Conducting a Mail Order Business
A short British handbook in Pitman's Popular Business Books series, for shopkeepers and beginners weighing up selling by post.
What it is
A short British handbook in Pitman's Popular Business Books series, for shopkeepers and beginners weighing up selling by post. Bull opens by warning that American mail order figures do not transfer to Britain, where almost everyone lives near shops. He then covers the machine behind the trade: a department of a shop or a separate business (Mr. Callowhawk, an Exeter tobacconist, is the test case), capital and banking, warehouse and dispatch, cash and credit bookkeeping, and the card index. The advertising chapter says the owner must be able to judge advertisements himself, gives five tests for reading other people's ads, and holds that a mail order advertiser must give a reason why. The last chapter traces one invented campaign, a publisher selling a three-volume reference work at £2 12s. 6d., from card index to keyed ads, a free booklet and signed follow-up letters. All names are fictitious.
Why read it now
The advertising and follow-up chapters are the useful part, and later response testing supports most of them. One action per ad, clear ordering instructions, a stated reason to buy by post instead of in a shop, and keyed ads that separate inquiries from sales are still standard practice in direct response and e-commerce. His point that a poor man inquires eagerly and never buys, while a rich man writes idly and pays in full, is the gap between lead volume and lead quality that paid social campaigns still miss. His test of judging only ads on subjects you care nothing about is a simple way to take personal interest out of creative review. His warning that an owner who cannot judge ads should not hand them to an agency still holds. What has dated: the bookkeeping, the card drawers and the costs. His taste for plain, editorial-looking ads is stated as personal prejudice, though later readership data reported by David Ogilvy leaned his way. Use: write in one line why the buyer should order online instead of visiting a shop, and put that line in the first frame.
Passages worth keeping
People are like that. There are a few heroes who can't be crushed and they will rise superior to a complicated advertisement. But their money isn't enough in itself for profitable trade.
قلة من القراء تصبر على إعلان معقد التعليمات، لكن مالهم وحده لا يكفي لتجارة رابحة، فالوضوح شرط للبيع.
After all, an advertisement is an argument.
الإعلان حجة تقدمها للقارئ، هي نفسها التي كنت ستقولها له لو كنت تحدثه وجهًا لوجه.
Pay attention particularly to those advertisements that attract you and yet that deal with subjects you are not interested in.
إذا جذبك إعلان عن موضوع لا يهمك، فهذا دليل على جودة الإعلان نفسه، لا على اهتمامك بموضوعه.
But don't arouse curiosity in Mount Everest and try to satisfy it with a keyless watch.
إثارة الفضول مفيدة بشرط أن تقود إلى المنتج نفسه، أما الصورة التي لا علاقة لها بما تبيعه فتربك القارئ.
A poor man may write yearningly to find out about an advertised book and never be able to buy it
عدد الاستفسارات لا يساوي عدد المبيعات، فبعض من يسأل بحماس لا يقدر على الشراء، لذلك تقاس كل صحيفة بما تجلبه من مبيعات.
What it teaches best
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