FOLLOW-UP LETTERS OUTLINE I. Principles underlying the writing of Follow-Up Letters. II. Sources for compiling the Mailing List. III. Means of testing the pulling power of the appeal. FOLLOW-UP LETTERS "But there are various kinds of letters-sales letters, collection letters, promotion letters, and many others, so we naturally wonder to which classification the term follow-up' applies, and why. The explanation is simple. Every letter which is written is written for a purpose. Until that purpose is accom plished, the letter has only partly succeeded. A sales letter is written for the purpose of making a sale, and if the first letter fails it should be followed by another letter, and another, and another, until the sale is made. A collection letter is sent to get money, and if it fails its followers should go on and on until one finally brings home the bacon.' Advertising letters are intended to bring inquiries and when one or twenty fail, the twenty-first should not end the series unless it gets what it goes after."-0. H. Kepley, in "Follow-Up Letters," issued by The American Multigraph Sales Company. (1) Principles underlying the writing of Follow-Up Letters. Each separate advertisement in an advertising campaign is closely related, in purpose and in subject matter, to preceding and to subsequent advertisements. Never does one advertisement stand alone. The selling campaign extending, it may be, over a period of years is planned as a whole, of which each separate appeal is a component part. It may be that the first advertisements are planned at "educating" the prospect; advertisements next following, it may be, are aimed at acquainting the prospect with the distinguishing merit which makes the product stand apart from other products of the same type; and, based upon the assumption that the prospect now is familiar with the service rendered by the type of product and with the distinguishing merits of the particular make of product, the final advertisements, it may be, are devoted either to proof or to publicity, that is, to impressing forcefully upon the mind of the prospect the trade name of the product. Business letters, like advertisements, are most likely to be effective when they are arranged as related units in a series. Such a series is known as a Follow-Up Series, since each letter after the first is so planned. as to "follow up" the appeal of the letter or letters that have preceded it. In the case of sales letters,' the Follow-Up Series may be classified in accordance with the duration of the appeal, as follows: (1) Wear-Out. (2) Continuous. In the Wear-out Series, each letter aims either at closing the sale immediately by mail, or, more likely, at causing the prospect immediately to agree to a demonstration or to the visit of a salesman, the expectation being that the visit or the demonstration will end in a sale. The series ends only when returns no longer make it profitable to send out additional letters to the prospects still on the mailing list. The Wear-Out series is based upon the principle that no two prospects, even though members of the same class, respond exactly in the same way to any given sales appeal; hence, different selling arguments or different methods of presenting the same argument must be employed in dealing effectively with different prospects. This series has, it may be said, the virtue of persistency; as by its very reiteration of selling arguments, it likely will make a lasting impression of the merits of the product upon the mind of the prospect. If the central selling argument has been carefully selected after talking with a considerable number of members of the class to which the appeal is made, and therefore may be relied upon to match the vital needs of this class, the better plan is to limit the Wear-Out series to this one selling argument, advancing it from different angles in each letter, and thus finally winning its acceptance by the largest possible number of prospects on the mailing list. When, however, two or more selling arguments of cardinal importance suggest themselves, the series may be effectively developed around more than one point, with the expectation that prospects who are unresponsive to the first selling argument will be influenced by the second. The Continuous Follow-Up entails a steady and consistent effort to develop trade. Its likely purpose is to keep up a continual flow of information that will interest the prospect, or the customer, in your goods, or that will interest him in the service you extend, or that will increase 1 The principles underlying the planning of Follow-up Letters in a Collection Series, are dealt with in Chapter XXX. |