws strongly from man experience.

Ambition, responsibility, logical arguments, reasons why--these are the things that the correspondent keeps constantly before him. They all have root in experiences, habits of thought and customs which distinguish men; they are more exclusively masculine attributes that play an important part in the make-up of letters that rivet the attention of busy business men.

How To Write Letters That _Appeal_ to FARMERS

PART VI--THE APPEAL TO DIFFERENT CLa.s.sES--CHAPTER 24

_The farmer is a producer of necessities, hence he is a shrewd judge of what necessities are. More, he has always in mind a list of necessities that he intends to purchase--when he "can afford it."