The pulling power of this letter was phenomenal; not only did thirty-five per cent of the list order, but twelve per cent in addition answered, stating that their orders could be depended upon later. In addition, there were scattering letters of encouragement and comment, making the total result a marker in the era of solicitation by mail.
What made this particular letter pull, when dozens of other letters, written by the same man to the same list on the same proposition, had attained only mediocre results?
The last letter made a distinctive appeal—to men—and particularly to men in business. For, since the time of "playing store," every man has met, in its many varied guises, the wolf of Failure—and once a fellow business man is in the same plight, the man who loves fairness will do his part to help out.
That these talking points that appeal to men are efficient is proved by such cases as just cited; once the man-to-man appeal is actually brought out, the response is immediate.
While such appeals occasionally make a ten-strike, the average correspondent must rely upon logic and "reasons why" in making his appeal to men.
The ability to reason from cause to effect, omitting none of the intermediate or connecting steps, has long been held to be a substantial part of the masculine mind. Orators have found that logic—conviction—may have little or no effect on a feminine audience and yet prove the surest means of convincing an audience of men. School teachers early note that the feminine portion of the school lean towards grammar—which is imitative and illogical—while the boys are generally best in mathematics, which is a hard and fast "rule" study.
Similarly in business, the average man is used to "working with his pencil," and will follow a logical demonstration to the close, where a woman would not give it a passing glance.
One of the latest selling campaigns, marketing town lots in various new towns between St. Paul and the Pacific Coast, appeals to the logical note in the masculine mind, and grants a concession in a follow-up, even before it is asked for. This makes a particularly strong appeal to the man who has begun to think about the proposition and who senses that, somehow, it is not quite logical.
We have a letter from a man who, like you, read our advertisement and sent for more information, including a copy of our contract, and he wrote as follows:
"I don't like the forfeiture clause in your contract. Under it, if a man paid you $950, and then lost his job and couldn't pay any more, you would have the right to gobble up all of his money and keep the lots too. You wouldn't dare to make a contract with me under which as soon as I had paid you $300 you would deed to me the first lot mentioned in my contract—the lot at ——-,—and then with each $100 paid in on the contract, deed me the next lot named in my contract. If you would do this, I would take your contract in a minute, because I would have some land for my money I paid in, if I had to quit before I paid you the full $1,000."