L HOW TO WRITE ADVERTISEMENTS THAT SELL METHCJS BT WHICH 146 SHREWD ADVERTISERS PIAN IAYOUI&PLACE THEIR COtY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2.011 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/howtowriteadvertOOawsh HOW TO WRITE ADVERTISEMENTS THAT SELL HOW TO PLAN EVERY STEP IN YOUR CAMPAIGN — USING SALES POINTS, SCHEMES AND INDUCE- MENTS—HOW TO WRITE AND LAY OUT COPY— CHOOSING PROSPECT LISTS AND MEDIUMS— TESTS AND RECORDS THAT INCREASE RETURNS HOW 146 SHREWD AD- VERTISERS PLAN AND PLACE THEIR COPY A. W. SHAW COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK A/W. SHAW COMPANY, Ltd., LONDON 1912 # eSS&InM! OTHER "HOW- BOOKS" How to Increase Your Sales How to Increase a Bank's Deposits How to Systematize the Day's Work How to Get More Out of Your Factory How to Increase the Sales of a Store How to Sell Real Estate at a Profit How to Sell More Life Insurance How to Sell More Fire Insurance How to Write Letters that Win How to Talk Business to Win How to Write Advertisements that Sell How Scientific Management is Applied How to Sell Office Appliances and Supplies How to Get More Power From Coal How to Collect Money by Mail How to Finance a Business Others in Preparation BUSINESS MAN'S ENCYCLOPEDIA {Two Volumes) BUSINESS MAN'S LIBRARY {Ten Volumes) BUSINESS LAW LIBRARY {Five Volumes) BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION THE SYSTEM OF BUSINESS {Ten Units— Thirty Volumes) In Preparation ^K THE MAGAZINE OF MANAGEMENT ^Qfr Copyright, 1912, by A. W. SHAW COMPANY CONTENTS PART I HOW TO PLAN AND PREPARE What Makes Men Buy Chapter Page I Finding the Vital Selling Points 7 II Rousing the Motives that Make Men Buy .... 14 III Advertising to Sell a Single Line or Product ... 20 IV Making Copt Sell Store Products 26 V Combining Appeals to Win the Average Prospect • 32 PART II NOVEL WAYS TO REINFORCE YOUR COPY Clinching Sales by Special Appeal VI Putting Sales Schemes into Copy 41 VII How to Use Pictures and Samples 48 PART III HOW TO WRITE THE ADVERTISEMENT AND MAKE THE LAYOUT Get Greater Pulling Power VIII Attention-Getting Headlines and Displays .... 57 IX Making Copy Plain and Interesting 62 X Writing in the Reasons Why 69 XI How to Word Inducements and Insure Response . . 75 XII Blocking out Your Advertisement 80 3 4 CONTENTS PART IV PLANNING OUT MEDIUMS. SPACE AND APPROPRIATIONS Putting Your Campaign Into Effect Chapter Paq« XIII Locating Your High-Profit Prospects 89 XIV Choosing Profitable Sales Mediums and Lists ... 95 XV How Much to Spend for Advertising 100 XVI How to Start the Campaign 105 PART V RAISING YOUR AVERAGE OF RETURNS Holding the Stop Watch on Your Advertising XVII Testing to Determine Your Best Copy and Mediums Ill XVIII Making the Campaign Measure up to Test . . . .117 XIX Keeping Reference Records and Specimen Advertisements 120 XX How to Plan Your Next Campaign by Past Averages 125 II* What Makes Men Buy ADVERTISING is one of three great selling forces: The salesman speaking, the sales letter written, the advertisement printed, all aim to arouse demand for goods — all, through their various mediums, carry the one vital message that makes sales Advertising is more than proper type or strong layout, stylish dress for page or circular; more than honest state- ment or attention-getting use of colors, size and position; more even than judgment in the choice of efficient, eco- nomical mediums; more than business ability in eliminat- ing dead names from mailing lists and getting big space value for the season's appropriation. A flaw in the mechanical chain of advertising often lets the entire cam- paign fall. But you may get perfection in all these de- tails, and your advertising still will fail, until you find the appeal that makes men buy. This message that runs through sales talk, sales letter and sales copy is the central strand of advertising that pulls. Does it grip your prospects? Does it tell them of the in- most advantages offered in your product and sales plan? Does it talk your wants or my profits? The skillful copywriter makes his message rich with buy- ing reasons and buying attractions — with the product's flavor and the prospect's deepest desires. He knows his goods and his trade so well that to every foreseen recoil or turn of inattention in the reader he matches the logical buying impulse, until his advertisement neutralizes and counteracts every prospect's inclination to save, to put off, to reconsider and to hesitate. ■ II ■ IB fir III HOW TO ANALYZE YOUR ADVERTISING PROBLEMS "a 1 CO o 3 60 C o H I C I s Q a CO o "S u Buying Action Required Increased Expenditure of Prospect's Money Only a Change in Direction of Present Expenditure Class A B c D Character! of Product Unfamiliar and Without Ready Demand Unfamiliar but Matching Unexpressed Demand Familiar but Offered in an Unusual Way Similar to Goods Prospect Regularly Buys in Same Way Attitude of Prospect Thinks He Is Doing Well Enough without It Will Realize Need When Informed of Product Habitually Buys Similar Brand in Another Way Now Does Equivalent Buying Task of Sales Cam- paign and Ad- vertising Must Make Him Feel His Disadvantage Must Teach Him What Product Is. Must Lead Him to Change This Habit Must Emphasize Brand to Get Dominant Tone of Copy to Fit Task Persuasive and Impelling Analytical and Descriptive "Reason Why" Suggestive or "Publicity" . Money X X 2 a 5 < o 05 u > O s Utility X X \ Caution X X Pride X s CQ Self- indulgence X X Different sale emphasis on develop the t :s and advertisin different selling p ssentials of any I problems requi Dints. This chart idvertising probl •e different kinds has shown advert em and score unu of copy and isers how to sual success in; ;Z!i2 CHAPTER I Finding the Vital Selling Points WHEN you sit down to pencil a hasty advertise- ment for the next issue of the local paper, or to marshal sales scheme, copy, electrotypes, space con- tracts, printed matter, follow-ups, test records and all the services of a complete advertising campaign, there is one four-fold question that in time and importance, should come before everything else. What does the buyer want ? How does your product fit that want? What tone should dominate your adver- tisement, and what should be its chief appeals for trade? In the answers to those questions you have the foundation of successful advertising — the center and heart of the message your campaign should carry. Knowledge of your product in itself is not enough; you must know your product in relation to its prospect- ive purchaser. The proprietor of a machine shop in a prairie state began to advertise traction engines for farm service. He was a keen mechanician, and, carried away with the un- usually strong talking points of his line, he built adver- tisement after advertisement on the points of technical perfection in his tractors. Although seasonably placed in reliable farm journals 8 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY covering a section where the use of tractors is feasible for several purposes, the advertising failed to pay. ,The engine maker called in a trusted field represent- ative and together the two men went over the advertise- ments. 1 'Why," said the field man, "this is the kind of argu- ment I should use in appealing to a technical expert. But you cannot begin by arguing the technical points with a farmer. He knows all about horses, and he knows almost nothing about traction engines. He can buy and sell, train, handle and doctor his horses. He knows just what they are good for and how to estimate the work he can do with them this week. "The expense of maintaining his teams is as much a matter of course with him as his own food and shelter. But so far as the question of buying a traction engine goes, it represents aoi extra and unthought of expense, without which he thinks he is getting along perfectly well. 1 ' Before he is willing to talk technical points with you, you must awaken in him a feeling that he is missing an advantage which will soon more than pay for itself.' ' The later advertisements took the new tone. They spoke of the engine as " an iron horse, ' ' and compared it, point by point, with the farm horse. What each con- sumed; how each was driven; what each could do per day and per acre ; was told with apt comparison. And this advertisement, with its 5 homely allusions; its direct appeal to the farmer's ever present need for bet- ter horse flesh; its appeal to consider the farm engine only as a bigger and more profitable draught animal; its sweeping proof that the farmer was not getting on well enough without the tractor — brought exceedingly profitable returns. THE VITAL SELLING POINTS 9 It was an experience full of points on actually mak- ing over an advertisement and adding the proper style and selling appeal, just as the sales manager takes out a green recruit and puts into his canvass the points that sell. Imitation will not take the place of this analysis in advertising. Studying successful advertising, instead of products and prospects, is not sufficient. Because suggestion in copy is used by a successful merchant, does not prove that publicity copy is good for you. It is much easier to learn from the cemetery of advertising failures, than to imitate any one advertising success. What your competitor's advertising lacks, he may make up by prestige or personal sales skill. His copy may have some element of strength you do not recog- nize ; or he may be succeeding in spite of his advertising mistakes. But when the addition of a single appeal changes one of your own familiar copy failures to success, the lesson is plain. Instead of wasting the time of storekeepers with in- terviews on why products are not moving out nicely, and thus by roundabout methods getting the common sense view of its selling field, one concern has for years kept an analytical record of its various products, the varieties of copy proved to be effective or futile and the various appeals made in these advertisements which successfully marketed varied products. A chart based upon these records for several years, appears on page 6. Getting the Formula by Which to Solve the Problem of Right Copy The first question that is asked when the marketing of a product is analyzed with the aid of the Advertising 10 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY Chart is : "Must this advertising induce an outright ex- penditure on the prospect's part; or merely change the direction of expenditure to which he is accustomed? Must he decide^to spend for it, or merely to choose it in place of something else ! ' ' Following out the analysis of products, we find four classes to be important. If you are offering your pros- pect some new device to stop a known loss in his busi- ness, he is in position "B" on the chart. "I've wanted something like that," he exclaims; and having long planned to make such a purchase when opportunity offered, the expenditure goes through on an * ' O. K. ' ' of previous standing. You need only explain, describe and analyze your product to show him that it is what he has needed. If, however, you begin to market something unex- pected and unwished for, which, on its face, appears to be merely an extra expense, your prospect is then in position "A". He thinks that he is doing well enough without your interference. In this case your advertisement must do exactly what a good salesman would do. It must not only develop the possibility of more profit through your article ; but must make the prospect feel keenly the disadvantage and loss of being without it. It must inspire him with a desire for bigger things; and persuade him to make an unfamiliar outlay for the untried advantage it may be to him. "B" stands waiting for you to* come and offer him, what you have — "A" is going in the wrong direc- tion; you must stop him, turn him about and take him your way. In such classes of commodities as are in habitual use by your prospect, however, there is a further distinction, represented in the chart by classes "C" and "D". All THE VITAL SELLING POINTS 11 of us must have food and clothing. All of us, in one or another group, must have paper and pencils, or nails and cement. If, when you advertise goods similar in kind and price to those I am buying day by day, you can make the name of your brand come into my mind more often and more strongly than your rival's, you have won my trade. Under favorable circumstances suggestive or publicity copy may, in this case, win — you find me walking in your direction and need only to catch step. If, however, your brand of bread must be ordered from town, when I am used to buying at my home cor- ner; or your coal must be ordered by mail, when your competitor's salesman comes to my door, your copy must change a habit of mine. And a change of habit must have a reason back of it. Your advertisement must be ' ' reason why ' ' copy. It finds me in the position of a man walking past your door — you must give me a reason for turning in at your place of business. This fourfold classification suggests the essential links between your product and its prospect through its adver- tisement. Any variety of advertising may pay you ; but in all except the one best kind, a part of your space and appropriation is given over to meeting points on which your prospect is already sold. The advertisement of highest average efficiency must put its whole strength against the point, or points which are actually blocking the sale. Shall You Make Your Copy Mere Publicity or Let the Persuasive Style Dominate? A recent advertising campaign played up the qualities and advantages of an improved toilet article. The cam- paign failed. 12 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY Field study of prospects proved that the product was not in class C nor B ; but in class A. Men were doing well enough without it. They were not converted to spend extra money to get it. And the copy took for granted that prospects were favorable on these two vital points ! When, however, the latest novel comes out in a re- peat edition which testifies to its popularity, description is sufficient. It falls into that class of commodities for which an eager public is waiting. The street car and billboard are crowded with in- stances of so-called publicity copy covering products in class "D'\ A reproduction in colors of the gum wrap- per, the cigar or the soda fountain glass, is sometimes sufficient, by its mere repetition, to influence us in the minor purchases of the day. But a great deal of the merchandise commonly classed here, belongs in class " C" and demands much stronger copy. It takes something more than suggestion t(\ make the housewife risk her expensive woolens and laces with a soap which habit has not made familiar. It often means a decided change in buying habit for her to demand a particular brand of rice, corn, starch or cocoa, against which her grocer very probably will make a protest How Correct Diagnoses of Your Sales Problems En- ables You to Get Larger Returns Two high salaried advertising men recently built test campaigns — one with such a chart of advertising prob- lems, the other without it. The Boston man without the chart, unconsciously diagnosed his selling problem as belonging in class "A" He devoted almost two-thirds of his 672-line space to a THE VITAL SELLING POINTS 13 class "A" appeal, urging business men to think how much the lack of this article was handicapping them, and persuading them to buy. Where ninety-six orders would have cleared a margin of profit, he received forty-four ; where twenty-six were hoped for on the same copy, he received seven. Meantime the Philadelphia advertising man, after a careful study of the chart and field, decided that a market already existed for this product and that de- scriptive copy would sell it more efficiently than any other variety. Their copy was crossed in newspapers and again in magazines. Orders constantly cost the man who had studied and charted out his product and his field, about thirty per cent of the selling price, as against one hun- dred and thirty-three per cent for his more eminent associate. The Advertising Chart will not eliminate errors en- tirely. It is not a cure-all, but a guide in finding the essential factors of successful selling. Unless you study it closely and practice in classifying various products by its aid, you may make a fundamental mistake in placing your sales problem upon it. If, however, you will go over your problem in field and office, shop or factory until you can say with cer- tainty that your product fits the conditions of class A, B, C or D on the chart, the scheme of your copy will at once become plain. You will have determined the dominant tone of both words and illustrations, and can proceed with confidence. CHAPTER II Rousing the Motives that Make Men Buy BEHIND his decision to buy or not to buy, every one of your store or factory prospects has a motive. He may have many motives. And the average of these individual motives, or groups of individual motives, will give those strongest springs of action to which, through persuasion, descrip- tion, logic or suggestion, your advertisement should ap- peal, in order to sell your goods. In the lower part of the Advertising Chart, these motives are classified according to the analysis used by dozens of successful salesmen, under five arbitrary heads : 1. Gain or saving of money. 2. Some utility, such as use, necessity, convenience, happiness, love, moral considerations. 3. Pride and emulation. 4. Caution. 5. Some self-indulgence or personal flaw, such as laziness, vanity, subservience, appetite. Every blend of human motives that prompts buying can, it is believed, be suggestively classified under these heads. u ROUSING BUYING MOTIVES 15 Having decided that the tone of your advertising copy shall be persuasive, descriptive, logical or sug- gestive, your appeal will still be made blindly unless you decide which one or more of these five springs of action that copy shall address. And this depends di- rectly upon the desires your groceries, fruits, dry goods or lumber awaken in the ordinary folk to whom you look for the bulk of your trade. How Other Motives than Money Gain Often Bring about the Sale The most elementary appeal is to offer your pros- pect a money saving or gain through his purchase. Any periodical you pick up will give examples of bar- gain sale headings: " Direct from the works, saves 40 per cent"; "At factory prices on approval ", "Dis- count for cash", "Bargains", and so on. Most sales schemes are directed to this motive of money gain — the one resort of the advertiser who is blindly groping his way. The money appeal affords the big outlet that accommodates supply to demand. By a quick shift of price, and a limited time appeal to the money motive, stocks of all sorts and under every condition are closed out with a margin of profit or salvage. Over-emphasis on this money motive, however, loses prestige and patronage for your store, if your prospects want some utility, as quality or convenience rather than cheapness. An eastern shopkeeper who made his own sales stock of cards and brochures, found profits slumping. He reduced prices and his trade rose for a time; but not enough to cover the cut in his rates. Again he reduced prices, and again his sales established a new record. 16 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY But he was nearer bankruptcy than ever. Then it came to him that it could not be the price of a "2-for-5" post-card or a 12%-cent brochure that stood between him and sales. It might even be that his cut rates had lost caste for him with the well-to-do trade which had formerly frequented his shop. And, in the search for a motive that had formerly brought buyers to him, he found that the residence district had gradually changed its character. The trade to which his dainty printed matter had appealed, was now passing down another thoroughfare in its daily routine. His deciding grip on trade apparently had been the utility of his service — the handy location of his little shop. No cut in price could bridge the gap left when this link dropped out. Not even the best " reasons- why' ' that he could write succeeded in changing the new habit of his former trade. A change in business loca- tion, or in the character of his stock and trade, was essential to the renewed success of his advertising and selling efforts. He moved — and throve. An advertisement whose success may be judged from its persistence in one tone, reads : "On Christmas morning the notes of affectionate greeting possess the added charm of extreme good form and taste if written on Washington Linen Paper. Three styles especially made for particular women are — " Pride in the dignity and good taste of certain sta- tionery is the moving appeal in this advertising cam- paign, when an appeal to the money motive would not interest those who are prospects for this grade of note paper. The manufacturer of a patent door strip solved an interesting problem in buying motives. He first put his product on the market with an incomplete appeal to the ROUSING BUYING MOTIVES 17 trite utility motive only. His copy was full of talk about the cleanliness and comfort his product would bring. People did not buy. Then he changed his adver- tising and printed a picture of a nursery where dust- laden floor drafts constantly threatened the health of the children. His product began to move nicely. What this manufacturer unconsciously did was to re-classify his product, taking it out of class "B" and putting it into class "A" — changing the tone of his copy from description to strong persuasion — empha- sizing the disadvantage of being without his product. At the same time, from an appeal to mere comfort and convenience, he changed to a much stronger appeal directed at the motive of caution, and the high utility motive of parental love. Thus the Advertising Chart bares the false, or warm and human appeal in any advertisement. Good copy- will not insure the success, nor poor copy the complete failure of every campaign, for at each step between factory and consumer lurk chances of error or unusual advantage in selling; but averages count! The copy- man who throws aside a weak advertisement unstudied and starts to frame up something more compelling, loses a chance to profit by a costly test. Analysis — test for the dominating tone of your sales impulse and for motive appeal — should precede revision. Analysis of Buying Motives the Right Basis for All Selling Plans and Efforts Not only the advertisement, but also the personal sale and the business conference are being brought to first principles by clever use of this scheme of charts. All of us want dozens of things that we do not purchase 3r assent to. What hinders us from buying is the mahi 18 [WHAT MAKES MEN BUT object against which to direct your advertising and sales talk. The printer is wishing for a power cutter to relieve hard work and increase output. He knows the power cutter will do these things; yet he does not buy. The clever salesman will also meet the printer's ideas of economy and other appeals that will win over assent to the unfamiliar item of cost. Moreover, buying motives change constantly. The haberdasher whose straw hat sale is announced on a rainy morning, fails because the money motive to which he appealed has been eclipsed by a utility motive. With every special occasion, every change in price and quality, and with the restricted appeals to various groups of prospects, new motives come into play. In fact, the dominance of different motives in dif- ferent classes of trade underlies competition. The low priced article makes its money-saving appeal to one class; the medium priced article, its utility appeal to the middle class; and the Fifth Avenue or Michigan Avenue shop, its appeal to pride, exclusiveness and van- ity of still higher classes. The fitness of certain wood- working tools for interior work and of another brand for rough, fast outdoor construction, may touch the dif- ferent utilities that sway householders, carpenters and constructors. And with the variation of motive, often comes a need for varied tones in your advertisement. Again, your appeal must be general in order to pay. There may be a true and vital appeal which fails to reach the average. A telephone company recently inserted in a morning newspaper an advertisement addressed to "June Brides,' ' and reminding them, in a clever way, of the handiness in housekeeping and safety, and as " com- pany' ' during the lonely hours in the new home, whicK HOUSING BUYING MOTIVES 19 a telephone represents. Did this piece of copy reach the average telephone prospect who reads the morning paper, or a profitable proportion of such prospects! The? same seasonable appeal could have been widened to include a half dozen great groups of prospects with the same clever reminder. Would not lonely Mothers have been glad to put in the telephone in order to talk with the ''June Brides" who had just left the old home ? Would not other Housewives have been espe- cially open just then for the reminder that in their housekeeping they had never yet known the conveni- ence of a telephone ? Would not the June percentage of new telephones, year by year, have been a vital appeal to the Grocer and Marketman to keep their one-way telephone facilities up to the possibilities of their trade ? Pretty pictures, catchy phrases and unsuitable me- diums multiply casual readers who are not prospective buyers. A common-sense appeal, however, based on a sound analysis of your proposition and an intimate knowledge of the motives that actuate your average prospects in such buying, builds trade. Before you begin to word an advertisement, therefore, check those of the five classes of motives in your best prospects, to which your strongest appeals can be made ; under each heading so marked list the actual desires your product touches, then go over your list and choose from all the three or four strongest specific motives upon which to base your advertisement. By the use of the Advertising Chart, and through practice in analyzing the advertising problems of va- rious products, prospects and motives, you can put a direct, decisive "drive" into your writing. Your aver- age copy work becomes stronger. Poor tests are mini- mized — and capitalized. CHAPTER III Advertising to Sell a Single Line or Product WITH the general store advertiser, the problem is to build a profit-making trade on recurring de- mand for many lines, regardless of whether a single product fails. He meets glutted demand with new products that develop new wants. But the one-line advertiser has concentrated on a single product — when demand fails him, he must over-ride competition or de- velop new outlets. A single line advertiser often takes a national or world-wide field; he is then separated from his pros- pects by distance. He often relies upon a closely re- stricted class for trade; sometimes he can count upon only one sale to each buyer in a season or a lifetime. He cannot stimulate trade through bargains or leaders, other than in his own line or in the inducements and service he offers. His advantages are that he can concentrate his adver- tising and selling on one subject; can fully develop its qualities and uses; can appeal distinctly to different prospect groups, by assorted grades or qualities of product, through various mediums and by means of the whole gamut of motives that actuate these classes. 