Web Vintage Literature

Chapter 4. How to Start a Letter Attention

Most men want to read your letters. Even a busy man a man whose daily mail runs into hundreds of pieces is just as anxious to read what you have to say as you are to have him. But he can the simply cant.

He opens the sheet with interest, even with enthusiasm. What's this? he says. From Jones and Company who are they? what's their proposition? blank books, eh? well be needing some pretty soon and I'm not entirely satisfied with the last lot we bought from Smith and Company.

That's your mans attitude nine times in ten. He's ready, willing, anxious to be favorably impressed with your sales letter, and what does he get?

A stereotyped opening.

A pointless proposition that probably does not contain the very information he wants. A groveling, beseeching, spineless superscription.

The first acts upon his interest about as a pail of cold water would; the second irritates him; the last if he ever gets that far simply adds speed to the fillip with which he files it in the nearby wastebasket.

If your letters do not bring results, do not console yourself with the false belief that all sales letters are scrapped by the clerk or boy who opens the mail. Once in a hundred times maybe. The other ninety and nine failures are due to some fault with the letter or the proposition it presents.

Not, understand me, that I claim Graphics any letter will give returns in every case, but the right sort of a letter will invariably leave the right sort of an impression. Your man may not be in the market, he may not feel able to make the immediate investment, and he may be engrossed with matters of such importance as not to be able to study your proposition. But if the letter is right, it will do its work.

A bad start will kill an otherwise passable sales letter.

What is a bad start? I should say any opening which does not nail attention with the first phrase, which does not turn this attention to vital, personal interest.

Attention!

Study that word carefully. There are as many ways of attracting attention, as there are colors in the rainbow. A few primary rules may be evolved, but these are subject to an infinite number of shadings and variations. Personal taste will determine how best to attract attention in different classes of letters; conditions, moods and the exigencies of the moment will govern the exact coloring and tone of the individual letter. Your start should make the reader feel as if you yourself were at his desk, making your talk.

As you hope to do this by all means steer away from the stereotyped opening. You will never get a mans attention if you begin in the same old commonplace way: I have the honor to inform you, or In reply to yours of the 18th I beg to state. There is no particular honor involved in informing me and no reason on earth why a man should beg to state something I have asked him. A businessman told me that he got so sick of begging letters that he fired them all into the wastebasket.

Why not say what you have to say right off the bat? When I write for a catalogue, for example, why should a man begin his letter in reply with a preamble like this: Answering your recent favor addressed to our office, we wish to state that under separate cover we are mailing you a copy of our 1911 catalogue and trust you may find such a lamp as you require illustrated therein.

Why not break right in: The catalogue you asked for the other day is going to you in this mail and we are so confident that you will find listed in it just the kind of a lamp you want that we want you to go through it very carefully. What's the difference? I feel instinctively on reading the first that they are sending me that catalogue as a favor. The other gets my attention and interest because I am made to feel there is a lamp in that catalogue that I want.

After all, the easiest and best way to start a letter is to be perfectly natural. When a clothier answers my inquiry with Agreeable to your request of recent date we enclose you our booklet, he not only fails to make a good impression, but he actually makes a bad one. He begins that way simply because he thinks formalities are necessary. But in doing so he flies wide of a good beginning because the sentence is not only stilted, but also it implies that he is condescending to do me a favor.

How much more natural it is to begin as this motor manufacturer does: Our idea in the manufacture of a motor is just this the customer wants a motor that is mechanically correct. And here is a man who would sell me a cedar chest. He gets my attention and interest from the start when he says: You know that in Colonial days nothing was considered equal to a red cedar chest for preserving furs, blankets, etc.

Some writers of success-bringing letters consider that the problem of gaining attention is solved best by use of several words, sometimes displayed in capitals or underlined, as the first paragraph of the letter, thus:

Dear Sir BIG PROFITS FOR YOU!

Dear Sir: FIRE TWO OF YOUR CLERKS.

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Dear Mr. Burke:

Attention won You wouldn't think of throwing away your fountain pen simply because the ink in exhausted.

Explanation and argument Then why throw away your worn duplicating machine ribbons? We can re-ink them as well as you can fill your fountain pen.

Argument and proof If you will examine one of your apparently worthless ribbons you will find that the fabric is scarcely worn at all. We take these, treat them with our special process, refill them with ink and return them to you practically new ribbons and for only one-half the cost.

Persuasion Clincher Read the enclosed folder it explains our proposition fully. But a trial will convince you. And the sooner you send them then the more you'll save.

Why not pack them up, put on the enclosed shipping label and send them along right now?

Yours very truly,

Here is a sales letter that is especially good because it presents its proposition fully and clearly, and makes a strong and convincing appeal in a few paragraphs. All the elements of salesmanship are present, yet they are so cleverly interwoven that the letter stands, first of all, as a unit.

Attention is won through a combination o the two methods of opening a letter recommended in this chapter use of the word you and a direct unusual statement. Another virtue of the opening is that it states a fact that the reader is forced to agree to, thus laying the basis of confidence that is so desirable in every selling transaction.

