Business Letters: How to Write Them
A business-English textbook by Tim Thrift, advertising manager of the American Multigraph Sales Company, with Benjamin J. Campbell and Bruce L. Vass, published in Jackson, Michigan.
What it is
A business-English textbook by Tim Thrift, advertising manager of the American Multigraph Sales Company, with Benjamin J. Campbell and Bruce L. Vass, published in Jackson, Michigan. The first half settles form: the six parts of a letter, titles and address, sentence unity and clearness, brevity, a conversational style, a list of stock phrases to drop such as "beg to advise" and "contents noted", then punctuation, figures, folding and envelopes. The second half covers routine letters, then the sales letter in four steps (attract attention, arouse interest, create desire, induce action), with an electric company's $12 kitchen-wiring letter annotated step by step, sample question openings, and ten inducements from premium to easy payments. Adjustment letters are taught through wrong and right replies, led by Wanamaker's cut-glass case; collection letters escalate from a friendly reminder to a legal threat. Exercises with named firms close each section.
Why read it now
The sales-letter chapter is AIDA in plain form, the sequence usually credited to E. St. Elmo Lewis, whom the book quotes. It still organizes most direct response copy, but reviews of ad research (Vakratsas and Ambler, 1999) found little support for buyers moving through fixed stages, so treat it as a checklist, not a map of the mind. The strongest pages are on complaints: assume the customer believes the complaint is fair, decide fast, and concede without haggling. The Wanamaker reply that ships a replacement by return mail and asks for no proof is still the model, and service-recovery research backs speed and ownership over blame. The advice to write from the reader's side, to assume he knows less than you think, and to tone down any claim that seems too good to be true holds up. What has dated: the grammar half, and pressure inducements like "last chance", which must now be true; in Saudi Arabia discount offers also need a Ministry of Commerce permit. Use: rewrite your complaint templates around the four functions listed on p. 103.
Passages worth keeping
You have got to start in at the place where you find him, else you will never get the chance to pull him along to the place where you want him to go.
ابدأ من حيث يقف القارئ ومن اهتماماته هو، وإلا فلن تتمكن من إيصاله إلى ما تريد أن يقتنع به.
It is better to err on the side of underestimating how much your reader knows than to give him credit for more knowledge than he has.
افتراض أن القارئ يعرف أقل أسلم من افتراض أنه يعرف أكثر، لأن المصطلحات الغامضة تفقدك انتباهه.
In fact, no matter how true a thing may be, if it seems, to the average person, too good to be true, you should modify it so that it will be accepted without question.
حتى الادعاء الصادق يجب تخفيفه إذا بدا للناس مبالغًا فيه، لأن ادعاء واحدًا غير مصدَّق يُسقط الثقة في بقية الرسالة.
Complaints must be handled on the assumption that the customer feels that he has grounds for his complaint.
تعامل مع كل شكوى على أن صاحبها يراها محقة، لا على أنها محاولة للاستغلال.
The customer's word was accepted as absolute proof.
في قصة واناميكر لم يُطلب من العميل أي دليل على الكسر، فكسب المتجر ولاءه بدل أن يخسره.
What it teaches best
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