20 SELLING A SINGLE LINE W The novel that first runs as a magazine serial, is then published for a season at $1.50, later handed to an allied publisher for additional profits on the 50c edi- tion, and finally turned over to a newspaper syndicate for newspaper serial rights. At every step a new group of prospects is developed and satisfied. And this is the typical problem of the single line advertiser; whether he be an international publisher or a small town tailor, hatter or bicycle dealer. In planning a campaign to advertise a single product, therefore, anatyses and tests are indispensable to trace the line of diminishing returns from each prospect growp and to open up new fields of profit. It is doubly essen- tial that the single line advertiser should know all the time to what group he is appealing, in what position they are toward his product, what attractions he can offer each class, what tone of copy best suits his propo- sition and precisely what motives in each group wiN be most powerful to make or block the purchase. Your Prospects and Hoiv to Pick Them from the Field of Demand "Dog-in-the-manger" tactics are poor advertising, in planning your copy never lose sight of the fact that not readers, nor even inquiries, but orders and profits make good advertising. Do not shout merely to inter- rupt the man in the half-page next to yours; waste no space or money addressing poor prospects; get a mental map and portrait of your prospect group in each medium and of the task your copy must perform in that situation ; with all your power, focus your appeal where it belongs. Puns, plays upon words, pretty portraits — these at- tract idle readers as sugar draws flies; but this power, 22 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY applied through selling appeal in other good mediums, might be reaching more groups of actual prospects. The state and federal census are full of information that helps the single line advertiser to get the attention of his particular prospect groups without wasting the attention of other readers. Far more complete analysis of such statistics means the conservation of millions in advertising. Many periodicals compile tables analyzing population by trades, professions, location (city, suburban and country), by income, reading habits,' pur- chasing habits and various other useful lines of cleavage. On this data you can base important divisions in your advertising campaign. "With the problem set before you, ingenuity will show how to get different facts about your particular prospects. Clever tables which describe the buying power, habits, prejudices and motives of the prospects for the line, are the basis of almost every campaign which is consistently successful. Having secured this information through public, busi- ness and private records and investigations, circular letter campaigns and advertising tests, the advertiser finds the Advertising Chart illuminating with regard to the variety and aim of his copy. He makes his offer inclusive to reach various motives, using the strongest appeals at beginning and close of his advertisement; or day by day adding new appeals to his campaign. Thus the advertisement and campaign can be given unity, comprehensiveness, balance, cohesion, punch. How to Widen Your Appeal and Reach New Groups of Consumers Modern business makes for mushroom competition. A new product finds rivals full grown over night. The single line dealer who would succeed must either — (1) SELLING A SINGLE LINE 23 have some stronger appeal on which buying hinges; or — (2) take advantage in his advertising of some weak- ness in competing sales plans. Dozens of noted national advertisers sat in obscurity until better and better directed copy lifted them above competition. The single product manufacturer must study competition and develop better copy, clever ways to simplify buying routine and form favorable buying habits. He must beware of mere publicity which " sells substitutes" wherever his distribution is at fault and often at the very counters where his salesmen look for most results. He spends a part of his appropriation to know his prospects; he then makes his advertising apt. We run through ten pages of vacation resort advertising « — a deafening array of names — a cutthroat clamor for attention — to stop and fix upon a spot which offers apt facts and reasons why we will enjoy an outing there. If your product itself, as well as your advertising, is better than competition, success is doubly sure. Whether you are writing class A, B, or C copy, make these advan- tages plain — decisive with the buyer. Give the prospect sound reasons for going out of his way to resist substi- tution; for making an extra expenditure to meet a dis- advantage. "Accept no substitute" is a poor campaign motto unless backed up with sound logic. When a merchant plans a new business he often looks for a location where such a store is needed. He hunts for an "opening". The same plan has no superior for widening the field of a single product. Dozens of na- tional advertisers are developing new uses for their products in order to increase demand, and, at the same time, to get up above the field where competition is hot. The rifle maker exploits the vacation target gun; the soap maker pictures his product saving hard work in 24 WHAT FLAKES MEN BUY doaens of new uses about the house, office and garage ; a store buyer who over-bought on a single line, found a new use which made further stocks necessary. In a city where a dozen banks published tedious statements as a bid for business,, one institution printed "this advertisement during a national convention : Banking Accommodations for Convention Visitors We are placing the facilities of this bank at your special disposal during the conven- tion. For any banking business that you may have to transact while here, you are cordial- ly invited to use this bank. If you want to Change Money Cash Checks Deposit Drafts for Collection Buy Traveler's Checks or, if you would Learn of Business Conditions Get the Business Outlook Know of the Pros- perity of Our People or Transact Any Other Business Requiring Banking Facilities, Let Us Serve You. This advertisement was a revelation to many who "Were permanently in that bank's prospect group. An ac- cident had lifted the advertising man out of the rut and had shown him the real appeals on which his institution rested. Several of these appeals were inherent in the nature of banking; to this extent he out-sold hia com- petitors. Others of these uses — special conveniences and services added to the banking functions — were outside or artificial appeals which strengthened the pull for trade mmeh as the free premium or trading stamp strengthens a store appeal. SELLING A SINGLE LINE 25 There is a danger in outside appeal that it may over- shadow the business itself. Yet the artificial appeal often gives an advertisement just the clever touch it requires. Such appeals are without limit. Sales schemes usually direct the extra appeal at the money motive in pros- pects. A fashionable store gave special fitting service in its corset department and thus attracted eager trade at $22.00 for an article which was later closed out at $2.00. Fitting service gave an extra appeal, worth, to the buyer, ten times the price of the article. Any one of the five motive headings will suggest extra appeals which can be added to the intrinsic value of your prod- uct and will lift it above competition in some clever and timely way. Premium and discount plans, handy packages, machine repair agreements, complimentary insurance policies, the hosiery guarantee, * ' railroad fare to buyers" — are a few of the outside appeals which have been "read into'' business to outdo competition. If you are a local advertiser of a single line, service is one of the strongest appeals you can make. Put your place above competition in courtesy, understanding of your prospects, accuracy, promise-keeping. Let your advertising strongly reflect this spirit. The national advertiser of a single line is far from his prospect and must be more clever in finding ton- tact — in choosing the best appeals to advertise. If you had your average prospect across the counter from you, and he twitted you upon your rival's goods, you would know what points to talk. If he protested that his ordinary uses were supplied, you would suggest new uses which might close the sale. Focus your advertising on these points. CHAPTER IV Making Copy Sell Store Products STORES, mail order concerns and the department shopping center all depend for existence upon keep- ing up with the public's taste. If you keep store you can hardly give large advertising space to developing the qualities, new uses or premium inducements of one product. Your fortunes are linked to a profit percent- age to be drawn from dozens or hundreds of lines. De- mand already awaits the right goods. The principal reason for featuring any article is to make a leader for drawing custom to your store. A Massachusetts grocer and market man tabulates his sales of every kind. The result shows growing popu- larity for some articles and failing market for others. This illustrates the big advantage of the varied product dealer. He is free to add or discontinue lines; to take on seasonable goods ; to watch for bargain lots, novelties or leaders. This condition gives the storekeeper the tremendous advantage over the single product man of building his advertisements upon sales schemes, bargains, timely offerings and service covering a variety of stocks closely articulated with the needs of his community. It is upon this policy of seasonable advertising that SELLING MANY PRODUCTS 27 most retailing is built. The business is steadied by hundreds of small items that contribute to profits. Re- curring necessity figures as the central buying motive. Charting the Varied Product Advertisement and Find- ing the Beat Appeal for Every Item "In our appeal for trade," said the advertising man- ager of a first-rank department (store, "we exclude from consideration the very poor, who must buy by price alone, and that class which does not appreciate the dif- ference between good and cheap merchandise. Thia leaves us the great middle class which desires quality and will pay a fair but not exorbitant price for it; and that small but high-profit group of people who cultivate the specialty shop — who judge quality by price and are often sold through the flattery of sales people." Another department store features in its head line the phrase : "Lowest Prices Our Chief Attractions." These stores have defined their prospect classes, as the correct basis of store policy. To fix upon your groups of prospects, to list them, locate them, find the advertising mediums that reach them, the buying ap- peals which underlie their varied purchases and the best tone of copy for each offering — this is the advertising man's task as he prepares to offer store stocks for sale. Just how important this preliminary analysis is, may be judged from the fact that the former of these stores, having a high class of trade, prospects with leisure to look about, and a high grade of sales people, leaves its advertising man merely to attract prospects to the coun- ter. The second store, where price margins are close, individual purchases small, shopping time limited by daily tasks and buying ambitions closely restricted, de- 26 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY mands that the advertisement carry the chief burden of the sale. It must suggest as many purchases as possible, make plain the price and quality arguments, awaken the impulse to buy and leave the low-paid clerk to do little more than send up the package for wrap- ping. The Advertising Chart has an important place here. By it a book publisher cleverly classifies his volumes in such a way that different groups of books, as advertised in the fiction monthly, the farm paper, the literary monthly, the news weekly, the morning paper, the re- ligious weekly, the woman's journal and various class and trade publications respectively, make the widest possible appeal to those who are prospects for each. The store advertiser applies the same principle, but necessarily must divide his space and address distinct sections of it to the commuter, housekeeper, cook, laun- dry operator, office man and to the buyers of various sorts of clothing. Having chosen a few representative products which seem strongest and most timely in appeal, the clever advertising manager will refer to his chart and for- mulate the one best appeal for each leader or class of goods to be featured. For the novelty he will use im- pelling or descriptive copy, according as his prospects do or do not feel a need for the new product. In the same way he will advertise ordinary expense commodi- ties, as outlined for classes "C" and "D". Reaching, as he does, varied classes of prospects, he may find that a combination of descriptive and reason-why copy, or descriptive and persuasive copy, will pay. One man ia regularly buying what another has never come to need. As he goes on to analyze motives, he will find thai ifche money motive which actuates one group of SELLING MANY PRODUCTS 20 prospects, must be appealed to no more than aome mo- tive of utility, pride or self-indulgence, which reaches another class. A store which generally makes no appeal except to display the goods with price cards, put up a display of glue in tubes with a card reminding 4 the householder of the " screw that drops out of the door knob, the rung that falls out of the chair and the handle that has separated from the whisk broom." Sales increased five hundred per cent. The money consideration was too small to cut any figure and the descriptive reminder of handiness was decisive. Thus each leader in your advertisement can be charted, just as the one-prochict advertiser would analyze his single offer. How to Choose the Strongest Leaders and Feature Tlwm in Your Store Copy An advertisement offering many lines for «ale may have different aims. The mail order circular seeks the greatest possible total of sales and of inquiries by mail alone. It is therefore planned to cover the selling de- tails with accurate pictures and descriptions. The clev- erest advertising men in this field watch the inquiries and work over their advertisements to bring out more clearly the points that have not been made plain. A retail store may sell by mail, but does most of its business either by telephone or over the counter. A clever Southwestern druggist has adapted his advertis- ing to a plan of sales by telephone and delivery by motorcycle. This advertising consists chiefly of street car cards, and circular letters addressed to the physi- cians of the city. In neither of these mediums has the druggist tried to play up his separate offerings. Rather, he has standardized drug store stocks. Every ad^er- 30 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY tisement contains the assurance to doctors or consumers, that at the nearest of his stores will be found the most complete stock of drugs and accessories in the city. His circular letters strongly back up this claim by citing to the doctor the arrival of the latest scientific prepara- tions and remedies. His street car advertising espe- cially features quick delivery and accurate service. Now and then some unusual bargain, drawing card or profit maker gets a place on the card. Always, however, telephone numbers of the stores are played up strongly. Clever and obliging clerks answer the telephone calls and are given the salesman's opportunity to play up the various stocks carried. Similarly, the advertising and circulars of up-to-date grocers and market men are in the nature of news bulletins, telling of timely things, of canning oppor- tunities, of leaders that will draw the telephone call to their store, instead of another. To a marked degree this task of bringing in the caller also applies to the department and general store adver- tisement. "Our leaders are chosen," says the advertis- ing director of a metropolitan department store; "our descriptions worded and our illustrations drawn to ex- cite interest and curiosity — to make prospective buyers want to examine the lines and style of a garment, leav- ing each prospect curious to know if the details are such as she wishes. After she enters the store, our salespeople can suit her taste and induce her to buy. A prominent Brooklyn store prints "a condensed ad- vertisement of representative bargains," with twenty- five different headings, under each of which are given a few cleancut leaders that will draw trade into the store and take it from subway to top floor. In this way is solved the problem of multiplicity of offerings, so differ- SELLING MANY PRODUCTS 31 ent from that of the automobile or soap or railway advertiser. A famous New York store features' and prices a few leaders merely as guarantee or ''sample" offerings. The leading paragraph under many subheads plays up the tremendous stock of "singles" and broken lines in a way that, without the necessity of a list, has a strong appeal to curiosity and the bargain instinct. Many of the descriptions end with such phrases as: "Better see for yourself how lovely these goods are." "Numerous other attractive styles affording good selection in all sizes." The general store, the hardware merchant, the furni- ture man and even the baker 1 have found the same need of suggesting extensive stocks by featuring specialties suited to their classes of trade. When the cross-roads store advertises two or three seasonable offerings it is "putting its best foot foremost" and attracting pros- pects whom the clerks can pilot all about the store. It is as difficult to "think up" one's casual needs' as to decide what to give the folks for Christmas. Your store or bank or professional "announcement" puts no definite wish into the prospect's mind. Buyers do not see your stock every hour in the day. Your advertising must either paint mental pictures of your goods or bring prospects to you. The mail order catalogue — or the store advertisement of wished for offerings and the resulting visit of pros- pects to your store — is definite — as definite as the "but- ter and eggs" quotation that hangs in your window or the daily display of fruit and vegetables outside your store. These are the advertisements that make buyers and build business. CHAPTER V Combining Appeals to Win the Average Prospect TWO partners in a men's clothing business were arguing over a piece of "umbrella" copy ad- dressed strictly to men. One of the partners claimed that the advertisement should also appeal to women. He insisted that women had often come into the store to buy men's umbrellas. During the discussion an advertising expert happened into the store. After listening for a moment, he pulled out a book of advertising data and showed the store proprietors that on the judgment of haberdashers in over one hundred towns considerably more than sixty per cent of the umbrella sales were to women. This he followed by showing that, in the judgment of the merchants who had gone on record, about forty per cent of men's underwear and hosiery, 55 per cent of their handkerchiefs, 50 per cent of bath robes, sweaters and overalls, and 20 per cent of men's shoes, hats, suits and collars are generally bought for them by the ladies of the household. In the wording of their publicity, these partners had been neglecting half of their actual sphere of trade. COMBINING APPEALS 33 When the factory manager brings a project before his executive board, he addresses each director separately. He meets the evident prejudices of one; he strengthens the apparent hesitancy of another; he adapts his talk, paragraph by paragraph, to his listeners. When you work over one or a dozen personal letters to combine them in a powerful circular letter addressed to all your prospects, many of the best paragraphs must be cut because of their restricted application. As you make your changes and widen your appeal, the letter gives up more and more of its personal tone — it loses depth, like a canyon-bound river emerging into a plain. Prospects for your product are opinionated beyond any executive board — varied beyond any mailing list. The vitality of your advertisement depends upon find- ing the " greatest common factor" of character, interest and motive among your prospects or prospect groups. You must get a "composite photograph " of your pos- sible buyers and address that average man. You must combine the strongest possible individual interests into the average appeal of greatest fitness. If you appeal only to a few of those you should reach, you advertise feebly and extravagantly. If you attack motives or develop uses, offer inducements or advertise services that do not reach the average, then your advertising is only partially efficient. If you attempt to reach all, you may interest but fail to persuade. In preparing to advertise, two questions of tremendous importance are: 1. What sort of person is my average prospect? 