Offer to sell for cash but with strong refunding guarantee;
Offer to supply article through local dealer on reader's authorization. With such an authorization, the advertiser has a good opening to stock the retailer.
The price feature offers one of the best opportunities to give the letter real inducement. If the price is in any sense a special price, make it clear that it is. Sometimes you can hang your whole letter on this one element.
Reduced price, if the reduction is set forth logically, is a strong feature. One publisher uses it in this fashion:
"We have just 146 sets of these books to sell at $18.50. When the new edition is in, it will be impossible to get a set at less than $25. The old edition is just as good as the new, but we are entirely out of circular matter describing the green cloth binding, and as we don't want to print a new lot of circulars just to sell 146 sets, we make this unusual offer. Now is your chance."
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Advance in price is almost as strong. It's a lever to quick action:
"On the 1st of October the rate of the MESSENGER will go up to one dollar a line. If you place your order before the thirtieth of this month you can buy space to be used any time before January 1 next at seventy-five cents a line. After the thirtieth, positively no orders will be accepted at less than one dollar a line. As a matter of fact our circulation entitles us to a dollar a line right now.
"Don't let this letter be covered up on your desk. Attend to this matter now, or instruct your advertising agent to reserve space for you, and get a big bargain."
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