Here's the story. This inner tube is going to be listed in our new 1916 Automobile Supply Catalog for $2.85. It is one of the sensational values we show. It is different ; we think it is better ; but before we crow about it we want your opinion.
Now this is what we want you to do. Place the Riverside Inner Tube on your Ford. Drive about as you please, test it fully. If at the end of 30 days you do not think the Riverside a real good tube for the money, throw it away and tell us on the back of this letter why you did so. If you do find it satisfactory, send us $2.00 with this letter, and any comment you have to make.
Now understand, you are to be the only judge and we want you to be critical. If the inner tube is not as good as we think it is we want to know it. But we hope that it will prove itself to be an exceptional value and will serve to ac quaint you with our ability to save you money on automobile supplies.
After thirty days—will you please let us know the result of your test? Thank you.
Yours very truly, Would the owner of a Ford car who received this letter and the inner tube in the same mail, be likely to do as requested? If one can appreciate accurately how such a letter would impress him as a prospective buyer, typical of the men to whom this letter was sent, he has practical imagination of the sort that is the fundamental basis of effective letter writing.
The letter quoted was not successful, because the writer lacked practical foresight concerning the read er's point of view regarding the proposal, or failed to exercise it. This principle—to see yourself and your concern and your proposition as the reader does and to take full advantage of this ability to see thru an other's eyes—is the very essence of good salesmanship.
5. Application of this consider the letter just quoted—from the reader's point of view. It is correct in mechanical form and expression. The fault lies deeper than appearance, as is nearly always the case when letters are not effective. It reads smoothly. Its tone is effective. It looked good to the writer. From his point of view it was an excel lent letter, with life and individuality in it. He wanted to know why it had failed. Therefore, he took time to go out and talk to several Ford owners about it.
His inquiries revealed to him that he had been ask ing Ford owners to take a great amount of trouble in order to help him find out whether or not his article was any good. He then understood why no trials of the inner tube had been made except in the case of one man who at the time happened to need a new one.
This man had sent two dollars for it by return mail without comment. Many of the hundred tubes were returned immediately. A few of them were kept un til the recipients might need them—longer than thirty days in most cases.
The selling plan in this letter was ineffective; but from the reader's point of view it has faults in addition to those involved in its selling plan. For example, the first part of the first paragraph is unnecessary, while part of it is unfortunate in its effect. PerimPs the words "just the same," sound natural and sincere, but they cause the reader to feel that the letter at tempts to force him to do something he might not want to do. A11 buyers dislike to be driven.
When he had learned conditions as they exist, from the point of view of Ford owners, the writer of this letter concluded that any letter designed to sell inner tubes would probably not pay unless lie could devise a plan which would enable him to send his message at the time when the reader was in need of a new inner tube. He might write with the purpose of causing the reader to remember his product and its attractive price when an inner tube was needed. In other words, when he put himself in the reader's place, the limited results that might reasonably be expected from his letter became apparent. The plan of the letter is clever—from the writer's point of view only, for it merely causes the reader to question the quality of the product, if indeed lie really reads intently enough to understand the message.
6. Purpose of business letters.—Business letters are written not to entertain, or to please, or to ex cite admiration, or to do anything except to gain an effect which will promote the business interests of the writer. The effective business correspondent thinks always in terms of effects. If he anticipates accurately the effect of what he says, he will not, for instance, attempt to get a practically impossible re sult. He will know the conditions which he must guard against or take advantage of. Either he will undertake to modify conditions that cause the recipi ent's attitude to be unfavorable toward the proposal in his letter, or he will shape his selling plan for meet ing these adverse conditions to the best advantage. He knows the vital difference between a letter that is effective and a letter that is merely correct.