2. How can I compose my strongest appeal to him ? Too often an advertiser who believes he is cultivating his entire prospect acreage is merely hacking away in the fence corner while competition has a four-horse culti- vator in the middle of the field. The first of these ques- 34 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY tions will save the advertiser from overlooking many of his best prospects and perhaps from appealing to many who are not prospects. The second question will pre- vent him from overlooking his best arguments and over- rating less effective ones. You may group your prospects by race, by wealth or class, by age, by sex, by religion, by trades and profes- sions, by tastes, habits and living conditions, location, institutions or associations, by position in the distribu- tion of your product — as manufacturer, jobber, retailer and consumer. In a clever campaign to sell a mending material, picture appeals are made separately to the housewife, the plumber, the electrician, the automobile mechanic and the tinner. The advertisement which plays up the cash and also installment prices correctly appeals to two classes of different incomes and financial habits. The multi-product factory, the furniture store, the book publisher, the hardware store and the druggist can make the same principle of analysis serve them. How to Study Your Average Prospect's Wishes and Buying Power A Northwestern manufacturer who wished to intro- duce a certain annual proposition to the best farmers of three states, made a low bulk price to implement dealers on condition that they distribute to the perma- nent farmers about them for one year complimentary. The mailing lists were to be sent to the manufacturer. After three years the plan was abandoned. The im- plement men had used the favor, not to reach the best farmers, but to placate grumblers, " jolly" bad accounts and introduce themselves to one-year renters. The man- ufacturer had the right idea as to classifying his trade, but his plan brought the wrong list. COMBINING APPEALS 35 In putting a new addressing machine on the market an advertising manager studied and subdivided his pros- pect field with striking success. lie consulted Dun's and Bradstreet 's, sent out circular letters, appealed to trade publications; and through perhaps a hundred channels secured authentic lists of municipal and county officials, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, hardware men and scores of other distinct classes of prospects to whom he could make strong group appeals for trade. Moreover, he went into the details of each business, studied its addressing problems and possibilities. Such analysis of your prospect group is just a ques- tion of ingenuity. Statistics from the census down give facts that are important in your advertising. The sales- man's visit to a typical section, a test campaign on a local basis, an analysis of the sales records and cor- respondence, or a cleverly devised circular letter cam- paign in typical counties, has not merely set wrong campaigns right, but has often added twenty per cent efficiency to a successful campaign. Having located your prospect groups and studied the characteristics of every important class, the clever adver- tising man may turn to his chart and build up a series of advertising tests which will result in copy, a sales proposition and mediums profitable for years. Giving Your Advertising Campaign the Composite Appeal That Reaches Various Buying Groups Those appeals which are to reach all your important prospects may be combined into a single advertisement, or distributed throughout a campaign. A telephone company gives each advertisement a definite aim, covering its field group by group. One day the copy reminds the business man of telephone 36 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY conveniences. Again it reaches the sales manager with a suggestion of the selling power of the telephone. It comes to the executive, urging the installation of a private exchange. It follows the traveling man with a reminder that one rainy day a salesman, over the long distance wires, sold a train-load of matches. It appeals to housewives for bad-weather shopping, it reaches the man of the house through his most tender motives — its utility in case of fire, sickness, burglary. It makes its special appeal separately even to the apple grower, the wheat rancher and the cotton farmer. The power of such directness in appeal may be judged by a typical advertisement in the addressing machine campaign, mentioned above. A nubbin of corn and a big ear are shown. The copy reads: There's a Difference You Know the Reason ! Are You Telling the Farmer How it is Done? Our addressing machine increases your sales just as commercial fertilizer increases the farmer's crops. It enables you to prove to every farmer, fruit grower and truck gardener in your selling territory the profits that your fertilizers are making for his neighbors. Here is your sales method — Here is your system already proved practical and profitable for you by 28 of your most prominent competitors. This argument, staggering in its close personal ap- peal, was varied to reach every important group of prospects so that with the smallest efficient total of copy work, an appeal was made which swept the profit- able prospect horizon. It is easy to aim each particular piece of copy at a different class, but there is a danger to be guarded COMBINING APPEALS 37 against — the waste circulation involved. Where a prime medium covers a mixed field, the several appeals must be combined in a single advertisement. Thus the hosiery maker, the shoe manufacturer, the advertiser of break- fast foods and the soap manufacturer picture varied uses for their products under one headline. Your office or store depends for support upon the trade of various classes. To make your appeal wide, yet not shallow, combine in it the strongest selling points you would talk to a buyer from each group. Making Your Advertising Appeal Universal Among the Prospects for Your Goods A manufacturer of automobile oil has found a plan which drives a direct and almost personal appeal at practically every prospect in his field. He has repeated time after time an advertisement urging lubricants espe- cially suited to each variety of car. The advertisement carries a table showing by each type of car and each date of model, the best of his five grades of oil for sum- mer or for winter use. The conviction of actual service makes a strong appeal to every prospect reached. A still more clever universal appeal is embodied in this chart, advertising a fireproof document safe: WHAT TOUR POU1CT DOES MOT PROTECT ] i ~L i i -.1- i c ] I ± I 1 »...'— I c M aXe secure What you can't insure. No man in business but when set to thinking by the fire-fighting scene which "headlined" the copy, will find in this chart something vital to his business is abso- 38 WHAT MAKES MEN BUY lutely at the mercy of fire. The reminder that your insurance policy protects none of these things is a uni- versal and bull's-eye appeal to every man who might buy. In life insurance we have appeals to the husband, to the wife, to the old folks, to the children; but one advertising man has found an appeal which, judged by its results, was well-nigh universal. About the folder are photographs of the baby faces that have first con- sideration in all households. The appeal reads: The People Have Spoken. Who Shall Dispute Them? WE ARE THE PEOPLE— We are here and society is going to be better or worse for our coming. We had no option in the matter, we were not consulted. The first thing we knew was when we opened our eyes and saw the big world and the people. And then somebody said goo, and we said goo, and that's the way we got started to thinking and talking. We have been told that we are expected to grow up and become exemplary men and women, like our parents. That in the coming years we will influence, for better or worse, those with whom we associate. That we must be good, ana that we must also be strong and self-reliant, lest we be led into evil ways and consequent unhappiness. And so, at our last meeting, we passed by a unanimous vote the following resolutions: "RESOLVED, That we are the people. That we are the hope of the State and its only guaranty for the future, and that we must be educated and equip- ped for the work before us. "RESOLVED, further, That the uncertainties of life render it advisable that our fathers be insured, to enable our mothers to qualify us for our mission, in the event we become fatherless while we are yet helpless. "RESOLVED, further, That a copy of these resolutions be presented as early as may be, to our parents, with the earnest request that they give attention thereto and take action thereon without delay." Mere loud talk and smart phrase-making will not bring high average returns from advertising copy. The universal appeal of the advertisement, like the human interest story of the reporter, is big, clean-cut and simple. It gets away from the fanciful and the un- natural, back to the deepest instincts of men and women. (ill nt Part II NOVEL WAYS TO REINFORCE YOUR COPY Clinching Sales by Special Appeal ARE your sales plan— your copy— your campaign, a record of "near successes"? Does your straight busi- ness offer get inquiries but not orders? Does it attract only part of the trade you ought to reach? Does it tan- talize you with "almost profits"? The right sales scheme will solve these problems. A department store jogged along for seven years, barely keeping its haberdashery section alive by space favors in the daily newspaper page. Then the advertising manager thought of a sales scheme — something new, interesting and different from competition. The plan cleverly emphasized a store demonstration of quality in men's wear. It caught the public fancy and increased haberdashery sales over two hundred per cent in two weeks. Somewhere in your business there is an advantage on which you can base a new advertising appeal. This may take the form of a clever picture or phrase, an induced ment, a buying convenience, a guarantee. It may hinge on the ordinary arguments of price and quality ; or it may get the attention of new prospect groups, limelight new uses for your goods, sell half dozens instead of singles or win the confidence of a suspicious public. The clever advertiser avoids sales schemes that occasion loss or eat up the future. The best sales schemes develop from sales needs, and it is by a close study of your copy, your sales plan and your trade, that you can come upon the added appeal your business demands. ■ II IIB in: nil WHERE THE SALES SCHEME FITS IN SELLING PROPOSITION OPPORTUNITY FOR SALES SCHEME BASIS OF SALES SCHEME Product with Strong Natural Selling Appeal Easily Shown in Copy, as Most Specialties To Get Attention Curiosity Appeals; Plans to Reach Prospects at Special Time or in Special Groups Product with Strong Selling Appeal Not Easily Shown; as Quality or Durability To Emphasize or Prove' Main Appeal Demonstration, Proof, Sample, Illustration , Guarantee Product Whose Natural Appeals Alone Have Proved Insufficient or Are Similar to Those of Competing Lines To Add Secondary Appeals Special Service, Premiums and Inducements Product Whose Sales Unit Has Been too Small to Pay Profit ' ■ To Increase Size of | Sales Unit Guarantee, Special Price or Premium, Based on Purchase of Larger Quantity Where Inferior Competition Has Made Prospects Suspicious To Prove Your Claims Free Trial; Money Back without Discussion to Dissatisfied Buyers Where no Reason Urges Immediate Purchase or Store Visit To Bring in Customers MoreOf ten ortoSecure a Bigger Percentage of Orders from Advertising Feature Goods and Special Offerings, Discounts, Premiums, Terms and Facilities for Buying To Increase Sales of Seasonable Goods To Get Attention and Convince by Business Reasons That Especially Desirable Values A re Offered Seasonable, Anniversary and Holiday Sales, with Specially Skilful Purchasing for the Occasion Must Sell Goods to Bring in Cash to Meet Special Demands As Above Quick Income Sales, with Genuine Financial Reasons for Reduced Prices To Reach New Groups of Prospects A* Above Get Acquainted Sales, with Bargain Prices on Special Purchases Suited to New Groups of Propects ?.- To Sell Jobbers' or Manufacturers' Bargain Lot As Above Special Purchase Sales with Evidence That the Lots Were Bought at Reduction To Clear Away Left Overs or Discontinued Lines As Above Clearance Sales, with Reductions Based on Cost of Storing Goods and Carrying Them over To Convert Slocks Into Cash on Account of Some Business Change As Above Business Change Sales, with Reductions Based on Ne-? cessity of Quick Conversion of Goods into Cash This chart suggests some of the special opportunities and uses for the sales scheme in an advertising campaign. There are hundreds of specific sales which fall under the foregoing heads hi; hi ^^, c /V . ..■ ■ ' L_n__ v // ^ -V i ^^i £ 13U £v ^5fel CHAPTER VI Putting Sales Schemes into Copy CUSTOMERS know about what I carry in my store and feel that they can buy it just any time. I can't get them interested in any store event except a heavy reduction in price." This complaint indicates a disadvantage sometimes felt not only by small town merchants, but by every advertiser, national or local. The remedy for it is a well-directed sales scheme. Sales schemes are not meant to impress the public with the cleverness of your ideas ; but to sell goods — to take an * * any-time-is-good-enough ' ' proposition and so strengthen its main selling appeal, or so endow it with unusual attractions, that it will get more and quicker action from the buying public. The owner 1 and sales manager of a real estate concern in a Texas city were closeted in their private office. They had just purchased a twenty-acre suburban tract ; had secured an extension of street car service to the ground and had begun development. "If we could get the eager attention of every pros- pect in this city and hold it long enough to tell and demonstrate what we offer, I could sell those three hun- dred and forty- three lots in two days." 41 42 RE-ENFORCING COPY The owner smiled at the enthusiasm of his sales man- ager. " There ought to be a scheme/ ' said he, "that will fire the curiosity and get the attention of every one who can read our advertising. Let's find the scheme.' ' The sales manager went away with the word "curi- osity" buzzing in his brain. "Nothing excites curi- osity, ' ' he reasoned, ' ' like a secret — provided no one pre- maturely lets the cat out of the bag/' "With the phrase came the advertising idea. The sales scheme as finally used was: To push the development work rapidly but quietly and to get everything ready so that when the pistol flashed, the buyers could pull a numbered tag from a stake on any lot desired and pay down their earnest money in a booth on the tract. The preparation was to be made as secretly as possible. There would be no preliminary advertisement except — The single exception to the rule of no publicity was an advertisement which ran in preferred position from August first, nearly until the sale opened on Labor Day. This advertisement was merely a picture of a cat struggling to get out of a bag. Day by day it clawed its way nearer to the top, until a few days before the sale the cat was out of the bag with double page spreads in all the local papers, announcing the sale. On the same date plats, circular matter, instructions for getting to the new tract and tickets for the first trips on the new street car line were carefully issued to all the worth-while prospects who had for days been wondering about the strange advertisement in the local papers. The success of the sales scheme staggered those who had planned it. Sunday evening people began to camp on choice lots; upon a signal given at midnight, people SCHEMES THAT PULL 43 came filing in with tags, and at twelve forty a. m. am announcement was sent to the morning papers that more than half the lots had been sold, earnest money received and cash balanced. By eleven o'clock the next morning the tract was sold out. How the Clever Scheme Rounds Out the Appeal and Completes the Sales Plan The sales scheme may fill one or more of some twenty functions. The real estate manager was sure that the force of his offer would close sales provided he could get attention. He felt sure that interest, confidence, con- viction and the decision to buy would follow. The sales scheme, therefore, was solely attention-getting. But there are sales schemes, such as the cleverly advertised demonstration or the premium, which re-enforce the reasons for choosing one brand instead of another; sales schemes that emphasize in your copy the disadvantage the prospect should feel in doing without a Class "A" product ; sales schemes to re-enforce description and sug- gestion ; to touch a particular motive ; to emphasize your proof, your guarantee and the ^ ease of buying today. A mail order house was seeking to establish a market for cream separators in a district where a disreputable rival machine had cut confidence to pieces. At the mention of cream separators the farmers grew wrathy over their past experiences and demanded absolute proof, such as the distant house found difficult to give. "But our separator is right,' ' said the owner to his advertising manager. "I haven't been making machines for ten years and ^ putting thousands into the business, to get nowhere. I'd let any farmer try out the machine for sixty days and guarantee it to beat the field," "Tell them so," said the advertising manager. 44 RE-ENFORCING COPY "Tell them what?" "Tell them that you will ship the machine on sixty days' free trial. Don't expect your prospects to show more faith in your machine than you do. Prove that you have absolute faith in it." The new advertising played up the most absolute guar- antee as follows: "We will gladly ship you any* size of our separator with the understanding that you set it up and try it on your farm for sixty days. Give it the hardest kind of a test; compare it in actual operation with any other; "keep a record of the amount of cream you get from each; compare ease of running, time consumed in clean- ing — make any other comparisons you can think of. "If any other machine, selling for twice as much, will do better work, our advice to you is: 'Buy the other machine and send ours back.' If, at the end of sixty days, you are not satisfied with our separator, you needn't even tell us the reason unless you wish to; just return it to us "by freight. "We will at once send back all money paid us, and in addition will pay all freight both ways — and allow you a reasonable amount for your time in repacking it and hauling it back to the station." That the scheme struck home was at once evident, for sales on the money-back guarantee trebled. The same plan increased sales fifty fold for a con- cern which put an - t unreserved guarantee back of its men's hosiery. This scheme also had another clever twist. The guarantee was given not on a single pair; but on each pair in ; a box of six, thus increasing largely the average individual purchase. If your advertising is getting results, but at almost prohibitive cost, it may possibly t he redeemed by a SCHEMES THAT PULL 45 scheme which increases the unit sold. Study to find some copy appeal that will sell a larger order. Store Schemes Which Put Some New or Vital Ap- peal into the Advertising The store sales scheme is generally needed to clear out slow-moving stock, to introduce new trade to the store, to establish the reputation of the store; or to increase the total sales without clearance tactics. Your purpose in a special sale is not to sell at a loss ; not to stir up and anger competing shops; it is to sell goods at a proper profit and with proper regard for future trade. The buying public knows this as well as you do. The "our-loss-is-your-gain" idea is an appeal that requires absolute proof. In general, the public simply does not believe it. Moreover, what it wishes to hear is not that you are losing money; hut tJiat you are offering de- sirable goods at attractive prices. This, therefore, is the proper keynote of every special sale. Clearing sales, inventory sales, get-acquainted sales, by-special-request sales and the year's calendar of anniversary sales, with hundreds of clever twists and variations adapted to in- dividual conditions, seasons, attractions and buying prejudices, are proved sales schemes, the essential point being for your copy to convince the public that the cen- tral offer or reason is genuine. A Southwestern store was rebuilding on its orig- inal site and at the same time dismantling the old struc- ture. Large stocks had to be moved or disposed of. Carpenters at work taking out the store front, hoisting engines in noisy operation and elevator service dis- mantled were indubitable proofs that it was good busi- ness for the merchant to make the bargains genuine. 