Think of the mail you send to your friends. In your correspondence, you might put a recent photograph or two in the envelope, enclose a few local news clippings, and even insert your business card if it seems appropriate. But you would never mail your friends these items without including a page or more of personal communication. Not if you want a response.
The same is true for business mail. Letters communicate. They have the power to bring advertising to a very personal, individual level. Apart from the outer envelope itself, the letter is invariably the most read piece in a direct mail package. Yet it is surprising how many companies still send out sales materials without even a cover note.
Letters enclosed in direct response mail packages are often called "lift letters." Their purpose is to lift response.
The writing style used for the lift letter should be significantly more personal than that used for a sales brochure. It should be reader directed, emphasizing "you," the individual, instead of "You" the target group.
The lift letter should avoid the "corporate voice." It should read like it was written by a real person, not a company or a committee. Liberal use of the pronoun "I" is appropriate in a lift letter; "We" is much less effective.
In Japan, lift letters often start with a formal greeting paragraph and end without a personal signature. The pronouns "you" and "I" appear far less frequently in a Japanese letter, as they are often understood in context, rather than being written explicitly.
This follows standard Japanese letter-writing style, and it will be appropriate for many types of mail pieces. But the tone and manner of a Japanese lift letter should still be personal, rather than corporate. Stiff, overly formal prose should be avoided. It is possible to be respectful, polite, and human at the same time.
The two most important paragraphs of the letter are the first (which comes after the formal greeting paragraph in Japanese) and the last (which is commonly in the P.S. portion in most lift letters).
Writers have found that changing the first sentence of the first paragraph of the lift letter can affect overall response to a mailing by 20-50%! This sentence is usually quite short (less than 14 words) and it contains a powerful benefit for reading on. For example:
"You can save up to 23% on your very next overseas phone call."
Many readers skip straight from the opening to the end of the letter, and there the P.S. should provide a call to action. It should offer a benefit for responding and create a sense of urgency. This is often accomplished by stating a deadline for response, or by offering an incentive.
"To register for immediate savings of up to 23% on your overseas calls, simply dial our service center at 0120-00-0000. The first 100 callers this week will receive a free telephone card, too, so don't delay. Call now and start saving today."
All paragraphs should be less than 8 lines long. Most should be 3-5 lines. Type size should be 9 points or larger. Type faces should be with serif (in Japanese, a "wabun-taipu" font looks good for letters). Subheads may be used to break up copy, but an effort should be made to avoid a brochure copy look. Similarly, justification of lines (right margin) should be avoided; leave the right side ragged, as if you typed it (this does not apply to Japanese, of course, as all Japanese writing is right-justified).
A U.S. company operating in Japan wanted to know if long letters or short letters brought more response from Japanese readers. Their control package in America contained a 1-page lift letter, so their prototype package for Japan also contained a 1-page letter. They subsequently tested 2-page and 4-page letters. As the number of pages increased, so did response.
This came as a surprise. In pre-test research, four focus groups had unanimously preferred the shorter letters. No one would bother to read a 4-page letter, they had concluded. Yet the 4-page letter worked best. Why?
In the U.S., their brand was well known. It needed little explanation or persuasion to be sold. In Japan, the company was a relative newcomer. A long letter provided the information and developed the rapport needed to sell the product.
Even though 24 people in four focus groups had turned thumbs down to the 4-page letter, the sample was too small to predict response. In this case, a 1% response rate to the mailing was achieved, outpulling the control by a rate of 5 to 3. In effect, 99 out of 100 people had turned down the 4-page letter offer, and one per 100 had responded.
But that's exactly the principle behind the long letter. Unlike a mass-printed brochure, it wasn't written for every 100 persons in the target group: It was written for the one person who was going to respond, the person who needed considerable information and persuasion to make a purchase decision.
So instead of mailing out sales materials ad hoc, mail out letters. Get the response you want by communicating on a personal level with that individual who is going to respond.