72 Master Letters and What Made Them Pay
A 1924 report by the Bureau of Business Standards of the Shaw Publications, publishers of System magazine.
What it is
A 1924 report by the Bureau of Business Standards of the Shaw Publications, publishers of System magazine. The Bureau gathered 5,063 business letters with known results from more than 3,500 sources and kept 72, less than 2 percent. Each letter is reproduced in full beside a boxed note on its mailing and returns: a Dennison tag letter sent to 1,641 mills cost $136.12 and brought $6,685.19 in sales; a Phoenix Mutual letter drew 2,015 cards from 10,125 mailings and $1,151,100 in policies. The sections run from the hardest job, letters seeking firm orders, through inquiry letters, letters that open doors for salesmen, dealer letters, list building, samples and enclosures, and good-will letters, to collections. The commentary keeps returning to a few rules: build each letter on one Big Idea, match it to one of six prime motives, and test small keyed mailings before large ones.
Why read it now
Its value is that every example comes with its cost and its result, which most letter collections lack. Several rules match what direct response testing has found since: one clear idea beats a list of generalities, the offer must fit the reader's own business, a planned series outperforms a single send, and a keyed test of about 500 pieces before a large mailing is the ancestor of the A/B test. Taking sales arguments from real users, as the opening Mark Twain typewriter letter shows, is today's voice-of-customer research. What has dated: the six prime motives are a sales-manual list, not a tested model of motivation. The results are reported by the senders, with no control groups, so they show what worked once rather than what works in general. The long typed letter has given way to email and messaging, though the structure transfers. Use: before writing a sales email or WhatsApp sequence, state its one Big Idea and its motive in a single sentence, then send two coded versions to a small segment and scale the winner.
Passages worth keeping
A letter, however, is dumb before its prospect. It can hold up its message to be read, and that is all. It cannot answer fresh objection with fresh argument.
الرسالة لا تستطيع أن تحاور القارئ كما يفعل البائع، لذلك يجب أن تحمل الرد على اعتراضاته قبل أن يطرحها.
Have a real idea for your letter, or do not waste paper, ink and postage on it. Make it a Big Idea, and you have a fine chance to produce a winning letter.
الرسالة التي لا تقوم على فكرة حقيقية واحدة خسارة للمال، والفكرة الكبيرة هي أول شروط النجاح.
The six motives are of course love, gain, duty, pride, self-indulgence and self-preservation.
يقترح الكتاب أن يُربط العرض بواحد من ستة دوافع: المحبة، والكسب، والواجب، والفخر، والمتعة الشخصية، وحماية النفس.
Pounding the prospect without intermission on his pocketbook may lead him to think of you only in terms of price
إذا لم تتحدث مع العميل إلا عن الشراء والسعر، فسيراك مجرد سعر، لا جهة يثق بها.
Do not spend money in large mailings until you have tested several letters, and discovered by means of actual letters which one is the best puller.
اختبر عدة نسخ على عينة صغيرة قبل أن تنفق على الإرسال الواسع، ودع النتائج تختار الفائزة.
What it teaches best
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