46 RE-ENFORCING COPY Proofs of rebuilding were cleverly woven into the ad- vertising copy. Sketches in the newspaper copy showed carpenters, masons and plumbers at work. The copy itself used language technical to these trades. Tiny souvenirs consisting of a hammer, saw or trowel attached to a Rebuilding Sale tag, were distributed and worn by hundreds of people. One of the form letters read : "You have heard of, and are interested in our Re- building Sale because of what it will mean to you per- sonally, and as our customer. Active rebuilding begins next week, and to celebrate the occasion we are going to hold a great Rebuilding Sale, opening April eighth. tl On this date the contractors will take charge. Many departments will have to be moved on five minutes' notice. With our great stocks of new spring and sum- mer merchandise, and unable to secure another suitable building, we are helpless — but one alternative remains — TO SELL THE MERCHANDISE AT PRICES TO INSURE QUICK MOVEMENT. Tempting prices and reductions will prevail in every department and money saving will be here a-plenty." The general public, convinced, of the truth of the store's statements, came from miles around and the in- crease in business ran more than twenty-five per cent over the previous April. Advertising to Direct the Sale Scheme at Store Needs, Opportunities and Handicaps A sales scheme may not only touch new motives for purchase and emphasize new uses for a product; but it may also establish the reputation of an advertiser and introduce him to new groups of desirable prospects. A new advertising manager had taken charge of an Indiana store. He found that a majority of the stock SCHEMES THAT PULL 47 was nationally advertised goods, yet the untidy appear- ance of the store and its out-of-date ways had lost it prestige. The new advertising manager fixed upon seventeen lines as the basis of an appeal for high class trade, and a guarantee of the quality idea for which the store stood. From each of the seventeen manufacturers he secured an electrotype of an attractive advertisement, standard magazine page size. He next arranged a win- dow display of the seventeen products. This he photo- graphed and reproduced as the cover of a thirty-two page booklet under the title, "Did you see it in the magazines f If you did, we have it." The booklet re- produced the seventeen advertisements ; showed that this advertising in the best magazines was a guarantee of high quality, and satisfaction or money back. It went on to link the best of nationally advertised goods with the best magazines, the best homes and the best store. The appeal not merely re-established the position of the store, but made it convenient for the housewives of the town to get exactly the standard goodsi they wished, without telephoning more than the one dealer. Preliminary to choosing or devising a sales scheme know the strength of your main appeals and find what secondary appeals are necessary; determine the char- acter of the scheme you need — whether to compare the advantage of your goods with the disadvantage of other products or none; whether to emphasize an intricate point in the construction of your product, to reach the motive of money-gain, or pride or caution; whether to get attention, develop interest or get quick action. Choose your scheme accordingly and give it emphasis throughout the copy. CHAPTER VII How to Use Pictures and Samples PRINTED pages give up their message slowly ; words speak inaccurately. Picture writing not only was the first advertising copy, but is still easiest, quickest and most attractive to read. Stronger yet in advertising appeal is the actual sample, carrying proof and convic- tion of the various properties of the goods. The mere attention-getting picture, however, is too commonly used where the illustration might easily tell something definite and attractive about your product. A man whose ability to judge advertising copy com- mands a salary of ten thousand dollars a year says: " Approach the picture question by the common sense road. Know first what the picture can do for your ad- vertisement Figure the cost of the space it requires. Then, ask yourself ; * Is the work this picture does worth the price I must pay for it?' Your advertisement is your salesman ; the picture that goes into it should help do the work of a salesman. Do you hire a salesman solely because he has a good appearance ? Because he has man- ners that will favorably impress your trade? Because he knows how to pick out the strong points of your goods and to bring their main selling appeals to the attention of prospective customers with the skill that sells? You 48 PICTURES AND SAMPLES 49 hire him because he combines all three qualifications, but you can afford to pay him an unusual salary chiefly because of the third — because he presents the strong points of your goods with the skill that sells. ''The picture is like the salesman: its chief money value to you is in its selling force. Space is costly. Make your picture earn its space. Demand of it that it make more clear, more vivid, more convincing the main selling appeals of your copy." Finding the Illustration that Strengthens Your Sel- ling Points and Fits Your Advertising Campaign Sometimes an illustration which has pulled well loses its force. Change in marketing conditions requires em- phasis on some other appeal. A motorcycle manufacturer, who through costly ex- perience has developed the use of the picture, said: "We were pioneers in the motorcycle field, making the machines when they were still a curiosity. Our first pieces of copy, which pulled well, represented a pleasant country scene with some such headline as: 'Such spots as this are within your easy reach by motorcycle \ ' ' A short time ago, however, improved factory methods enabled us to offer a superior machine at a lower price. Motorcycles were by this time well advertised, and we expected to skim the cream of the next season's business before our competitors woke up. "What we considered strong copy was prepared on the appeal, 'A better ma- chine at a lower price'. The same series of country scenes were used as illustrations. Instead of immediate increased sales, we were swamped with letters demand- ing reassurance that we had not sacrificed quality. "I consulted an advertising expert. His advice was: " 'The idea behind your copy is right, but the copy 50 RE-ENFORCING COPY does not play up your bargain appeal convincingly. Throw away your pretty picture — it takes up half your page and tells a story which is now familiar to all of us. Replace it with a cut of your motorcycle. Lime-light the features that make it a superior machine. Your copy talks about easy riding qualities — let your cut make this convincing and show why. Constantly refer the reader back to the cut for proof of your claims. ' " The advice was followed. It is history that this manu- facturer did skim the cream of that season's business before his competitors woke up — did so by reclassifying the picture needs of his copy and changing his illustra- tion from inspirational to descriptive to meet an existing demand opened up by reducing his price within reach of many eager prospects. "Whatever the special appeal of your copy — whether particular features or qualities, new uses, premiums and inducements, services or the disadvantage which lack of your product entails, lime-light this point as strongly as possible in your illustration. An Indiana manufacturer of electric motors effectively used two pictures in the same advertisement to market a class "A" product. The first picture showed two men struggling to crank the fly-wheel of a big gasoline engine ; the other, a man starting an electric motor of equal power by throwing a switch with two fingers. Thus a picture, or a chain of pictures, serves as a headline, challenging the reader to consider disadvan- tages due to hard work, wasted time, chances of accident and the many appeals which spring to the mind at the flash of a clever sketch. Illustration gives the reader's imagination full play among all possible appeals your goods possess for him. Every advertiser has some virgin prospect field — or PICTURES AND SAMPLES 51 perhaps some new use for his product which has not yet occurred to buyers, and which means a tremendous extra demand. A department store dealer in a town of ten thousand, pictured in his advertising a new use which saved him a heavy loss on a certain product. "Not long ago," said he, "we had a run on a novel clothes sprinkler. The article had merit without com- petition. Just when we had sold more than three thou- sand of the sprinklers, however, our buyer grew over- enthusiastic, and, at a special discount, took thirty-six hundred more. Naturally, we had practically stocked up the town and surrounding trade territory. Demand soon fell off, and it looked as if we might have to hold the sprinklers until the other stock of them wore out. "One morning on my way down town, however, I happened to see a woman using one of the sprinklers to water the flowers in her front window. The picture flashed to my mind the answer to the problem — the new use that would make prospects in many families where the laundry work is sent out. At once we headed our newspaper copy with a sketch of a lady using our sprinkler upon her house plants. Instantly the adver- tising caught and soon cleared our shelves.' ' If you have so thoroughly worked a given class that you have supplied their profitable demand, study your product for new uses to which it may be put. Choose the best of these, and spot-light the new use by illustra- tion; your advertising will speed a new message that will reach prospects never reached by the old appeal. Proof is the Unique Advantage Gained by the Use of Camera Made Copy Photographs of articles whose main selling appeal can be caught by camera, are strong in convincing power. 52 RE-INFORCING COPY The average person instantly feels that the camera elimi- nates exaggeration and honestly reproduces whatever de- fects may exist. Wash drawings and made up pictures on the other hand are weak in confidence-getting power. A department store manager who was well-known to his trade in a town of twenty-five thousand, had himself photographed in an overcoat that he believed was not selling as fast as its merits deserved. This photograph was reproduced in a special advertisement and resulted in a run on the style of coat displayed. When the actual photograph was shown to prospects, the effect was to lend the coat a tone of distinction and exclusiveness. The realism of camera copy carries conviction for whatever selling points it displays. Skilful camera work and re-touching will usually bring out the strong features on which your advertisement hinges. ' * We, ' ' said the advertising manager of a highly suc- cessful department store, "use illustrations of our most timely goods — our ' leaders' — because: "1. The element of timeliness in pictures, itself has high attention-getting value. "2. The illustration tells its message with the speed that the hurried newspaper reader appreciates. "Where style is all important, as in certain gowns, the sketch simply outlines the cut and general appear- ance. It does not pin a woman down to one specific, and perhaps, unfavorable conception of the gown shown, but leaves her free to read in whatever details please her most. Accompanying the picture is copy describing many gowns. This further helps her pleasingly to fill out her mental picture. The whole effect of the adver- tisement is to impress upon her that we have the gown she wants at her price. This impression strongly at- tracts her to our store, which is my chief task. PICTURES AND SAMPLES 53 "If the article advertised is a trunk, the appeals of strength and durability are important. The metal covered corners, the reinforced sides and the heavy straps must stand out boldly in the cut. Whatever special qualities, advantages or uses persuaded the buy- ing department to take on the line, are, if possible, made to speak directly from the illustration. ' ' Where Samples and Illustrations in Actual Colors Pay Best in Advertising Nothing drives home the appeal of attractive goods of certain sorts so surely as an actual sample, with the guarantee that it is genuine. In many lines, however, the cost of sampling is prohibitive, and the store invi- tation or offer to ship for inspection on approval must take the place of the free specimen. A certain mail order concern is convinced that it pays to advertise free samples of cotton dress goods and other low priced lines where color and material are strong selling factors. With every sample goes a piece of ad- vertising which points out the specific merits represented in the sample. The sample also has another value in that it facilitates ordering a certain color or texture which the written description might not make plain. The expense of samples has led to various tests of colored illustrations as a substitute. A mail order ad- vertiser who has spent hundreds of thousands of dol- lars in recent years in color work, says: Since we began to show shoes in their natural colors, our sales have increased seventy-five per cent. Colored illustrations of cotton dress goods have apparently re- duced by eighty per cent the number of requests for samples. Simultaneously with the first large use of colors, however, were other changes in the copy which 54 RE-ENFORCING COPY make it impossible for me to gauge exactly the values of colors and samples." Wherever color in the product has selling appeal, samples and color work should increase the returns. Only by exact tests, however, can comparison be made of the greater returns and higher costs. A furniture dealer in a Massachusetts coast town dis- covered that a neighboring "summer colony* ' bought rugs liberally from Boston. He put in a high-grade line especially to interest them. He featured his rugs in the local newspaper ; he bombarded his prospects with well- written letters and circulars. But they failed to respond. One day, however, he recalled that he hadi not granted an interview to the rug salesman, nor felt any interest in the line until after receiving, from the rug jobber a colored reproduction of a very beautiful number, which made him eager to see the original. At once the merchant wrote to the rug importer, and, at a nominal cost, secured a hundred color plates each, of the four most beautiful patterns. He mailed them to a selected list of prospects, together with an engraved invitation to call at the display room, and inspect the originals. The rug-lovers in the summer colony were quick to respond, and this merchant's display room be- came widely known for its exclusive patterns. Illustrations, colored or otherwise, and samples, are merely single factors which, together with headline, va- rious paragraphs of reading matter and the coupon, make up the united selling appeal of an advertisement. The strongest effect comes when all of these factors are linked together — co-operating in emphasis upon the most important selling points. Ill III Part III HOW TO WRITE THE ADVERTISE MENT AND MAKE THE LAYOUT Get Greater Pulling Power ADVERTISING comes to persuade the reader to buy, but finds him bound by manifold reasons, inclina- tions and distractions unfavorable to its object. If your copy and layout are to be successful in getting at- tention, in playing up interest, in carrying the logic of the purchase, getting the confidence of the prospect and clos- ing the sale, then everyone of these opposing impulses in the buyer must be torn down or overmatched. Good copy is an unseen cord; if you can wind about the buyer enough strands of positive appeal — if you can bind him with buying influences stronger than any opposing forces, you will pull him away from his aloofness and bring him in willing submission to your appeal. With your headline you throw about him the first slender loop of your influence — a hold that will endure but an in- stant. Quickly now you must follow this with every ap- peal that adds strength to your grip. Against inatten- tion, lack of desire, ignorance habit, economy, you must rapidly match stronger strands of positive selling force. The advertising expert, therefore, welcomes the knowl- edge of every disadvantage in his proposition and every un- favorable attitude in his trade. Just in proportion as he can foresee all such forces, can he match them, strand for strand, and make sure that the balance of pulling power in his advertisement is on the right side. ■ II IIB in: HOW THE HEADLINE ATTRACTS READERS IBS =3 ED Headline Because Prominent "in a Pro- perly Displayed Advertisement, Gets Physical Attention and Instantly Conveys Its Idea 2A If This Idea FAILS TO INTEREST Reader, He Will Give Attention either If This Idea INTERESTS Reader, He Will m To Another Page or Subject To LIB Something Else in Advertise- ment. Read Further with ANTICIPATION That Copy Will Illuminate Headline Idea. m Back to I If Anticipation Is Not Realized in Copy If Anticipation Is Realized in Copy m Advertisement Conveys to Reader Another Idea. \5\ Reader Will Read Your Li- Advertisement and Purpose of Headline Is Accomplished. I Back to 1 I ~ >. The well-chosen headline takes the reader into your advertisement by the straight rcute (steps 1 to 5). Less significant headings involve round-about ways with a chance at every step that the attention will be lost All III CHAPTER VIII Attention -getting Headlines and Displays WHY use headlines? Why put extra thought and time into the arrangement of an advertisement whose sales talk is strong? First of all, to make the reader stop — to get atten- tion. The surest way to flag the reader is to give your head- line and display mechanical prominence over everything else on the page or in the medium. To give it a unique quality of any sort has a certain attention-getting power. The illustration of something which the reader wants will stop him with the instantaneous! action that belongs peculiarly to "picture writing.' ' There is a certain shock and challenge about a headline worded as a question or a command, which has special value in halting the reader and giving your copy a chance to tell its story. To make the headline stand out well mechanically, have it set in type much larger than any other in the advertisement, and, if possible, give it some peculiarity different from other advertisements which, are clamoring for attention. Liberal white space about a headline pre- vents anything else from competing with it Use clear 57 58 WRITING THE AD face type, rather than a letter which is hard to read. A picture is probably the best attention-getter. One which shows an action is better than one which does not. A moving device has special attention-getting force. In both cases, however, the picture-writing must help for- ward your actual selling appeal. When picture and headline are both used, the headline should be sub- ordinated to the picture, and both should co-operate in leading into the heart of your appeal. Finding the Headline that will Lead the Reader from Attention Direct to Interest With' your headline you have made your prospect stop involuntarily. Why? Obviously because you want him to comply with your advertisement. Common sense dic- tates the answer, but too commonly practice merely stops the reader, forgetting that display and headline have no selling value unless they impel the prospect to read on. At the instant that a well displayed headline stops the reader, it conveys to him an idea (step 1 in the last chart). This idea will either interest (2), or fail to interest him (2A). If it fails, your reader will either pass your advertisement by (Position 3 A) — in which case your heading has actually prevented your prospect from reading your advertisement; or his involuntary atten- tion will be attracted by something else in your adver- tisement (Position 3B). Position 3B is identical with Position 1. The "some- thing else" which at this point draws your reader's attention, therefore, probably contains a better headline idea than the one you chose. The headline which stops a real prospect, but' fails to convey an interesting idea, HEADLINES AND DISPLAYS 59 evidently has not put into words the force of the sales appeal actually inherent in your product. Your idea and wording are at fault. If the idea conveyed by your headline does interest the reader (Position 2), he will begin to read the text of your copy with the anticipation that it will illuminate the headline idea. He is now in Position 3. If this anticipation is not realized (Position 4A), he will in- stead, get from your copy, a new idea (Position 5A) that will in turn either interest or fail to interest him. Position 5A is identical with Position 1, and again the reader is back at the starting point. If, however, the anticipation of your reader is real- ized (Position 4), he will read on because you have put into your headline something that interests' him — a cor- rect appeal to his buying motives. The best headline, therefore, is obviously that one which interests your reader in the body of your adver- tisement through the direct route indicated by steps 1 to 5. This is the shortest and safest road from atten- tion to interest. Any other takes him by a way round- about and filled with dangers of losing his attention. Position 4A in the chart illustrates the chief danger of the curiosity headline. The reader stops, gets your first idea, finds it attractive, reads on — and is dis- appointed — may even feel that he is fooled. The following advertisement was headed with sketches showing a four horse team in two different positions. In the second, all the horses were pulling even. In the first, one horse was doing most of the work. The headline is clever in that it pictures instantly, by a graphic comparison, the idea on which the sales appeal is based. Nevertheless, the chief bid of the headline for interest is that it rouses curiosity. It bids for the atten- •0 WRITING THE AD tion of the. general reader — and gets it. The advertiser expects to draw into his subject only the smaller group which includes genuine prospects. "Old Joe" is Doing All The Work You are not getting the same combustion efficiency from all your boiler furnaces. You have not equalized the draft among the boil- ers. You are wasting coal because you do not make the boilers pull together. You need a Jones Automatic Gas Collec- tor and a Draft Gauge for each boiler furnace. You need a Jones Improved Gas Analysis Instrument. With this equipment you can make the boilers pull together. You can drive them as a farmer's boy knows how to drive his horses. Often, however, a purchasing agent runs through the advertising pages of an engineering magazine in specific search for some device that will make his boilers pull together. Because he is hunting for a definite thing, the lighter headline: "Old Joe Is Doing All the Work" will not stop him. Instead, it will act as a wall between him and the product he wants to buy. Getting into the advertisement, the reader meets the idea: "You are not getting the same combustion ef- ficiency from all your boiler furnaces." This idea is really the keynote of the appeal. For the group aimed at, it has a deeper interest than that of curiosity. At the same time it indexes the advertisement for the purchas- ing agent. It has in it, therefore, an idea on which a better headline might have been based. It is now clear that your headline must not merely interest your prospect, but interest him in an idea directly related to your strongest selling appeals. How HEADLINES AND DISPLAYS W. shall you discover or develop such a pulling headline? Here you will find a study of the Advertising Chart especially valuable. That chart was first designed to in- dicate the tone which should dominate an advertise- ment — the tone which should find expression in your headline, your illustration and your closing appeal. If your product belongs in Class B, you must seek opening words that will impress the reader with its value in his business. If your product is in Class C, the headline may well play, up one of its unique advantages. If in Class A, your headline must make your prospect feel the disadvantage of being without your goods. But remember that a headline may state a disadvan- tage and yet fail to make your prospect feel it. To in- sure his interest you must get all the power over mind and senses which words can give — you must make him feel his disadvantage. How effectively this can be done is show* by the advertisement of gas bath water heaters, reproduced in Chapter IX. The headline reads: "Ever Go Without a Bath for Lack of Hot Water?" Here is a question that challenges the reader's memory of many occasions when he felt an irritation at finding the water cold. He can scarcely resist reading on. Forethought will enable you to put an equally vivid appeal into your headline, whether your product be in Class A, B, C, or D. Only get vividly in mind the task of your copy and the specific motives to be touched — the leading impulses of your prospect group. Find a common point in the experience of your man and the appeal of your product. State that point vigorously, with virile words and a strong verb. Such a statement not only brings your prospect sharply to attention ; but in the most direct way, interests him 'n your sales appeal. And this is the test of a good headline. ..,,; fH^ ^ £% ■.-»'. ' jjjj^*^£* , r-v '*. J^ vW* "Jj»- fe>V:V i U ?& A ■g4"Nrea BSr- - <& r ;i>I^^^H CHAPTER IX Making Copy Plain and Interesting WHEN you sit down to write your advertisement re- member that dozens of other men are also bombard, ing the busy prospect. A thousand things cry constantly for his attention. He will pause but an instant to puzzle out a tangled statement. You cannot hope to hold him long. Unless you interest him, you cannot hold him at all. Therefore be brief ; be plain ; be interesting. Brevity does not mean paucity of ideas; it means the telegraphic style; the short paragraph, the few right words that flash the heart of your sales message; the single sentence that strikes truly at not only one buying motive, but at the most powerful combination of motives you can invoke to concentrate his thoughts and desirea upon your proposition. How to Think Out, Develop, Reinforce and Test a Piece of Copy The gas heater advertisement reproduced in this chap- ter is an unusually successful one from the pencil of a trained copy man. Read it carefully. Notice the utility appeal in the headline. The writer of this advertisement might have written it: "Gas Heaters for Bath Rooms ;" but he felt instinctively PLAIN COPY 63 that the copy he wished to write belonged in class "A" on the Advertising Chart; that it required an un- expected expenditure and must make the prospect feel the disadvantage of being without the heater. He felt that he could best emphasize this disadvantage by mak- ing his prospect recall vividly a specific instance of it. 1 ' Ever go without a bath for lack of hot water ? ' ' is the idea he is seeking; it reaches the senses as well as the brain; it reminds the prospect of the discomfort and vexation he felt only a few days before when, wishing to take a bath, he found the water cold. To make your copy interesting you must begin right. You must have not a faint mental image of the work of your copy, but a vivid one. Feel the task of your copy; feel it strongly, and you can scarcely help thinking of the word, phrase or sentence that will flash your message. Write this message down; then study it. Consider closely what each element in the sentence adds to it, and measure again this total idea by your feeling, your realization of your real appeal. Precisely by this method we have determined with the copywriter, that "Gas Heaters for Bath Rooms" is not the best headline, and have worked from it to the one actually chosen. The first paragraph of the advertisement might have been written : "If so, it is 1 your own fault. ' ' Had you so written it, would you not at once have felt that "your own fault" was antagonistic? Note how the phrase "badly managed home" not only avoids this antagon- ism, but also strikes subtly at the prospects pride. In writing your own copy, seek, as here, to make your cor- rection do double service — eliminate a fault and add a new appeal. Step three touches pride in "Out-of-date water heat- II 8 » 3 a c§ ft o IS I it Is i «I 8-2 =3 ■5 « o ® Sis
