Page 243 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

writing a letter and then enclosing a return card which gives the man the
whole proposition in a nutshell without any sales setting is common. It has
been found by many tests that when a return card is enclosed with a letter, or
with a circular, that most business men will read the return card first because
they have learned by long experience that they can get the whole proposition
in a nutshell from the return card with a good deal less effort and a good deal
less reading than they can from the circular itself. It is therefore fatal in
planning a sales letter to tell too much in the return card. Some very effective
letters have depended upon perfectly blank cards, on which the recipient
jotted down his reply in his own way.

The Mechanics of a Good Sales Letter

When a sales letter is produced on the typewriter, and is a personally dictated
letter, it is important that it be planned in such a way as to invite reading
rather than repel reading. Many of the most prominent business concerns are
very lax in the proper construction and technical arrangement of their
business correspondence. Every concern should have a manual of style which
can be turned over to a stenographer when she is first employed and which
she can follow. Such a manual is the most practical way to build up standards
in your correspondence. It not only saves the time of the stenographer, but it
is good to fall back upon if some of the older stenographers become careless.

Such a manual of style should discuss, first of all, “Clearness.” It should
impress upon both the dictator and the stenographer the importance of
making a letter clear. That is to say—in using short sentences and
paragraphing it properly; also punctuating it correctly so that the meaning
will be easily followed. The use of long words should be mentioned
particularly. Language which is understood by the highly educated man is not
always so easily understood by the man of average education.

It was said of Cyrus Curtis, of the Curtis Publishing Company, that a great
deal of his success was due to his ability to edit letters. He was adept at
wielding the blue pencil. One of his regular stunts was to take the last
paragraph of a letter and put it up front.