The first three paragraphs explain the proposition and all are likewise full of argument. Proof of the reasonableness of the proposition is offered in the suggestion that the reader examine the ribbons himself.

There is both persuasion and inducement in paragraph fours urgent argument of money saved, and the close is a good example of how action may be prompted when you do not give the prospect anything to sign. Two instances are presented of calling attention to enclosures without breaking the continuity of the letter, and the reference to the shipping label is an especially good example of making it easy for the prospect to order.

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Dear Sir: You MUST act today.

Dear Sir: MAY I GIVE YOU $1000.00?

This plan is based upon successful advertising practice. It is to a sales letter what a catch-line is to an advertisement. You summarize the most striking feature of your proposition into the smallest possible number of words and hurl them at your prospective buyer with all the emphasis at your command.

Used with discretion, the idea is excellent. It makes the reader sit up. The human mind is so constructed that it requires a positive and conscious mental effort to turn aside from any thing that has aroused curiosity. The normal operation of the mind is to satisfy that curiosity, even though the readers cold reason tells him that h is not likely to be interested. An admirable example of this scheme was the letter of a magazine publisher addressed to subscribers from whom renewals of subscriptions were being solicited. The letter opened with the single word

Expired!

Very few of those who received that letter failed to read further to learn who, or what, had expired. Another instance is that of a collection agency. This concern had a series of form letters designed to facilitate collections, and the circular letter through which it brought the proposition to the attention of possible clients opened

YOU DO NOT PAY YOUR BILLS PROMPTLY, SIR!

Naturally, the man who received such a slap in the face did not toss the letter aside without learning more.

The advantage of the display-line opening is that it virtually compels the reader to continue into the second paragraph of your letter. The danger is that you may arouse an interest which the balance of your communication, or the merit of your proposition, does not justify. This style of opening is like the catch-line of an advertisement or the headline of a newspaper article. The ad-writer who shrieks Price Slaughtered and then lists staple goods at prevailing prices misses fire.

The newspaper which habitually employs lurid headlines and six-inch type to set forth the ordinary doings of a dull day has nothing in reserve when an event warranting the spread eagle scream line occurs. The method is one to use sparingly and only when other means fail.

Next in importance to the display-line as a means of riveting attention, stands the work You. Nothing is so important to a man as himself; there is no subject on which he would rather talkor listen. Some say this is vanity. It is not. No man ever amounted to anything who did not consider himself, his methods, plans, judgment, accomplishments, to be thoroughly practical and worthy of emulation. This is not smugness or self-complacency. It is the normal attitude of a man entitled to sit at a roll-top desk. It is, if you please, your own attitude the attitude of self-respect. The intelligent writer of sales letters will employ the word You with tact and discretion. Because it is the open sesame to every mans attention is the very reason why it should be carefully guarded and sparingly used for business getting at all times.

A sales letter is designed to lead a man to a new interest, change a mans point of view or alter his past convictions. Before he reads the letter he holds one of three views; either he never heard of your proposition (in which case he must be enlightened); or he is satisfied with his present goods or methods; or he has an active prejudice against you.

In any case, his opinion must be respected, though you are writing in an endeavor to alter it.

To open a letter with, You realize, of course, that you are losing money by not buying our is to insult your prospective customer by telling him that he is deliberately throwing away money. You is the second most important word in the vocabulary and the second oldest. As an attention compeller it is without peer, but it is a word with which one may not take liberties. The writer of sales letters must remember that he is generally addressing a stranger, and that while a friendly, natural, man-to-man attitude is desirable, nothing that verges upon familiarity will be tolerated. You is familiar. It will, without doubt, get the readers attention.

Therefore, be sure that it gets the right sort of attention. When a certain eminent surgeon was asked what part of the human body was most sensitive, he replied, The pocketbook. Even a crude appeal to the purse will win attention. Men are in business to make money. The individual to whom your sales letter is addressed is as intent on money getting as yourself. These, then, are points upon which we may be sure we can gain instant attention the display line, the word You and the appeal to the pocket.

It is easy enough to attract attention: the rub comes when you endeavor to vitalize that attention into personal, undivided interest.

The first is a trick of words. Cry Stop! and every man within hearing will turn to your call. But the next word uttered must make its personal appeal or the attention gained is again lost. And attention lost is a double loss, for a man once tricked into pausing to hear something of no interest will not be tricked again.

That, I believe, is the most treacherous pitfall of the writer of sales letters the employment of shrewd means to gain a hearing and the failure to take advantage of the opportunity with a letter which will interest, persuade and finally carry absolute conviction. Too many writers stop half way. They are like a chap I knew at collegial ways able to get a job but never able to hold one. He told me it was because the gilt wore off.

You have your mans attention: now for his interest!

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SUGGEST that you can help the reader of your letter and you have his attention. Tell how, and you have his interest. Prove it, and you are likely to have his signature.