> a dT-o ~X£§ £ a'-S - -Ism C > "i v .ScoS •o.c > a O CI S § rt ^ ° > 4J.2 & h'3"2 III! 66 WRITING THE AD ing facilities, ' ' and the money motive in "85-cent gas." If we omit the last four words of Step three, and the first word of Step four, these two paragraphs fall into one longer single sentence. Why didn't the writer put it this way? Because he had his audience vividly in mind. He knew that the longer paragraph might dis- courage some of his readers before they had begun to read it. For the same reason, he divided the whole copy into short, plain type paragraphs, with ample white space between and a liberal white margin. Step three closes with the words, "is a big mistake.' ' This phrase not only breaks the two paragraphs, but challenges the reader's interested "Why?" Step four answers, and does a great deal more. It appeals to the love of family motive; the money motive in the word 1 ' cheap ; ' ' the utility motive in the word * ' convenience ; ' ' self indulgence in the word "luxury;" and pride and emulation in the phrase, "which most of our neighbors are enjoying. ' ' These three short lines appeal specifically to four of the five motives in the Advertising Chart. How can you make your copy combine appeals in this broad but plain and forcible way? By following the same route which the writer unconsciously followed in producing Step four. His first thought for Step four was something like this: "It means that you are depriving yourself of a con- venience that you can well afford." Suppose this had been your first thought for this step ? On examining it you feel that the clause, * * that you can well afford," does not hit hard. The word "cheap" seems a better substitute. The sentence now reads: "It means that you are depriving yourself of a cheap convenience." The meaning is now plain. Test it for combined ap- PLAIN COPY 67 peals. Ask yourself, "Is hot water more than a cheap convenience ? ' ' The answer comes to mind instantly : "Yes, it is a luxury — a luxury that other people are enjoying — that most of your neighbors are enjoying:" Condense this new idea, and write it into the copy. You now have: "It means that you are depriving yourself of a cheap convenience and luxury which most of your neighbors are enjoying." Study the new form closely. "You are depriving yourself " does not mention the rest of the family. Here is an opportunity to work in the powerful "love of family" appeal. You now have the finished form: "It means that you and your family are depriving yourselves of a cheap convenience and luxury which most of your neighbors are enjoying." You have gone through the mental route by which it was reached. To make your own copy plain and inter- esting, take the same route. How to Adapt the Wording of Your Copy to Suit a Certain Medium Adapt your words and arrangements not only to your prospects, however, but also to your mediums. If you are using bill boards, which the reader must see as his car passes, the need to flash the heart of your appeal in a few words is imperative. Along a suburban railroad is a bill board several hundred feet long. Its whole message is arranged in a single line: White & Co.— Rags— Curtains— Chairs— Office Furnitnre— White & Co. Whether coming or going, even at a speed of fifty miles an hour, this message, because brief and properly displayed, is flashed upon every passenger who is gazing out of the window. 68 WRITING THE AD If you are using street-car cards, the time element is not so pressing ; but the reader 's distance from the card requires large type, which means brevity. More than thirty-five words are too many ; type smaller than forty- eight point is too small. A card which shows an ac- curate illustration of your product, and has only a dozen or less purchase-prompting words will "pull" better. In a certain department store the man who has pur- chased a necktie, for instance, receives it in an envelope on which is printed a short advertisement for shirts, gloves or something similar — but the envelope never advertises the article he has just bought. The idea be- hind this assortment of envelopes is that the person who has just bought ties is now interested in allied lines. In every business, similar possible mediums are being wasted. Booklet and circular copy may follow up a previous approach or develop the sale from the beginning. Such copy often takes the prospect's extended attention too much for granted. A prospect will read longer and harder on a contemplated automobile purchase than on a lawn mower. His interest, on the average, is in pro- portion to the strength of the buying motives that ac- tuate him. You can entice attention farther on the same offer, however, by clean-cut and sympathetic wording, by arrangement and typography that transmit your ideas with the slightest friction. If you find your copy unread, get closer to your proper tone of sales making ; strip your appeal down to the real weight of your proposition and the buying mo- tives it reaches. Untangle the word puzzles. Be con- cise. Be plain. Bear on the vital points that assure interest. CHAPTER X Writing In the Reasons Why IN advertising a laundry soap, a manufacturer worded as follows his appeal to housewives, through various woman's journals and other mediums reaching the home: "Cleaner Soap is different from other makes. It is made to do things which other soaps will not do — to lather freely in any kind of water, hard as well as soft; to work best in cold or luke warm water; to loosen dirt without the help of hard rubbing and troublesome boiU ing in a steam dripping kitchen." This, in the sense covered by the words in the Adver- tising Chart, is real reason-why copy — copy which tells the reader why he should choose a particular one among similar products. These claims were such as no other soap manufacturer had previously made. They were important — vital — such as to set the prospect searching store after store and refusing substitutes until the de- sired brand was found. If your soap or bluing or what-not is uniformly sold over the same counters with competing lines, suggestive or publicity copy may sell it for you. The above ad- vertiser might have filled his space by repeating over and over the phrase, "Buy Cleaner Soap. ,, In so doing. 70 WRITING THE AD however, he would have relied for trade solely upon the good nature and the good memory of customers. A manufacturer of malted milk says in his advertising: "Rich milk — malted grain — pure nutrition — up-build- ing the whole body — invigorating to young and old — agrees with the weakest digestion. Prepared in one minute." At the bottom, of his advertisement, in large type, is the exhortation: "Original and genuine — take no substitute/' Why take no substitute? The answer is not in his copy. The copy pleads eloquently for malted milk, but gives the reader not the slightest reason for buying the advertiser's malted milk rather than his competitor's. Indeed his competitors do very little advertising, be- cause this manufacturer is conducting nothing more than a general publicity campaign for all malted milk. The province of a local dealer is to oblige his cus- tomers in every way possible. The popularity of his store depends upon giving service, and it is a genuine service, when unable to fill a man's order, politely to offer him the next best thing you have in stock. The burden is upon the manufacturer of any particular brand of goods, to prove that substitution is not a real service — to point out the special advantage to the buyer of his particular product — not merely the fact that it is the original product in the field — not merely that malted milk in general is healthful — but a genuine argu- ment which will make the customer meet substitutes with the remark: "That brand has not the particular properties or qualities that I want." Sweeping statements and " trumped-up ' ' claims are only "make believe" reasons- why. A tobacco manu- facturer says of his tobacco : EEASON WHY COPY 71 M Greatest in the world — best ever — incomparable — iastes fine." His copy-writer either did not believe this or believed it blindly ; but he felt instinctively that men must have a reason, or they would not ask for his goods. Feeling- no such reason, he merely fell back on the time-worn superlative, thinking, perhaps, that the reader could solve the riddle better than he. In marked contrast to this copy is an advertisement which says that the brand it offers "does not bite. ,, If you are a smoker, you will recognize in those three words a specific advantage dear to the heart of the smoker. The value of this reason is that it shows ac- tual knowledge of the goods, and is a claim so easily tested that the manufacturer would not dare to make it were it not a fact. Remember that the Value of Your Copy Depends on Making Your Claims Believed The weakness 5 of any superlative or sweeping claim — the strength of any specific, guaranteed or easily tested claim — is in the disbelief or confidence with which it is received. If we felt sure that a brand were "the best on earth, " everyone would buy it. We believe no such thing, however, and the proposition is usually too big for any advertiser or salesman to prove. To make your reasons specific and convincing, study the Advertising Chart in connection with your goods. Pick out the strongest appeals that belong to your propo- sition, and to yours only. These, and not the appeals which your competitor also can make, are the ones to emphasize in your copy. Let the buying public know briefly that you have also those good qualities common to your line and your competitor's; prove that your 72 WRITING THE AD product has those qualities which competitors deny to it; but emphasize the reasons for your choice, if you would avoid substitution — and wherever possible back up your claims with proof. The value of proof was well tested by a manufacturer of automobiles who felt that his copy should be pulling better. In a sales meeting when the subject was under discussion, he said : "Boys, hereafter let's prove everything we claim. If we are trying to sell an engine on the fact that it will start when the weather is forty degrees below zero, let's first have the proof ready; if we claim it will run on a certain amount of gasoline per mile, let's have the proof up our sleeve and swing it in right after the state- ment.' ' The plan was religiously followed in future advertis- ing and selling. Claims and adjectives which could not be backed were ferreted out and abandoned. When a statement would stand proof, tests were made, proof sworn to and the evidence put to work. Everything in the advertising was established either by testimonials, by the backing of a well-known authority, or by test and demonstration recorded beyond dispute. The confidence and enthusiasm thus aroused made possible the final step in proof, which absolutely takes the burden of chance off the shoulder^ of the buyer — a sweeping guarantee of the car by the manufacturer. Having the full resources of the great concern behind it, this proved to be the climax in establishing the claims for the automobile and speeding up the sales campaign. For its underlying strength, reason-why copy always goes back to some evidence. Sometimes a photograph establishes your claims beyond dispute. If you have built up the reputation of your company, its guarantee REASON WHY COPY 73 or merely its printed word settles the question. Con- fidence is an important asset in any reliable firm name or trademark. Where personal testimony is brought forward in proof, however, the copy is strengthened by establishing beyond doubt the value of the signed state- ment. The unsigned quotation or fiction speech lacks eeriously in power to convince. Testimonials have been so generally abused, that name and address, convincing details or a photograph of the original copy should be given where possible. The local dealer, in using the testimony of a neighbor in good standing, gets, perhaps, the full strength of the personal testimonial. A Wisconsin plumber who had 1 spent money liberally on general claims for the advantages of hot water over 6tove heating, changed from this not altogether suc- cessful plan, and, during his second season, printed in every advertisement at least one quotation like the fol- lowing, from a popular local merchant: "Mr. J. H. Smith, who had us install a complete hot water heating plant September 1, tells us that it kept his store warm all winter with half the trouble and one- third less coal than stove heat, used the year before/' The specific selling points, such as; "one-third less coal and half the trouble,'' backed by the name of a reputable neighbor whom any prospect could interview on the subject any day, immediately strengthened the plumber's advertising. How to Avoid Substitution — Putting the Reasons Be- hind the Brands You Offer The man who advertises lines identical with compet- ing stores, or whose goods have no unique merit, must still find a reason for being in business. Such a reason 74 WRITING THE AD easily may be found and put behind his selling policy. He may add to his goods any one of a dozen artificial or external appeals — such as convenience; the premium, discount or trading stamps ; delivery facilities, telephone facilities, mail order conveniences, rest rooms, courteous attention, expert service. Any one of these special ad- vantages may inspire powerful reason-why advertising which will decide the prospect in his purchasing habits. Two western dealers in gasoline engines found mail order competition embarrassing. To meet it, one of them sent a circular letter to ranch owners offering his expert advice in adapting an engine to the ranchman's needs; the other dealer wrote: "Come in and let's talk it over. You can tell me just what work you have to do and I can tell you which engine will do it at the lowest expense. I can show you how to put in a line shaft and connect your machinery so as to run all your machinery at the same time with one engine. In a half hour's time we can get farther than we could in a dozen letters, back and forth." The second dealer's appeal offered a genuine reason for buying from him. The first dealer had merely met the mail order house on the common ground of an in- definite claim, without! bringing proof to it by inviting a personal visit. Every advertisement has in it a place for the reasons that should support the desires of the buyer. These may be reasons for purchasing a product in class "A" or class ' ' B, ' ' or they may be genuine reasons- why designed to decide the buyer in making a choice between like products. In any case, the clever copy man goes back to the genuine, the unique, the significant reasons; and having given them, makes them " stick" by the strong- est evidence, proof and guarantee to be had. CHAPTER XI How to Word Inducements and In- sure Response BY good copy, through which runs the persuasive cord of a clever sales plan or scheme, your prospect has been brought to attention, to interest, to the attitude of saying: "That's exactly what I ought to get, but — ." The advertising man who can anticipate this one final difficulty which is discouraging the buyer, and can meet it, is the one whose copy sells. The purpose of an inducement is to meet this final excuse — to overcome inertia — to fight down delay — to get immediate action. The inducement paragraphs in a piece of copy will require the utmost understanding and tact. There must be no compulsion; but only the friendly counsel that shows immediate action as ad- vantageous to the buyer. First this may be merely sug- gested. Stronger insistence will follow, re-echoing the best selling points, veiling the cost, and bringing the advertisement to a climax in which advantage, ease of action and the mental picture of that action, concentrate their force upon the hesitating prospect. Insincere reasons for immediate action usually sound insincere. A true reason can generally be worded in such homely details as to carry absolute conviction. 75 76 WRITING THE AD Some genuine inducement should be incorporated in the original sales plan, so that the copyman can say more than: "Step lively, please.' ' Thirteen Different Classes of Inducements That Im- pel the Buyer to Quick Acceptance A time limit is the essence of an inducement. A money saving is the next most common element. In- ducements which have been used with success by differ- ent advertisers are : 1. Special prices during the dull season. 2. Special prices in return for names of prospects, special services, etc. 3. Special prices to introduce product. 4. Special price on the club or bulk order, such as the magazine club and the hundred pound freight ship- ment. 5. The cash discount. 6. The money-back guarantee. 7. Free trial or inspection on promissory note. 8. The instalment deposit. 9. The "last chance'' or exhausted stock induce- ment. 10. A special favor offer, due to past trade. 11. Stock specially reserved, subject to your decision. 12. Advantage and value which you can no longer afford to do without. 13. Special occasion or extra offering which you will enjoy only by ordering now. Each of these types of inducement can be varied to Buit different businesses. The clever life insurance agency, for example, mails its solicitation of more in- surance to reach each prospect just before his age change, and reminds him that for the next few days GETTING ACTION 77 only, he can get more insurance at the lower basis rate. The gas heater advertisement reproduced in Chapter IX, builds a clever inducement and close into the con- cluding paragraphs: "Why not let us pick out one for you today?" it inquires suggestively. "Phone Main 8642 — ask for the Water Heater De- partment — tell us how many rooms you Jiave, how many people in your family. We will tell you just wliat type of heater you need to fit your requirements." Thus the advertising man has set his prospect to thinking of immediate action — indeed, has thought out for him exactly what to do and what to say. All the prospect needs to do is to step to the telephone and fol- low directions. Moreover, there is a good reason for doing this now : "These are tlie days when the bath tub calls often — the dog days when 7iight time finds us tired, sticky and uncomfortable." In the motives most open to sales appeal — convenience, comfort and luxury — lies an excellent reason for im- mediate action. "So order the little gas heater today." The persuasion becomes insistent — impelling. Un- consciously the casual reader has come from chance at- tention, face to face with the rather pleasant idea of affording himself a luxury right now. "Give every member of the family a cliance to enjoy a wonderfully refreshing and invigorating bath as often as they feel like it — " But this is not merely a pleasant luxury, he is again reminded. All the comfort which those enticing ad- jectives bring out would be available, not merely for himself, but for every member of the family he loves. 78 WRITING THE AD M — remember the 'phone — Main 8642 — Water Heater Department." The picture of immediate action rises again before the prospector's imagination. But — can he meet the payments ? And then — the final welcome surprise : "Delivered and connected in your home free. Monthly payments if you like." He can manage the purchase right now — he knows exactly how to do so — he feels doubly the discomfort to which he is submitting every hour that he delays. To follow the mental steps which resulted in the above copy, is to find a natural inducement for your sales proposition which appeals to the prospect, and to those in whom he is most interested — which re-echoes loudly the strongest sales points you have made — which agree- ably surprises the reader by withdrawing the last ex- cuse on which his instinct to economy has been leaning. There is a tendency in all of us to postpone action. Crowded with real or imagined duties, we put off any decision which requires thought and labor, except as the necessity or advantage of it overwhelms our inertia. To think out and word for us the mental and physical re- actions necessary to the purchase,, is, in itself, to make action easy — to offer an inducement. Any convenience in ordering, such as the coin card or the signature blank, has persuasive value. If this convenience emphasizes logical reasons for buying now, it has double strength. Many enclosures are haphazard. The clever coupon, coin card or blank, meets a definite excuse which the average prospect will offer. A life insurance company anticipates that its in- quirers will not know exactly what information they should give in order to learn the rate on a policy. The blank, therefore, gives spaces to fill in the birthday and GETTING ACTION 79 date, and to check the various insurance advantages in which the prospect is interested. A clever street car card carries a pad of return pos- tals which get special attention and make inquiry easy. Another dealer, in soliciting a cash-in-advance or- der and enclosing the order blank, impresses the pros- pect with his fairness by enclosing also a receipt for the money, in blank, carefully worded to take care of the prospect's interests and bearing across the end this endorsement, which the prospect can sign and collect on : "We prefer not to use your proffered plan just now, so please return the amount of this receipt at once." The strength of the corner coupon is that it makes re- sponse easy and encourages the impulse which the in- ducement has set in motion. The local grocer gets the same effect by circulating order forms, or erasable 'phone cards, on which the housewife can check, day by day, her kitchen wants. The glove manufacturer and the jeweler anticipate doubt as to the size by sending a glove tape or a card of ring sizes with the order- getting letter. The clever shoe dealer follows up his customers with a card stating the size and style of shoes last purchased, and thus making the re-order easy. An inducement and means of easy response can often be hinged upon local circumstances. During a con- tagious epidemic, a clever dealer put at the bottom of his advertisement: "Don't come down-town to buy — it is not wise. Phone Elmwood 379, 380 or 381 and say 'Rush delivery by motorcycle. 