Several concerns with a mind for statistical information have in the past so carefully compiled the effectiveness of their letters, but without regard to the product, that they have discovered an inordinately large number of things that cannot be done and extremely few things that can be done. This is the danger of placing too much faith in previous experience. One of these companies entirely discarded its records of what could not be done and started afresh. They found that several of the methods which they had previously used and discarded happened to do well under changed conditions and with different products.
If any large expenditure be contemplated then many tests should be made. The kind of envelope, the manner of addressing, the one cent as opposed to the two-cent stamp, the kind of letterhead, the comparative merits of printing, multigraphing, or electric typewriting, the length and composition of the letter, the effect of the return card, the effect of enclosing a stamped return card or a stamped return envelope, the method of signing, and so on, through each detail, must be tried out. No test is ever conclusive, but very little information of value is to be obtained by circularizing less than five hundred names. These names may be taken sectionally or at random. The sectional method is somewhat better, for then comparison of results in several sections may be made, and it may turn out that it would be well to phrase differently letters for different sections.
The returns on the letters are not of themselves conclusive. If one section responds and another does not, it is well to look into business conditions in the sections. It may be that in one section the people are working and that in another there is considerable unemployment. The main point about all of these statistics is to be sure that what one terms results are results, bearing in mind that it is the test and not what one thinks about a letter that counts.
It is distinctly harmful for any one to say that a letter should be long or short. It all depends on who is going to get the letter. The tendency in recent years has been toward the very long sales letter. This is because in a large number of cases the long letter has been singularly effective. However, the long letter can be overdone. It is the test that counts.
The exact purpose for which a letter is written is to be stated clearly before entering upon the composition. Very few letters will sell articles costing as much as fifty dollars unless perhaps the payments are on the installment plan. Many men of experience put the limit as low as five dollars. Others put it as high as one hundred dollars. It is safe to say that the effectiveness of a letter which is designed to achieve a sale decreases as the price of that which is offered for sale increases. Therefore, most of the letters written concerning more expensive articles are not intended to effect sales. They are designed to bring responses that will furnish leads for salesmen.
Other letters are more in the nature of announcements, by which it is hoped prospects may be brought into a store.
Where the article offered for sale is quite high in price, the letters sometimes may be very expensively prepared. On one occasion the late John H. Patterson, discovering that his salesmen could not get to the heads of several department stores, ordered some very fine leather portfolios. On each portfolio he had stamped the name of the man who was to receive it. They were gifts such as any one would welcome and which no one could possibly ignore. Inside each portfolio were contained a letter and a number of photographs showing exactly what he desired to have the agents demonstrate. Each gift cost about fifty dollars. He sent the portfolios with his compliments. The secretaries of the men that he wanted to interest could not possibly toss them away. They simply had to give them to their principals. My impression is that the entire expenditure ran to several thousand dollars, but as a result some two hundred thousand dollars in sales were effected, for in practically every case the photographs awakened an interest that led to an appointment with the salesman.
The following letters are intended to be suggestive. They cannot honestly be put forward as being more than that. They are all letters that have gained results under certain circumstances. That they will gain results under new and different circumstances is a matter on which no one can speak with any assurance. Every sales letter is a matter of cut and try. Some of these letters may produce results exactly as they stand. Others may better be used in combination.