There are businesses in which the dealers, who carry the goods in stock, are assisted by both the mail order and personal salesmanship branches in making the sale to the customer. An example is the piano business in which inquiries are referred to dealers, the dealer and prospective customer followed up by mail, and the traveling salesman sent to assist the dealer to close the sale. THE MAIL ORDER BRANCH When the mail order branch is spoken of it does not refer necessarily to an exclusive mail order business, but the term is used to identify the department in any concern which uses the mails to promote sales. While there are many exclusive mail order houses, employing no personal salesmen, there are practically no exclusively personal salesmanship houses. There may be no effort to secure direct orders in this manner, but the mails are used to influence sales. Extensive circularizing campaigns are conducted for the purpose of making known to the consumer the merits of certain commodities, which are sold only through dealers. In the sense here used, such campaigns are within the province of the mail order branch. =Form Letters.= An important factor in the conduct of the mail order branch, is the use of form letters. In a campaign intended to secure direct orders, the form letter takes the place of the personal salesman. The form letter presupposes a uniformity of conditions. It is written to appeal to certain desires of the recipient; its arguments are based on the supposition that the same desire exists in the minds of all to whom it is sent, and that the same arguments will cause its readers, as a class, to yield to those desires. The result of a form letter campaign depends on the extent to which the letter fulfills its mission in adapting itself to the conditions of the class to which it is sent--its adaptability to the mentality and environment of its readers. The same argument will not appeal to the mechanic, farmer, merchant, and banker. The failure of most form letter campaigns can be traced to one of two causes--failure to adapt the letter to existing conditions, or lack of judgment in selecting a list for a trial. The goods offered may be used by plumbers and lawyers, but the same letter should not be expected to _pull_ with both classes. Like the selling talk of the personal salesman, the letter should be changed for each class. Other conditions, also, must be studied. Iowa may have harvested a bumper crop, while Kansas suffers from a drought; mills in the Pittsburg district may be running overtime, while Buffalo is in the midst of local labor disturbances. All of these local conditions influence the results of the letter campaign.