9 A skilful store buyer will take your or- der, suit your wants in all departments of our store, make the charge and rush delivery to you without your having the danger of coming down town or the incon- venience of calling our various departments." CHAPTER XII Blocking Out Your Advertisement COPY — mental appeal to buying motives — is the vital thing in an advertisement. Layout, form, style of type and printing are merely the tools or ve- hicles of expression. The question of layout should not be neglected until the copy is complete. The form and message ought to grow up together, each strengthening the other so that the advertisement, whether persuasive or merely suggestive, gets its full weight behind the vital appeals and strikes a sledge-hammer blow, rather than a series of taps. How to Plan Your Advertisement — What an Un- usual Layout Is Worth Whether in the simple, all-type advertisement, in the richly illustrated magazine section, on the electric sign or in booklet form, the whole value of any layout de- pends upon its transferring your message to your aver- age prospect's mind and will, by the shortest route with the least friction. An advertisement which sends the reader's mind down some by-path of casual humor or curiosity, has gone the long way around. "When I first plan out an advertisement, ' ' said an experienced copy-man, "I begin by considering very BLOCKING OUT ADS 81 carefully the form and make-up of the advertisements with which my copy is to compete. I do this not to imitate, but to differentiate. Next I often run through a file of the cleverest advertisements, circulars, booklets and other matter which I have been able to collect. Then I try to get out doors for a half hour, during which I get clearly in mind the chief appeal of my goods, the outside appeals which I may use to advantage, the sell- ing plan and the people I am to address. Then I come back to my desk and sketch several layouts. "My central idea at this point is to get something un- usual, striking, something that will halt the attention and force the interest of the particular class for which I am writing. There are a dozen factors that may sug- gest a novel layout : 1. Size and shape of page or booklet. 2. Kind of paper. 3. Colors. 4. Illustrations — possibility of picture writing. 5. (Special arrangements of matter. 6. Headlines. 7. Kinds and arrangement of type. 8. Clever and illuminating instances or figures of speech. 9. Making the whole advertisement a representation of something significant, such as a booklet in the shape of the article advertised. 1 ' After making four or five sketches of unusual inter- est and force, I go back to the purpose of my advertise- ment. I test these layouts and choose the one which, at all points, keeps most closely to the real business in hand. If an oddly shaped advertisement or booklet not only gets attention, but emphasizes the business and the article offered for sale — if the illustration, the figure of 82 MAKING LAYOUTS speech or even some play on words makes the appeal more plain, more interesting, more forceful — I accept it as my preliminary layout and write my copy about it as the frame work." Writing In the Details of Style and Arrangement that Make an Advertisement Effective Having determined upon these main features of an advertising page or booklet, the workman-like copy- writer develops his subheads and paging as a part of his literary plan. Headings, introductory lines of large type, initials, "box ruling/ ' the arrangement of columns are all "schemed" to make the message brief, plain, forcible and on the air line between thought and sale. Among the rules of layout which make the form of aa advertisement favorable to its success are the follow- ing ones: 1. Choose the kind of type which is in good taste for your business, light and airy for dainty things, strong and heavy for the motor or engine, because this kind of type rather leads your readers into your subject, than distracts them. 2. Avoid meaningless ornamentation, fanciful letter- ing and intricate arrangement because these add fric- tion to the process of reading. 3. Tests have shown that the eye reads such plain, legible type faces as Caslon most quickly and with the least possible fatigue. 4. Every advertisement a store or firm issues can cleverly be given a company personality by using a cer- tain type constantly for the headline or firm name, or a certain style of ornamentation or arrangement. It is wise to have this hand-lettered and etched to give a greater air of distinction. BLOCKING OUT ADS 83 5. Capital letters are harder to read than small let- ters as tests have proved. 6. For reading matter the size of newspaper type, a two-inch column is the most practical width of line as to ease in reading. It is exceedingly difficult to read a long line of small type, and a safe rule is never to use a column more than five inches wide in type less than 14 point. Longer lines should be set even larger propor- tionately. 7. Just as a long line wearies the attention and makes it difficult to catch the next line on the return, so the long paragraph, the involved sentence and lines crowded close together make your advertisement hard to read and understand. The eye is eager, but it chooses advertisements which are most inviting in appearance. By breaking up your page into columns of proper width, with clear, well spaced type and matter which looks "conversational," you win more readers and get your message to a greater number in the short time you can hold their attention. 8. Moreover, the same inviting openness of arrange- ment applies equally well to the whole page. The eye and mind, like the mouth and stomach, are unable to drink in all that can be crowded upon them. By mak- ing the page open and balancing the masses of type or illustrations in a way not too formal, you assist eye and mind in working to their full capacity. 9. Illustrations and charts, subheads and colors are valuable to emphasize some selling point and make it easy for the reader to grasp. Have the photograph or drawing right in subject, taken from the right angle and worked up in a skillful manner to emphasize this selling point. The arrangement of an involved page, such as a de- 84 MAKING LAYOUTS partment store advertisement, gives the advertising man a chance to show much ingenuity. Making a Crowded Advertisement Easy and Attrac- tive to the Average Reader A city department store recently published an adver- tisement, listing about one hundred bargains in gowns and coats. The body of this advertisement was put into a single paragraph longer and broader than a man's hand, close spaced and in only medium-sized type. A rival store took just twice this amount of space, and under forty-five different headings, advertised plainly and attractively some 750 definite bargains, every one with list and cut prices, and with many illustrations. The second advertisement used every abbreviation pos- sible without sacrificing clearness; it eliminated every capital letter except in proper names ; it used small type in narrow columns well leaded and spaced; it avoided superlatives and worded every item in a style such as: "$24 for men's $35 suits, made of fine homespun.'' "Five cents for eight-cent apron gingham — two to ten yards." "Twenty per cent off rustic hick, chairs, tables, etc." At the head of every list appeared the name of the sale, the location of the counter, the name of the article or class of goods in big type, and wherever possible, a black sketch suggesting the type of goods. frhis is only one of many possible ways to cut out the friction in an involved advertisement. You may use the same principle which appears so effectively in the show window, or the 10-cent counter; once for all feature the price and follow it by a list of the goods; or feature either quality, selection or selling appeal and follow with the list in which you have interested readers. BLOCKING OUT ADS 85 In wording your advertisement and making your lay- out, consider the readers" you are addressing. There is a class of readers who note merely the headlines and the final paragraph; another class who catch the subheads and the leading facts under each ; yet another class who read the entire advertisement word by word. The widest possible appeal belongs to the advertisement which is arranged to suit all these reading habits and makes itself plain enough for any one to understand. The experienced advertiser who has made a study of types and balance can, from his finished copy and his preliminary sketch, make up a final layout or dummy Number of Average Words Per Square Inch of Type Average Book Type — Size Number of Words to Square Inch Set Solid Set Leaded Five Point Six Point Seven Point Eight Point Nine Point Ten Point Eleven Point Twelve Point 69 47 38 32 28 21 17 14 50 34 27 23 21 16 14 11 showing, paragraph by paragraph or page by page, the use of rules, illustrations, ornaments, and practically every detail from headline to address or coupon. It is well to make this layout simple, merely indicating with a pencil the mass of each column or paragraph, noting opposite each in the margin the style and size of type to be used and by a letter or number referring to the piece of copy which will occupy that space. Copywriters sometimes have proofs made of average reading matter in the most used type sizes and faces, from which a block containing the desired number of words is cut, to be posted on the layout as an indication 86 MAKING LAYOUTS of the space the copy will take up. By measurement and reference to the preceding table of type sizes, the layout can be made quite accurately. Before the final proof of an advertisement is 0. K'd, it is well to score it by some list of tests which show its relative strength from various important angles. From Twelve Tests of an Advertisement Suited to prospect— touches vital motives? 2 Suited to business as to reliability, fairness and house personality? 3 Timely— trade news?. , 4 Impels or repels reading? _______________________________ 5 Arrangement and white space? , 6 Illustrations? 7 Sincerity, truthfulness and force for building confidence and prestige? . 8 Shows knowledge of product's selling points? 9 Proper tone of appeal? __ 10 Impresses reader with services offered?. 11 Assures getting money's worth? 12 Induces to immediate action? Total Appraising pieces of successful and unsuccessful copy by some fixed standard often re- veals the secrets of the result and suggests points of added strength. The various tests here summed up in the form of twelve questions permit of scoring each feature by points similar lists one advertiser has made up the above list of twelve questions by which he scores his advertise- ment, 100 per cent being a perfect score and 8J per cent representing a perfect grade under each heading. Results are the only final test of an advertisement. Therefore the clever advertising man rates all prelimi- nary judgments and tests as subject to the outcome of the campaign. From season to season, however, he studies the advertisements which have succeeded or failed, and from them learns that which perfects the form and substance of his copy. II II Part IF PLANNING OUT MEDIUMS, SPACE AND APPROPRIATIONS Putting Your Campaign Into Effect WHEN you begin to plan a full-round advertising campaign, you encounter several of the most intri- cate and puzzling problems in the field of selling. How much money ought you to spend for this campaign? How are you going to distribute this fund — in many small advertisements or in a few prominent insertions? What are the most effective of these mediums that are urged upon you by dozens? Where, fundamentally, are your richest sales districts — whose trade comes easiest, is most permanent, most gen- erous and most profitable? The experiments and experience of clever pioneers in ad- vertising have brought out a few solid principles that will assist you in deciding these chief features of your campaign. But you will find no one who has exactly the same problems that you have. Finally, you will have to get out into the advertising field and blaze your own trail. As you study your field, your prospects and your mediums first hand, you will learn to forecast shrewdly what various situations demand. The all-important thing is to get away from haphazard advertising. Get a basis — set up standards by which to observe the progress of your campaigns. Advertising has a definite place in modern business, with a definite function — to arouse demand and put buyers in contact with supply. In the accounting, advertising does not belong among the luxuries or the indefinables. It is a definite sales force and demands a definite ledger page. Good business will never recede from its insistence that you know where your advertising goes and what it does; that you check up the expense accounts of your adver- tisements as you do of your salesmen, and give bigger op- portunities to those that get best results. ■ m ■ !■ =■■■ Ill nil CHOOSING THE MEDIUMS FOR THE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN r- Written |-| Sales Letters Newspapers 1 Genera] Magazines] - Space Advertising Class and Trade Journals P ' d" I 1 1 •1 Trade Lists and Text Special Publications | Catalogs | 1 Circulars and Form Letten House Publications for Private Distribution Booklets | 1 House Organs | Salesmanship- Developing _ Demand Suppliers' Literature - Printed Quotation Sheets 1 ! Sales Slips, Wrappers, Etc. r Electric Signs | Posters) Movable and Fixed Sign Boards - Signs and Displays Street Car Cards | 1 Show Cards | Displays of Product Moving Pictures) Souvenirs and , Novelties Varied to Suit Prospects and Occasions - Spoken - ~\ Field Salesmen A House Salesmen Printed, spoken velop demand f cient, must act m and written :>r goods. P through me s: rin Jib ilesmanship are the ted salesmanship, o ims fitted to the fie selling plan fo r a Id rces available to c dvertising, to be e the offer and t le- ffi- he ■ ■ m: :tii CHAPTER XIII Locating Your High -Profit Prospects MARSHALL, the leading piano dealer in a rocky mountain city, had just installed a new line of in- struments which gave him a complete stock from the $1,300 Grand, down to the "$15-down-and-$5-a-month" instrument that; gives the children in the poor districts their first idea of culture. As Marshall stood in his third floor stockroom and looked out across the city, his forehead wrinkled with thought. u Every home within my view seems to be a prospect for my instruments ; but certain of those homes are more than mere possibilities of a sale — they are vital, high-profit prospects. How can I distinguish between the easy and the difficult sales — how can I pick out my high-profit prospects and bring them to my store?" It takes patience to build up a high-profit prospect list. It means accuracy, personal acquaintance — clever detection of unrealized ambitions and wishes. The piano dealer spent thirty days and $1,500 building up his list of possible piano purchasers. He went to the little pencil and candy shop across the street from each ward school in the city. With the proprietors he arranged to display window placards, an- 90 SPACE AND MONEY nonncing a prize contest. Every boy or girl who would come into the shop and fill out a registration blank was given a sack of candy and a coupon number which might win one of twenty-two valuable prizes offered. The piano dealer purchased his candy from each individual storekeeper, and the latter, in turn, handled the contest locally. When the coupons were assembled, they gave the name and address of nearly every parent of school children in the city. They also indicated the number and ages of the children, and whether or not the family owned or played the piano, or was considering the purchase of a piano. When the advertising campaign was put to work upon this costly list, it resulted in probably the greatest piano selling campaign the city had ever seen. Tests often show amazing facts that upset all previous ideas as to who want your product. A manufacturer was surprised to find that orders came chiefly from men when his advertising had been addressed to women. Records have revealed many surprising things about the relation of city, town and country in connection with groups of prospects. We do not know our best prospects except by investigation. It is a simple matter to choose typical territory and prospect lists in various lines, keying your advertisement differently for each and tabulating the results. Such tests have proved that blind advertisements and adver- tisements sacrificing selling value to general interests, usually draw a large number of " curiosity' ' inquiries which are a heavy liability in the follow-up. Clever advertisers frequently request a remittance of a stamp or a dime, thus culling out these low-profit prospects. The clever merchant also chooses his advertising leaders LOCATING PROSPECTS •* and limits the quantity of the bargain which each person is permitted to buy, in order to keep down the percent- age of mere bargain hunters and draw to his store those who will buy large bills. A mail order man in Tennessee often took lists on which the best prospects had most carefully been checked, and in the enthusiasm of his plan, at the last minute would order the whole lot, good and bad, to be circular- ized. The small town merchant instructs his advertising man to miss no one, for "there is no telling who may buy." This principle leads to spectacular orders, but entails an average loss. There are many ways to forecast high- profit prospects. Clever analysis of prospects into buy- ing groups is the basis of successful advertising. One manufacturer carries an advertisement in a na- tional medium throughout the year, merely for the indi- cations it gives him of timely buying in various sections and of largest consistent demand in certain states. A publisher's sales manager made his appeal to the school teachers in seven states, and, upon the returns secured the first season, focused subsequent campaigns upon forty high-profit counties. Analysis of his first year's returns showed that his most profitable prospects were in country school districts and in towns of less than 2,500, within only two of the seven states. Further an- alysis enabled him to handle his follow-up letters under six different divisions, which made an unusually personal appeal, each to its class. His focused advertising in- creased gross returns and cut expenses. By reference to tax lists an automobile dealer with rights covering twelve counties, was enabled to focus on professional men in paved-street towns, and farm owners of a certain rating, as the two high-profit groups oi 92 SPACE AND MONEY prospects for his car. This information enabled him to reach his men with a banquet and demonstration day far too expensive to be used as a general follow-up. When It Pays to Get Out and Choose the Prospects for Your List In some lines, personal field work upon your prospect list is well worth while. A clever dry goods store has alloted a rural route to each of its salesmen. The sales- man has a day to cover this* route once a month and re- vise his card list of prospects upon it. Whenever a special sale is to be advertised or a job lot offered, each salesman picks from his list the high-profit prospects most likely to buy. The plan gives almost 100 per cent efficiency to the store's circularizing. One cityj druggist will rely upon the judgment of no subordinate in making up his prospect list. He makes his own visits among the doctors of the city, keeping up his acquaintance and maintaining a list, never more than six weeks old, of professional prospects. Doctors are quite likely to remind him if they miss his prescrip- tion pads and follow-up letters announcing the latest stocks and conveniences for the accurate prescription work on which he holds almost a "quality monopoly." A Canadian store studied the tax records and made a map of its territory indicating by spots of various tints, the prospect groups especially profitable for different grades of goods. The same plan on a vast scale has been used by a national advertiser. How Analysis of the Prospect Situation Stopped a Slump in the Business of a Store The new manager of a St. Louis department store faced the problem of the terrific summer slump. His LOCATING PROSPECTS 93 solution of that problem was to determine, with math- ematical accuracy, just where his best prospects, past and future, for all lines of goods, were located. How he did this is a story full of interest and suggestion to every national or local advertiser. Delivery DUtrict Comparative Statement Parcel Deliveries During Summer Months May 1- May Mil May MM June MM June Ml. | July 1910 July 1911 Aug. 1910 Aug. 1911 1 2719 3852 4718 3024 3295 2924 3385. 2415 3127 2 3502 5384 6998 4696 6014 >3946 4890 2911 3789 3 3205 4824 6376 3800 6024 3054 3678 2518 2403 4 2558 3291 4070 2818 3084 2317 2313 1688 2049 5 5625 6380 6695 4424 5819 4326 4594 3124 3603 6 4146 5819 6309 4714 5158 3256 3199 1957 1727 7 3068 4163 5112 3590 4026 2128 2019 1564 1397 8 6824 9350 11385 6802 8695 4234 5678 2674 3485 9 2244 4438 4567 2602 4112 2596 3482 1924 1258 10 2972 4397 4801 3526 4258 ' 2640 2741 1763 1873 11 3712 5621 6409 4092 5107 3644 3137 2077 2383 12 4318 6374 10456 5737 4982 3672 4329 2285 3267 13 2912 5173 6723 3653 5217 2506 3133 1767 2121 14 2412 4416 5891 3105 4407 2032 2546 1547 1755 47217, 73482 87510 56583 69198 43335 49124 30204 34237 Tabulation of the number of parcels delivered on each city delivery route during each dull month, vear by year, showed the manager of a St. Louis department store what CTOup* of prospects he was overlooking. He was thus enabled to focus on these groups and, as shown by the totals, to increase his summer business steadily from year to ear On detecting the first stages of the slump he called in his department heads. "Our people," said they, "leave the city in summer." The new manager challenged this statement and found that not over twelve per cent of the population bought 94 SPACE AND MONEY outward bound transportation during r June, iTul/ and August. "If we are serving only twelve per cent of the inhab- itants of this great city," said he, "we are only scratch- ing the soil of opportunity. We must reach more people/ ' Delivery slips for months back were then tabulated, showing that from the fashionable sections where trade was now falling off, came most of the year's business. Four routes covering the great middle class and labor- ing sections of the city — the staple elements in the city's trade indicated low deliveries throughout the year. The manager of the store now sent for a list of his own employees and interviewed those likely to be best informed as to local classes and buying tastes. Within a month the territory had been divided by classes, maps had been made, new goods had been purchased to suit these various buying groups as described by employees from every section and the advertising began to go out with a new directness of aim. The advertising man knew just what goods he should feature, for newspaper circulation showed him just what section and classes each medium was reaching. Where he could not appeal in this way, circulars were dis- tributed or mailing lists made up to secure distribution. JVIonth by month the manager's statement indicates the number of packages delivered on each of the twelve routes in the city. The high-profit groups of prospects are under constant test and appeal is made with such ac- curacy that in one season the summer trade picked up forty per cent. CHAPTER XIV Choosing Profitable Sales Mediums and Lists WIERE retail trade centers and eddies in the city of Cleveland, a great popular store was recently established. Back of this result were hours spent by the millionaire owner in study and tabulation of the pass- ing throng. The business man satisfied himself person- ally as to the point where he could reach the greatest possible number of good prospects. He then intrusted to his agents the tedious negotiations necessary to find ground space. He knew, however, that they could buy the space — to find the prospect center was a quest toe big for any one but himself. The advertiser faces a similar problem. Once having located his high-profit prospect districts and groups, he has fixed a standard by which to judge the mediums that, in varying degrees, offer him the desired 1 advertis- ing contact. The range of possible mediums is wide. A clever ad- vertiser divides the periodical field alone into a dozen classifications, geographic and sociological, professional and class. The bill board, the fence sign, mail matter, circular matter and booklets; the electric sign, the 95 96 SPACING AND MONET novelty, the moving picture slide, the sales slip and the street car card — all have a certain fitness and reach. Each medium selects automatically a different group as your prospects. To be sure that this selection is the best pos- sible, you must get at certain facts about every one of these mediums. Test and Revision in the Choice of Advertising Mediums for the Campaign Actual tests, keen observation and complete records are the only final standard for judging an advertising medium. Your first use of it may be experimental. But no medium should pass the third experiment without the seal of test. Listing your tried mediums by combined, inquiry and sales value will show which ones to abandon. Those at the top of the list are your hundred pointers — push them. Others you can use with profit only for season- able appeals or intermittently as sales catch up with space cost. Where an absolute check is not possible, circularizing your inquirers and buyers often clears up a choice of medium which has puzzled the advertiser. The country merchant whose fence signs are cleverly worded, has found the remarks of his customers proof that he was getting good value from his medium. A general store in Colorado has proved by weekly sales, that the mimeograph and the lc letter are the best among its lim- ited advertising means. Often the practice rather than the medium is at fault. Where lc postage has been found more profitable than the red stamp, the latter should still be used after sea- sons of unusual change, such as the spring and fall mov- ing time, to eliminate "dead" names and to trace pros- pects who have changed their address. The channel for MAKING UP LISTS 97 returned letters should be so guarded that every letter is identified and at once checked against the list. Inquiry letters often develop the wrong use of a pos- sible profit maker. A contest advertised or carried on by private correspondence may bring out a fault in your understanding of your readers. One packing house ad- vertiser sends a query blank to his local office managers before renewing any contract or adopting any new medium. Personal and local knowledge gives him an inexpensive check upon his expenditure. But clever advertisers forestall many losses due to poor mediums, by clean-cut appraisement of unfamiliar means of publicity. How to Study Out, Estimate and Compare the Value of New Mediums Helpful rules for appraising an advertising medium as to its probable value have been outlined under four heads, as outlined in the accompanying chart. 