"That's just the way the Ideal screen is made. It offers those advantages. It was placed on the market only a few months ago yet it is so practical and convenient that already we have been compelled to double the capacity of our factory to handle the growing business.
"All the wood work is made to harmonize with the finish of your rooms. Send the measure of your window and the colors you want and get a screen absolutely free for a week's trial. If you are not perfectly satisfied at the end of that time that it's the most convenient screen you ever used, you need send no money but merely return the screen at our expense.
"The Ideal screen is new; it is improved; it is the screen of tomorrow. Are you looking for that kind?"
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The news element may have its origin in some new feature, some attachment or patent that is of interest to the prospect. A manufacturer of furniture uses this approach effectively:
"The head of my designing department. Mr. Conrad, has just laid on my desk a wonderful design for something entirely new in a dining room table. This proposed table is so unique, so new, so different from anything ever seen before, I am having the printer strike off some rough proofs of this designer's drawing, one of which I am sending you under separate cover."
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This letter is manifestly a "today" product. It wins attention because it is so up to date, and a new article may possess the interest-compelling feature that will lead to an order.
Then there are the letters that tell of the purchase of goods. A retailer puts news value into his letter when he writes that he has purchased the entire stock of the bankrupt Brown & Brown at thirty-eight cents on the dollar and that the goods are to be placed on sale the following Monday morning at prices that will make it a rare sales event. This is putting into the letter news value that interests the customer. It is original because it is something that could not have been written a week before and cannot be written by anyone else.
Then there are other elements of news of wide interest—the opening of a new branch office, the increase of facilities by the enlargement of a factory, the perfecting of goods by some new process of manufacture or the putting on the market of some new brand or line. These things may affect the dealer in a very material way and the news value is played up in the most convincing style. The correspondent can bear down heavily on the better service that is provided or the larger line of commodities that is offered. Search through the catalogue of possibilities, and there is no other talking point that it seized upon more joyfully by the correspondent, for a news item, an actual occurrence or some new development that enables him to write forceful, interest-impelling letters, for the item itself is sufficient to interest the dealer or the consumer. All that is required of the correspondent is to make the most of his opportunity, seize upon this news element and mount it in a setting of arguments and persuasion that will result in new business, more orders, greater prestige.