Still another clever letter soliciting rentals of safe-deposit boxes proposed that in case the reader now had a box elsewhere, they would take the lease off his hands. In reality they merely gave him free rental until his other lease expired, but the scheme was cleverly planned.
A buggy maker wrote enclosing duplicate specifications of a buggy he had just had made for his own personal use, and suggested that he would have another made for the reader exactly like it and turned under the same careful supervision.
Letters that give the reader something or offer to give him something have similar effect. The letter about a new facial cream will command extra attention because of the small sample of the cream enclosed. In fact, one cold cream company finds it an effective plan to send a sample and a sales letter to druggists' mailing lists or to names taken from telephone books, telling the reader in the final paragraph that the cream can be purchased at the local drug store.
A letter offering a sample can of a high-grade coffee for the name of the reader's favorite grocer will bring a good response and afford the advertiser a strong hold on the grocer.
A favorite method of securing savings depositors is to send a good "savings letter" that offers a free home-savings bank or a vest-pocket saver.
Even calendars may be given out more effectively by sending a letter and telling the reader that a good calendar has been saved for him and asking him to call at the office.
A striking paragraph of a real estate dealer's soliciting letter is one that asserts that the dealer has a client with the cash who wants just about such a house as the reader of the letter owns.
A real estate dealer, whose specialty is farms, has this telling sentence in his original letter: "Somewhere there is a man who will buy your farm at a good price; I should like to find that man for you."
There is hardly a product or a proposition that does not offer opportunity to put some scheme behind the letter. And such a plan doubles the appeal of the original sales letter. But once more, remember, not to put all your ammunition into the first letter. Be prepared to come back in your second and third letters, not simply with varied repetitions, but with more reasons for buying. Make your first letter as strong as you can, but at the same time—pave the way.
The Letter That Will BRING an Inquiry