Form Letters. An important factor in the conduct of the mail order branch, is the use of form letters. In a campaign intended to secure direct orders, the form letter takes the place of the personal salesman.
The form letter presupposes a uniformity of conditions. It is written to appeal to certain desires of the recipient; its arguments are based on the supposition that the same desire exists in the minds of all to whom it is sent, and that the same arguments will cause its readers, as a class, to yield to those desires.
The result of a form letter campaign depends on the extent to which the letter fulfills its mission in adapting itself to the conditions of the class to which it is sent—its adaptability to the mentality and environment of its readers. The same argument will not appeal to the mechanic, farmer, merchant, and banker.
The failure of most form letter campaigns can be traced to one of two causes—failure to adapt the letter to existing conditions, or lack of judgment in selecting a list for a trial. The goods offered may be used by plumbers and lawyers, but the same letter should not be expected to pull with both classes. Like the selling talk of the personal salesman, the letter should be changed for each class.
Other conditions, also, must be studied. Iowa may have harvested a bumper crop, while Kansas suffers from a drought; mills in the Pittsburg district may be running overtime, while Buffalo is in the midst of local labor disturbances. All of these local conditions influence the results of the letter campaign.
As to lists used for trials, the more usual mistake is in the use of too small a list. Some sales managers, who have mailing lists of from 25,000 to 100,000 names, profess to try out a letter with a list of 300 to 500 names. A list of this size is not sufficient to give an actual test of the pulling power of any letter. Some of the most successful letter salesmen give it from their experience that the very smallest list from which a safe test can be made is 1,000 names.
Keying Form Letters. It is just as necessary to key form letters as to key magazine ads. The key makes it possible to trace results. The question of keying is most important when a series of letters is used—which is true in most campaigns—for it then becomes necessary to check the returns from each letter in the series. When one letter only is sent to a given list, the replies received from that list can be safely credited to the letter.
There are several methods of keying form letters, among which are the following: the reader may be requested to address his reply to a certain department; he may be offered a sample or some novelty; or the letter may be written in the first person singular so that replies will naturally be addressed to the writer.
The writer confesses to a preference for the last named method. The average mail order buyer likes to feel that he is receiving personal attention—that there is someone in the house to whom he can write, instead of addressing the house. A personal touch can be put into the letter signed by an individual that is impossible in a letter signed in the name of the house.