1. Territory. 2. Standing of medium. 3. Headers. 4. Uses. According to an advertising expert the first questions for any advertiser to ask concern the medium in rela- tion to its territory: (1) Is the territory of this medium desirable for my business ? (2) Am I ready to do business in this territory? (3) Is this medium essential or valuable in covering this territory? The first of these questions forces the advertiser to prove whether demand for his goods is certain in the contemplated section. 98 SPACE AND MONEY Question 2 puts before the advertiser the necessity of having factory or store capacity and distributing facil- ities right for his campaign. Without these elements no medium can pay out. The third question brings up the extent and char- acter of the circulation. Upon this point circular letter . Answer PerCent 7S. too n 90 100 SI to M 100 10* 1 1 Answer PerCent 75 100 20 40 iff » M HO) r a Test Questions MFnillM Answer Per Cent Territory , .,, * Standing of Medium 1 IVi in readers think well of if? ,__.... * Readers 1 Whet pet cent of its readers use, need or represent a 2 What per real hj ve the neceuarv bnvinR pnwr) __________ Use } Are tone and layout of my advertisement right for classes this medium rearhnf , , 3 Am 1 taking full advantage of medium with regard to space and advertising rules and contract/ _ " Card for scoring the advantages of advertising mediums on a comparative basis. The eleven questions listed suggest important investigations into the value of a medium. Upon the estimate (%) answering each question, various mediums can be matched point by point with illuminating results tests on portions of the field give valuable side lights upon the periodical's own appraisement of its reach. As regards the standing or character of a medium, three questions are pertinent: ( 1 ) Is this a fit personal representative for my busi- ness^ — what are my own conclusions as to the character of the medium? (2) Bo its readers trust it — what is the readers' •pinion of the medium? MAKING UP LISTS 99 (3) Will my advertisement be in prosperous and similar company — what is the opinion of com- peting and representative businesses aa U the medium ? Supposing territory and character of medium now to be right, it is worth while to remind one's self of the character of readers who make profitable prospects. (1) What percentage of the readers of this medium use, need or represent a probable demand for my product? (2) What percentage have the necessary buying power ! If the medium has passed these tests satisfactorily, it only remains to make sure that the medium be used cor- rectly. This may be tested by three questions: (1) Is this the right time to reach the readers of ihis medium f (2) Is the tone and layout of my copy correct in its appeal to the particular classes of prospects this medium reaches? (3) Am I taking full advantage of the space rules of this medium with regard to display, prob- able increase in rates, style, size, position, clos- ing dates, etc? The sponsors for any medium are sure to have facts which will help answer these questions. One prominent advertising manager has each medium submit an ex- amination sheet of test questions and replies covering the ground thoroughly. The above examination of a medium, however, will bring out, in unexpected ways, the genuine and unprejudiced valuation of the space, and will develop the final considerations of its use — its particular reach, restrictions and advantages. CHAPTER XV How Much to Spend for Advertising WHEN the expense estimate fop the year is made up, advertising expense should not be left among the items to be determined by luck, selling hypnotism and "the main chance." Experience and study should fix some standard of advertising expense, space sizes and order cost, which will make for greater efficiency in advertising year after year. "Our rule, ,, says a department store advertiser, "is to use a page in the three leading newspapers, daily and Sunday." "My plan," says the advertising manager of a con- cern manufacturing engine parts, "is to use such space as I shall never be forced to decrease. Reducing the size of your advertisement may give your prospect the idea that business is going badly and that your offer is not trustworthy." Other advertisers tell of their success, built on use of two inch space, multipage space, or some other arbi- trary investment. Is there any rule or principle underneath this con- fusion, which will serve as a guide to the store adver- tiser, the real estate man, the local business man, and HOW MUCH TO SPEND 101 also to the manufacturer seeking the development of a national field? Choosing Your Space to Suit the Demands of the Product to Be Advertised One of the world's leading advertisers lays down the commonsense rule that space should suit copy, just as the message weights the letter, and the contents de- termine the packing case. Use of the Advertising Chart, guided by immediate knowledge of your offer, your prospect and the season, has proved a specially valuable guide in determining upon the most efficient space unit for your advertising. One clever copy man spent weeks considering this problem of space in connection with two well-known office appliances. Both were unfamiliar to the average business man, and yet business men generally, had long felt the need of them. Both advertisements, therefore, belonged in Class B, demanding clean-cut descriptive copy. The advertiser gave one office appliance four inches, single column; for the other, he used twelve pages. The first appliance was small, simple, self-evident, in- expensive. The headline made the merchant say, " Here's something new." The illustrations made him acknowledge, " That's something I have always wanted." Three crisp paragraphs were sufficient to show him how the machine worked and would fit into his organization. A coupon made it possible for him to get more details, or buy off-hand in a minute 's time. The second appliance achieves a result which every business man recognizes as ideal ; but it was then some- thing so revolutionary on the market, so big, intricate and expensive, that a dozen pages in big type with dem- 102 SPACE AND MONEY onstrating photographs were necessary to prove Its fitness for this and that business clearly enough to war- rant an inquiry that would mean sales interviews and a demonstration. ;The second appeal, like the first, was ia motives of utility and profit, but to motives deeper, more strongly controlled and requiring stronger appeal. Thorough analysis of the motives underlying your sale will go far to gauge your space. Self-indulgence acts quickly and eagerly ; the clever appeal to it is short and sharp. Wherever there is something big or unusual, your copy has more news to give. It is a rule of health, however, always to leave the table hungry; the same rule applies in advertising. Don't tell it all. Use less space than seems necessary — leave the reader hungry. Size of advertisements is as yet almost accidental. The only real standard must come from tests and records showing the relative efficiency of similar pieces of copy in space of various sizes, shapes and positions. One of the advertising men farthest advanced in this study has fixed upon a five or six line classified advertisement as his cheapest producer, with fifty-six line display next most efficient, and net cost increasing rapidly up to full page size. Another advertiser has, through his records, developed the fact that there are certain seasons only when big space pays. Tests will show the effectiveness of each size, and the choice then is merely between a few high-profit sales and many sales at a lower rate of gain^ The store manager must also compromise between the claims of various store departments for space. Each de- partment may be judged as a separate selling proposi- tion. Cost, possible profits, depth of appeal, the length of the actual message, the special appeals, the news HOW MUCH TO SPEND 103 element, will decide as accurately between a dozen de- partmental announcements as between different propo- sitions on a single page. Fixing on the Advertising Appropriation Best Adap- ted to Your Business and Sales Plan These same considerations will help to fix upon the most profitable advertising appropriation for a cam- paign. In practice, many of the largest advertisers in the world advertise from hand to mouth; and many small advertisers with even less foresight. The executive officers of great concerns hold conferences upon new propositions, and finance them to whatever extent seems best. Many merchants spend seventy-five or eighty per cent of their season's advertising appropriation on "Opening Sales" at cut rates. Taken as a percentage of selling cost or income, the advertising appropriations of big businesses are timidity itself as compared with the plunges of such small advertisers. Advertising is only one item of sales expense, and must be balanced with others into a total that meets competition. In one Mississippi Valley department store executive conferences are held, where each buyer forecasts the popularity of his lines. With these leaders as a basis, the president and executives judge the most efficient advertising appropriation for a week, or a month ahead. Another store advertiser writes that his appropriation is now one and one-half per cent of sales income, and that he hopes with new show window space to reduce it to one per cent. A national advertiser, working through dealers, has fixed upon ten per cent of income as a maximum for his campaign. Another national adver- tiser of engine control devices makes his monthly adver- tising expenditure seventy-five per cent of the net profits 104 SPACE AND MONEY from his average dull season month. A mail order or- ganization traces down every inquiry and order result- ing from use of space in each medium, solving the ap- propriation problem roughly as follows: Space in Magazine No. 1 $50.00 Inquiries received, 100, with average follow-up cost of 25c each 25.00 Total advertising expense $75.00 Orders received to date, 10, at gross profit of $7.75 each $77.50 Total expense 75.00 Net profit $ 2.50 As soon as any medium shows " clear," it is at once re-ordered. As long as capital invested in certain space pays a profit, it is kept busy. A prominent advertising manager, whose copy covers the world, writes: ' ' An appropriation should be as big as its task. Ours must keep customers coming to the retail merchants. The number of merchants selling our line, and the dis- tribution of such stores, chiefly set our figure. Experi- ence soon shows what the appropriation should be, and it is then pro rated upon the cost of the product. ' ' Where a new prospect must be sought for every sale, the advertising appropriation has constantly to open up virgin fields. Where you are advertising to sell regular customers and a recurring demand, your advertising appropriation may be proportionately less, increasing parallel with the growth of your business. Advertising has many other meanings than direct sales. It may get, introduce and assist salesmen, or agents may be essential to follow advertising and get the returns. Expensive follow-up methods by letter may be necessary. Sales expense is the constant. Advertising should receive only its share of the appropriation. CHAPTER XVI How to Start the Campaign READINESS is the secret of success in a campaign — advertising no less than military. So manifold are the factors to be set in time and tune, that great care is needed in checking over your preparations for an advertising season. A million dollar real-estate venture on the Atlantic Coast was talked and advertised as a future, until as a fact it was neither novel nor convincing. Possibilities, plans, offers and promises startled the public into re- newed interest four separate times. When, however, the * ' acre lots ' ' were actually put up, under almost ideal suburban conditions, the public, tired of watching for developments, demanded so many extra attractions, premiums, and inducements, that the campaign was a failure among successful imitations. Advertisements promising the development of this proposition ran for eighteen months before lots were put on the market. Booklets and circulars were dis- tributed wherever home builders or investors were to be found. All the ordinary turns and devices of advertising were worn out. When actual sales opened, flamboyant advertising was necessary to get the dulled attention of possible buyers. 105 106 SPACE AND MONEY Thia extreme instance illustrates a tendency to open the advertising campaign when some one or more essen- tials are not yet ready. One manufacturer lost heavily because he prematurely advertised an article which was unexpectedly delayed in manufacture. The letters pro- testing against the delay actually forced him to employ an extra complaint man for six weeks. Another adver- tiser inaugurated a campaign covering seven states. The volume of inquiries demoralized his office force and swamped the field men on whom rested the burden of making calls and getting orders. Not only was the cam- paign almost a total loss, but it dulled the interest of choice prospects. To avoid this condition, the advertising man of a progressive lumber concern made out a table of factors in the campaign, against which he checks his prepara- tions before beginning to advertise for the spring and fall building seasons. This table, revised and augmented, is shown on the opposite page. Its adaptation to par- ticular campaigns is easy and worth while. Many of these items he checks merely in a general way, but he makes sure that the executive policy behind the campaign is right and ready ; and by hisi daily card file he plans ahead to have each piece of copy — each element in the whole campaign — prepared at a desig- nated date. Nothing is passed over without considera- tion. It is rare indeed for him to lose position or prefer- ence in a periodical because of delay in submitting cop}' or furnishing electrotypes. Most advertising experts have some, plan of checking the many factors involved to be sure the campaign is right before it is set off. Past experiences must have been considered, tests made, successful pieces of copy proved out* all mechanical provisions made to avoid a ■II III CHECKING CAMPAIGN PREPARATIONS rf Adver- tising Campaign Ready? actoryand Supply Facilities _|Appropri ation Advertising Sales and Delivery Facilities Selling Plans Copy - Material Mediums - Work - Tests and Records Season Classes of Prospects and Demand Goods Prices Sales Schemes and Inducements Last Season's Record Determined and Apportioned Periodical Advertisements Newspaper Advertisements «Tt« Days Ahead Booklets — One Month Ahead Bill Board, Wagon. Card and Feaci Signs -One Month Ahead Circular Letters- Seven Day* Ahead Enclosures- Ten Days Ahead Bulletins to Sales Force— Five Days Ahead Photographs Cuts Mats and Electros Paper Stock Manufacturer's LitettMM Booklets Circulars Proofs Form Letters Samples Newspaper Space and Posttio* Fence and Bill Board Contracts Souvenirs and Novelties Prospect Lists Sign Painting and Placing Printing Addressing and Enclosing Placing Advertisements Keeping Stock on Priated Keys Checking flan Record Blanks Specimen Files This chart of the preparations necessary for a well-balanced advertising campaign enables the advertiser to challenge the readiness of every neces- sary factor and arrange for follow-up of the tardy features II IIB 108 SPACE AND MONEY hitch. The campaign starts with vim and momentum which in themselves get special attention and favor. Building Definite Force into the Plan of a Local or Store Campaign The most important things back of a national cam- paign are the tests for copy, mediums and territory. The local advertiser, however, is less concerned with the choice of territory, and he has not many mediums be- tween which to choose. He is specially concerned with his routine copy and the underlying sales plans or store policy which gives it power. One successful store adver- tiser has developed unusual force in his advertising campaign by advertising day after day the exact number of pieces offered in any sale, so as to hurry his trade; and by understating or merely hinting at his best values, so that his trade has come to expect his actual bargains to be better 1 than represented. He has built confidence and quick appeal by a settled policy planned and fol- lowed throughout the campaign. It is often desirable to insert timely and unforeseen appeals into your campaign. But the basis, the plans and the mechanical details should be anticipated for the very freedom thus given to keep check on the progress of the campaign. The advertiser with free hands can often correct an error as it develops, and thus bring success out of a campaign which otherwise would fail. an ii Part V RAISING YOUR AVERAGE OF RETURNS Holding the Stop Watch on Your Advertising RULE of thumb advertising wastes millions. That advertising cannot always be reduced to a penny accurate balance, does not excuse "guessing it in" by eye. Every business has been guessed in on account of some variable element or personal factor. But all the time wiser men have been making tests, keeping records, watching tendencies — holding the stop watch on motions and operations. Then the law of averages, which is accur- ate enough for Billion Dollar Insurance to build upon, comes in; the correct principles of procedure appear, and one more uncertain element in business — one more maker of failures — becomes a thing of the past. You can use the test tube and hold the stop watch on ad- vertising with the assurance that it will cut down your percentage of missteps. You can test human groups as you would sample wheat or measure the heat value of coal. Underneath the re- turns from advertising experiments — among the files and records of last year's advertising campaign — you can find principles and averages that will help spot mistakes and build successes. Even human motives come under the law of averages. A vital part of every business, therefore, is its advertising history upon which, as a basis, the concern can advance open-eyed and steadily raise the average of its returns. ■ II IIB STRENGTHENING THE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN BY DETAIL TESTS Choice To Be Made Copy To Use How To Put Out Test Keying the Test How To Check Up Parallel Piece* Altered Only a* Necessary (o Suit Each Class under Test Claas Lists of M or More; or Advertise in Varioaa Class Mediums Address or Coupon; Booklet or Premiom for Reply Direct or through, Dealer tn Order of Best Returns (%) sCopy All Advertise to, or Circulsrize Rep- Every District list Localities in Order of Showing (%) •estSetliag Same Copy Through oat Advertise to, or Circularize Average Prospects on Various Dates List Seasons in Order of Showing (%) Best Selfiag Liaes <\sso Selling Several High-grade Advertisements or Circulars on Each Reach Definite Group of Average Prospects with each Advertisement Key Each Advertisement In Order of Response (%) List Schemes in Order of Response ['",,) Teat-chosen Copy Make st Same Times in All Mediums under Test Address or Coupon Booklet or Premium for Reply Direct or through Dealer Assemble Returns by Keys and Compare Net Cost per Inquiry and per Order Profitable Mailing Usrsf Circularize Under 3c Postage with Return card Key Return Card Differently for EschUst Check off Unclaimed Letters from List or Discard Lists for New Ones Identical Copy Mall to Two Parallel Lists.One under lc. Sumps, sad the Other Under 2c Stamps Key According to Postage Note Which Posts geYielda Greater Net Profit (%) All Pieces Worthy of Try-out Send Circulars to Similar Lists, orCrosa Advertisements in Various Inexpensive Mediums Key Every Circular or Copy Insertion Assemble Returns in Order of Net Profit (%) on Each Piece of Copy Copy Identical Except for Illustrations Circularize Similar List on Every Style or Cross Different Styles in .Good Mediums Key Every Style As so Copy Color Printing or Black and Whiter Copy Identical Except as. to Use of Colors Cheap or Expensive Similar List on Every Style Most Profitable Space to User Testt -chosen Copy of Various Sizes Cross in Several Standard Mediums Key Each Size or Better, Each Piece List by Sizes Show ing Best Profits (Net and Also Per Cent ) Best Paying Positions)* Test-chosen Pieces of Copy Cross in Various Positions in Known Mediums Key Each Piece of Copy List by Keys and Assemble Keys by Positions Showing Best Profits Each horizontal column in this chart develops the test of one important advertising detail. The expert advertiser carefully works out the most im- portant of the tests as the basis of future campaigns *IK CHAPTER XVII Testing to Determine Your Best Copy and Mediums IN a New York mail order house a certain letter ask- ing for a renewal of business is a joke among the ad- vertising men. Written by a minor clerk years ago when the house was young, the letter lacks form. It is crude — almost clumsy. The head of the firm has ordered it destroyed a score of times and his experts have sub- stituted letters which the office agrees are far better than "old go-and-get- 'em. ' ' But when tests are made the ridiculed letter gets the business and leaves up-to-date copy far in the rear. So with advertising copy. "If it goes it goes." The criticism of experts is a good thing ; but results and not theories are demanded. The average shows. The public is the court of last resort in judging an advertisement. The court will not be influenced and will not be flattered. But unlike other incorruptible 1 courts, it will indicate to the clever pleader its future decision. Straws show the way the wind blows and tests tell how copy will go. The shrewd advertiser of today, before beginning a campaign, makes three important tests: He has the public pass judgment (1) on his copy, (2) on the mediums in which the copy is placed 111 112 GREATER RETURNS and (3) on the field in which the mediums circulate. After copy is approved, it ought to be put out on trial. It should be keyed and the results carefully checked. A method effectively used by some big advertisers is to try copy for a general campaign in a metropolitan daily, a small town newspaper, a farm, trade or class publication, various standard magazines and a woman's journal. The copy is exchanged from publication to pub- lication and perhaps inserted several times in the same magazine. By keeping count of replies and sales it is easy to find which advertisement is consistently strong- est. Some firms and agencies have kept records of this sort for years. They know accurately before they start a campaign what pieces of copy /'take" and what mediums bring the best returns on their offer. The advertising manager also has before him at the beginning of each test certain theoretical figures which indicate the number of returns he should receive from mediums and circularizing schemes with which he has had long experience. If his best copy in his best mediums falls below this theoretical standard he knows that he must locate "copy trouble" before the campaign may be staged. How to Make Tests for the Pieces of Copy That Will Pull Best Testing copy marks the line between the gambler and the investor in advertising. Testing with sufficient in- genuity settles all office doubts about the worth and method of any scheme of publicity. Not only is the test conclusive as to the pulling power of alternative pieces of copy; but it frequently shows the advertiser the amount of space to use to get the best percentage of returns. In Cincinnati a test showed a manufacturer TESTING COPY 113 that a certain single column advertisement secured him results as good as his page copy in the same mediums. The difference in cost turned a losing venture into a paying one. Trial heats will in the average show the winner of the race. After tests are made and checked, the advertise- ment which brings the most business is strengthened by inserting the selling points developed by less successful copy and the follow-up correspondence. The adver- tiser is now ready for perhaps a final test and then the campaign. 