are working and that in another there is considerable unemployment. The
main point about all of these statistics is to be sure that what one
terms results are results, bearing in mind that it is the test and not
what one thinks about a letter that counts.

It is distinctly harmful for any one to say that a letter should be long
or short. It all depends on who is going to get the letter. The tendency
in recent years has been toward the very long sales letter. This is
because in a large number of cases the long letter has been singularly
effective. However, the long letter can be overdone. It is the test
that counts.

The exact purpose for which a letter is written is to be stated clearly
before entering upon the composition. Very few letters will sell
articles costing as much as fifty dollars unless perhaps the payments
are on the installment plan. Many men of experience put the limit as low
as five dollars. Others put it as high as one hundred dollars. It is
safe to say that the effectiveness of a letter which is designed to
achieve a sale decreases as the price of that which is offered for
sale increases. Therefore, most of the letters written concerning more
expensive articles are not intended to effect sales. They are designed
to bring responses that will furnish leads for salesmen.

Other letters are more in the nature of announcements, by which it is
hoped prospects may be brought into a store.

Where the article offered for sale is quite high in price, the letters
sometimes may be very expensively prepared. On one occasion the late
John H. Patterson, discovering that his salesmen could not get to the
heads of several department stores, ordered some very fine leather
portfolios. On each portfolio he had stamped the name of the man who was
to receive it. They were gifts such as any one would welcome and which
no one could possibly ignore. Inside each portfolio were contained a
letter and a number of photographs showing exactly what he desired to
have the agents demonstrate. Each gift cost about fifty dollars. He sent
the portfolios with his compliments. The secretaries of the men that he
wanted to interest could not possibly toss them away. They simply had
to give them to their principals. My impression is that the entire
expenditure ran to several thousand dollars, but as a result some two
hundred thousand dollars in sales were effected, for in practically
every case the photographs awakened an interest that le