Not only did this letter bring more replies than the other, but it made it easier to sell—either by means of personal selling efforts or by mail—to those who re sponded. The writer of this letter made the most of the fact that a buyer is inclined to be less responsive when he knows that the seller is acquainted with his need—unless he himself has informed the seller con cerning his need.
5. When to ask for the order.—The effectiveness of the letter just mentioned was due largely to the fact that it did not ask for an order prematurely, nor did it suggest that a response would be the signal for an avalanche of solicitations to land the business. Its one aim was to make the prospect really want this pump. Centering effort on arousing intense desire is the best method to secure the order. But in many cases, when competition for the business is most keen, the writer feels that there is no time to spare and he asks for the business too soon. Time and again in cases of keen competition, the salesman who gets the order is the one who holds back until he finds out all about the conditions, who does not rush in with the crowd to close the sale, but waits until he can better show the prospect how his product fits the conditions.
6. Description that sells the in quirer wants, as a rule, is information, not sales argu ments. The follow-up letter which shows that the writer is eager to supply all the information that the prospect needs in order to make up his mind inde pendently of a salesman's persuasion, is the kind of letter that many find to be most successful. It gives facts about the goods and about the use of them, rather than opinions or conclusions. Its descriptions of the goods or services in which the reader is inter ested are its greatest selling asset. These descriptions are nearly always concrete and concise, and they al ways are hooked up with the reader's interest. The following letter is a good example: Dear Sir: In the envelop attached to this letter is an illustrated de scription of our gas engine for irrigating.
You see all its parts are in plain view and easy to get at. You won't need to send to the factory for a special man with a special wrench to do the work when a nut or some other part needs tightening.
Sparkers sometimes get gummed up, but it is not any trouble at all to take out this sparker. Simply remove two nuts, and out comes the sparker complete. Wipe the point
off with a rag, put the sparker back in place, and presto ! You see the inventor of this machine had a good many years of practical experience in installing gasolene engines before he started to manufacture his own.
And the governor! It is the same type as that used on the highest grade of steam engine, allowing you to speed her up or slow her down while the engine is running. Few engines are built like this. It costs us a good deal of extra money, but it does give you a lot of extra satisfaction.
This is the beginning of a two-page letter all of which is devoted to description of this kind—the kind that keeps the reader in the picture. In this case, ad vantage was taken of the permission the postal au thorities gave to paste a letter in a separate envelop bearing first-class postage on the outside of a larger envelop containing the printed matter and bearing fourth-class postage. The opening paragraph of the letter refers the reader to the printed matter. This method made it certain that the catalog would reach the prospect at the same time that he got the letter.
7. Letters accompanying sales literature.—What the letter should be which accompanies the catalog or booklet, depends, of course, on the conditions peculiar to each case. If the booklet or catalog is long, and if only parts of it are of immediate interest to the ad dressee, the letter can be used to call attention to those parts. In some cases it pays to mark with a blue pencil the parts of the catalog which are of great est immediate interest to the reader. In general, the purpose of the letter should be to arouse interest in the printed material.
A clothing manufacturer who has had a great deal of success with letters, prepared a booklet for con sumers the object of which was to help solve the prob lem of getting the dealers to take the consumers' at titude toward this line of clothes. It was the task of the letter to get the dealer to read a booklet written for the consumer. This was accomplished by frankly explaining why it would be desirable for a dealer to put himself in the consumer's place and read the booklet just as if he were Mr. John Colby, the gro cery clerk, who wanted to get the best Sunday suit of clothes he could buy for about $15. Here is the let ter.