17 r»ATT«» Nmr 1 &- m M_.arift- vv> Medium Date Site Rate Key Notes Estimated Returns Actual Returns Daily Count Cost per Order tta»-»a.VUwl "/z ml. 0.10 20SB i (EanftJLtajL Z9 zz mmiKWK 0.21 -<3 "A an. m Z70 - r\.cwAa>us. w IOZ @®(Ms> O.U, ^ kuUJt&M™ y? & OSO Z4ZI& (jU4*t*TeiJu9* 70 v m®®Qi 0.51 Fcvu~Vi«Xs. "A $4 03$ Z(,IS& ISO /43 wmnumw 0.90 vF FORM I: This 8x5 card has been found very convenient for recording and compar- ing returns from tests in various mediums. This form takes account of orders only. The variation of this form which has been most successfully used is a separate card for each piece of copy, so that the returns on one advertisement in various mediums are in column for comparison There are advertising managers who would "fire" a man for running one piece of copy twice, and there are two-inch advertisements that have run unchanged for ten years, building fortunes of seven figures. The copy test is hardly less valuable in one case than in the other — indeed it alone can decide whether old or 114 GREATER RETURNS new copy is best. It assists no less in perfecting circular letters, booklets and dodgers than in planning a "repeat' ■ advertisement for $5-a-line space. After many tests on an annual campaign, an imple- ment man in a county seat town in Kansas perfected a seasonable circular letter that brought business beyond his fondest hopes. ' ■ Must I go through this thing again next season to avoid repeating the same letter to my old customers V 9 protested the vehicle man, "Must I again lose time dur- ing my business harvest? Where is this test idea going to end?" He took down his circular letter file and compared the various test pieces of copy. Soon he felt that in two clever paragraphs lay the magic appeal. A single test proved this true. ' Year after year these two paragraphs of strong appeal masquerade before the farmers of that county under the make-up of a brand new personal letter. And newly worded, the tested appeal has never grown stale or failed to get the business. Having built publicly approved copy, the general or local advertiser must still determine what territory, classes of mediums and what individual periodicals or other distribution he will adopt. The experienced adver- tiser has a list of publications with low rates but limited circulations which pull in constant ratios to the national mediums. Advertisements are placed in these mediums during the copy test and the results are checked for territory and classes of circulation as well as for copy. Testing an advertisement presupposes a way to iden- tify the returns. Here is the crux of the difficulty in thousands of advertising departments. Some of the big- gest advertisers in the world are "going it blind' ' on TESTING COPY 115 the strength of good luck. Thousands of smaller adver- tisers are following their example. These men have been unable to contrive ways to key their advertising for test; but in most lines ingenuity and analytical ability will go far toward devising helpful tests. Standard and Novel Ways of Keying Your Various Pieces of Advertising Copy A great Chicago department store frequently tests its advertising methods by moving to an obscure corner of the room the cloak or gown which has been given pub- licity. The casual shopper passes it by. The customer who has been attracted by the advertising asks where the article is to be found. Count is kept of inquiries. In preparing to market a line by a new national cam- paign to dealers and consumers, one manufacturer got records for months back, from dealers in typical cities where the article had been sold. He then tested the new copy in the local newspapers and two especially strong national mediums well represented in these cities. The dealers cooperated by recording sales. The net in- crease in business, when compared with the advertising expenditures, showed such possibilities that the manu- facturer went into the campaign with confidence. Anything which unlocks the results of advertising is a key to the campaign. The ordinary methods are the coupon — of various styles and shapes — identifying the medium by the type, also by the paper ; and the varying departments, street numbers or names and initials in- cluded in the addresses. The correct address should never be used, as it is constantly bringing mail not due to any advertisement. If this keying is crudely done, the reader is annoyed over having his scalp hung at an inquisitive advertising 116 GREATER RETURNS man's belt. The cleverest key is one which develops unavoidably when the purchaser asks for the goods. Advertising to do a certain thing at a certain time, such as holding an "hour sale," has been found an effective key for the local merchants advertisement. A watch company keeps track of its advertisements by naming certain of its watches. In one town a certain piece of goods is called a business man 's watch ; in an- other it is a railroad man's watch; in another it is a farmer's watch. The local stores handling the goods effective key for the local merchant's advertisement. A shoe manufacturing house which sells direct to the con- sumer, in one publication calls its free pamphlet "How to Make Your Feet Glad"; in another, the same book is named ' ' Happy Feet. ' ' A clothing manufacturer uses a style number for his key. In style 345, the 34 indi- cates the style and the 5 is the key to the advertisement. World-wide dealers in fountain pens, and in toilet preparations distributed through retailers, acknowledge inability to trace actual sales; but successfully "meter" the strength of copy, mediums and trade territories by local demand as reported by dealers and field men, and by the proportionate number of requests received for various advertised booklets, sample packages and the like. Where your product represents a large expenditure, as in the automobile field, sales should be checked back to the decisive copy, mediums and follow-up. Even in the case of smaller articles keen advertisers often go to great lengths in correspondence and personal field work to know exactly where business originates and how the advertising checks out. Although an absolute check may not be made, these long-time records of compara- tive efficiency are very valuable. CHAPTER XVIII Making the Campaign Measure Up to Test THAT advertising* test is most instructive which has most closely followed every condition you will meet in your actual campaign. A mail order house which sells Panama hats became converted to the idea of testing advertisements. Copy having been tried in various mediums with success, a national campaign was inaugurated but with discourag- ing results. The hatters were ready to resume their hit-or-miss style of publicity when an advertising " doctor" pointed out their recent error. The tests had been conducted in the spring and early summer when the demand for straw hats was keen. The campaign had been run into midsummer, when most men had secured the article ad- vertised. Apparently the season was too limited to per- mit both test and campaign in one year. The following year the tests were begun early. Orders and inquiries were few but indicated the relative strength of various copy, sections and mediums. When the campaign was launched in the spring and early sum- mer, the magazines which had earlier done the best work continued their lead — and the shop worked overtime. 117 118 GREATER RETURNS In the long run, tests on both inquiries and orders are sure to develop helpful ratios to the actual campaign in similar territory and with similar or identical copy and mediums. Single tests or records covering short periods, however, must be considered in the light of varying con- ditions. How to Guard Against Features That May Make an Advertising Test Deceptive Certain newspapers will produce mail order results on days of light store advertising far out of proportion to other days in the week. Position of copy, whether well printed, the amount of space, the strength of compet- ing advertisements, must all be considered. In some businesses a record of advertising for several years proves that the proposition "pulls" best in most mediums when first advertised, and that "the cost per order advances as the advertising is continued before that same body of readers, regardless of whether the copy is changed or not." Continued returns on some one-time propositions keep up best in mediums which change the mass of their readers from season to season. The local merchant must investigate neighborhood con- ditions and can determine by, test the best time for his advertisement to appear. The druggist who distributes his advertising at the curb side in the waiting buggies of his farmer prospects, may not get attention until the Saturday night drive home; while the clever merchant who reaches his farmers Friday with announcements of his Saturday or "First Monday" sale, has acted at the right time. Rainy seasons make the farmer read. Local seasons, celebrations and calamities make differ- ences between test and campaign. Every condition which affects interest or buying power marks on the MEASURING-UP TO TESTS. 119 record of your advertisement. A sure way to avoid dis- appointment is to test under less favorable conditions, and, having found a plan which will balance the cost or clear a profit here, to make the most of it at once. The personal temptation to vary conditions between test and campaign must be curbed. An enthusiastic Northwestern jobber secured a list of ten thousand names. The advertising man urged a testi on five hun- dred or a thousand names, but the jobber, in his enthu- siasm over the cleverness of the copy, ordered the entire campaign out under two cent postage. Within fifteen days, more than one-eighth of the let- ters had come back unclaimed. The list was stale. Moreover, a serious mistake had been made in the book- let which went with the letter. A test would have elim- inated both these losses. In another case the same jobber carefully tested out fifteen hundred high-grade names on fine stationery under two cent postage, only to mail the main campaign under the green stamp at a loss. Comparative tests under one and two cent postage would have told the story. Dissimilar conditions only made the test mis- leading. An eastern manufacturer recently launched a season- able dealer campaign after making workmanlike tests of seven different styles of copy. One set of commercial literature had scored profitable returns (3% per cent) on a very difficult sale. At once the full campaign was put out carrying these prices of copy ; but delay in mak- ing up the returns on the tests had brought the season almost to an end before the full supply of literature came from the press, and the campaign proved a failure. Accuracy and dispatch are the essentials of campaign- ing by test. CHAPTER XIX Keeping Reference Records and Speci- men Advertisements CENTER in one responsible and efficient person the full responsibility for accurate records and files of your advertising, its cost and its returns. An adroit business man who has built his success upon advertising, charges a worse error against his auditor for losing a single count in an advertising test, than he might for dropping a significant cipher in the ledger. This man has found that in his business a skilful test will average within from eight to fifteen per cent of cam- paign profits. Failure to count an order, or a few un- identified inquires might lead him to discard winning copy — the seed from which sales spring. One of the chief assets of this advertiser is his record of past results. The man who believes that he can keep such results in his head, or who glances through the mail, " estimates' ' the strength of various tests and selects mediums by opinion, is deliberately draining profits into loss. Often an advertising man must assert himself in the most decided way to establish and maintain a genuine testing and record system in the office routine. A divi- sion advertising manager who had worked out tested 1*0 KEEPING RECORDS 121 copy and follow-up literature was called to the New York office recently to account for lagging business. The charge was that his copy was bad. He drew from his pocket a record card and proved that in three separ- ate tests the copy had proved itself high-grade. "How about returns now?" was the general manager's ques- tion. "That I cannot say without getting up-to- date records from the correspondence department," said the advertising man; "but I have seen a large number of coupons and miscellaneous inquiries in the mail from dav to dav." . ■ 1 1 11 21 11 21 II 21 2 u" 22 12 22 12 22 3 13 a P 2J 23 1 M 24 M 24 24 J B 25 1- 25 25 t 16 26 16 26 >■ 7 17 27 i: 27 27 t 18 28 18 y 1 ■ 9 19 29 n 29 29 1" ■ 3d 20 34 1» 20 30 M 31 a To«l» T^ *-. Cat FORM I: A bandy card for accounting orders on one piece of copy n a single med- ium during three months The advertising manager returned to the branch office, went into the follow-up division and found that an average of forty inquiries per day on a $22.50 propo- 122 GREATER RETURNS Bition were being allowed to grow stale for perfunctory follow-up at three weeks intervals through the careless- ness of subordinates and poor stock keeping on the fol- low-up literature. The desk drawers in the department were crammed with uncared for work of this sort be- cause no proper head kept tight rein and demanded records every day. In another instance an advertising manager was work- ing to convince an employer prejudiced against his pub- licity. Orders and inquiries came in well but envelopes bearing the street or department * 'keys" were often thrown into the waste basket by a careless letter opener and by stenographers to whom the correspondence had been given before it was properly checked up. The ad- vertising man was perpetually running a race with the colored porter to keep the keyed envelopes from the flames. Checking returns at the cashier's desk would have eliminated this element of doubt from the business. While these are extreme examples, it is nevertheless true that the machinery of tests, records and follow-up is the most valuable and the most abused machinery in many businesses ; and that it merits no less care than the actual disbursement of funds. Form I gives space for a simple record of orders from one piece of copy in one medium during three months. A different colored card can be used for inquiries on the same copy. This card has the advan- tage of enabling the addition of each column and the total by months, as well as the grand total. Often, as in automobile sales, a card form is wanted for recording an inquiry, follow-up literature and the subsequent order. This is handily kept on a 3x5 card (Form II). The willingness to keep records often is hampered by KEEPING RECORDS 123 iack of system. One Chicago man, finding that the or- dinary scrap books were not large enough for his pur- pose, secured the largest size loose-leaf invoice books; The advertisements were pasted on manila sheets and kept until out of date. Then they were removed from the covers, tied up and stored in a confidential file in the vault. To each advertisement is attached a printed slip showing the total sales and inquiries traced to the copy, the medium in which it appeared and the number of times it ran. Another sheet shows in detail the cost of the advertisement proportioned among the various departments of the store we. v\^d^^ su :^.U ^M> /.^ — Mime \ p. Suit am Notes ZZ4- 7 M/„ 235" Vti/t, Z2>0> *A/„ Z37 Vis/,, A*is'el — mmmImS . s>y^& vw« SM Sn.soim.. FORM II: In the left-hand column are indicated the follow-up mailings from the time an inquirer responds to an advertisement, until sale is made or follow-up aban- doned. The card is filed alphabetically by name and a duplicate paper slip, made over the original, can be filed geographically for reference. The cards are conveniently printed and typewritten sheets of three This plan of filing returns on advertisements with the copy is cumbersome. One system which has worked out with much success is the result of development dur- ing the past four years. The advertiser has written and placed advertisements of all sizes on a dozen different propositions and also circular letters and commercial 124 GREATER RETURNS literature on various offers. Every advertisement car- ries at the bottom a number in, five point type. Every piece of commercial literature also carries a number; and every circular letter has at the bottom, following the stenographer's initials, a similar key. This not merely identifies every proposition, but affords a basis for filing, noting results upon and re-ordering or fol- lowing through every piece of copy which the depart- ment handles. Periodical copy is numbered from one up, in five different groups, identified by the letters A, B, C, D, E, as A25, B26. The letter indicates the propo- sition the copy covers. Specimens are filed numerically in folders, one for each class letter. Three copies of each advertisement are usually put in so that there are extra copies at need. They are not pasted. Folder con- tents are transferred from the vertical desk file to the vault every year, so that the folders are never cum- bersome. Circular letters and commercial literature on different propositions are filed in the same way under subsequent letters of the alphabet. The letter and number at the top of any record card identifies the advertisement and indicates at a glance what kind it is and! on what class of goods. In ordering a new run of a standard circular letter, or applying to the stockroom for a supply, all that is necessary is to give the letter and key number of the circular wanted. This system also facilitates stock keeping and the perpetual inventory which enables the advertising man to use up circulars while they possess selling value. The cut, drawing and photograph cabinets are ar- ranged in the same way by letter and key number, show- ing the relation of every cut to the advertising campaign and specimen file. CHAPTER XX How to Plan Your Next Campaign by Past Averages ADVERTISING records properly kept are the mili- tary maps of the country fought over last year and again to be the scene of the campaign. They may be used in scores of ways ; they indicate the relative value of first and third class postage, of personal and circular letters, of printed matter of different kinds, with illus- trations of various sizes and positions, of sales schemes, coupons, and every selling device put to test. They show the best seasons, and in one instance prompted enlarging an ordinary half page into three full pages with pro- portional profit each spring and fall. What Records of Advertising Tests and Campaigns Can Be Made to Show Nearly half a million dollars was spent last spring by a mail order concern for colored inserts in its catalogs. This expenditure is based chiefly on one season's experi- ence with colored illustrations. During that season colored illustrations in connection with revised and strengthened copy showed a good increase in business over the previous year. Perhaps it was the colors that brought business — 125 126 GREATER RETURNS perhaps, the new copy; perhaps other and unconsidered factors. It would have been easy to test out in adjacent counties, two circulars identical except for the use of colors, but no test seems to have been made. Another mail order concern does not use colored illustrations to nearly so great an extent, considering it better, wherever possible, to rely on inquiries for actual samples that will show texture. Opinions — but no tests. Progress for both — through good luck and the great virgin field of American pur- chasers. Advertising success cannot be developed in this way. Every general advertiser and every local merchant owe it to the business to set aside sufficient money to keep a record of advertising experiments and experiences. Having kept a file of advertising specimens and a record of costs, inquiries, follow-up costs, orders and profits, and so keyed the advertising as to distinguish the different pieces of copy and different mediums as completely as clerical expense makes advisable, the ad- vertiser can turn to his records and map out the next campaign with, almost the same certainty that he plans for a new building or employs and trains help. Of the many vital business facts so developed, the following are only a) few: "On my proposition logical copy with well authen- ticated testimonials sells to men ; but a woman wants the name of some one in her town to whom she can go for personal testimony." * ' Only seventeen mediums out of a list of thirty-seven magazines and newspapers proved profitable for me. Newspaper inquiries come cheaper but seem to include more curiosity seekers, as the cost of orders runs higher." BUILDING ON RECORDS 127 This advertiser went to great lengths to trace down every inquiry and order to its proper advertisement and medium, even where this meant hours of work and letter writing to credit an advertisement that had appeared years before. Now, however, he knows to a penny just what inquiries and orders to date have cost him in every medium; and not only what pieces of copy to repeat, but what circular letters he can send each new prospect, in what mediums he shall re-order space, what mediums he must cancel entirely and what mediums may pos- sibly pay him after holding out his advertisement sev- eral months until tardy returns catch up with space cost. This advertiser insists that his first advertisements pay best and that thereafter he sells at gradually in- creasing cost. So records will show the relative value to your business, of newspapers, news-stand circulation, magazines that renew constantly and magazines that con- stantly reach new readers. As the new campaign is to be opened, therefore, study and tabulate the results of past campaigns in a way to develop the efficiency of different appeals, different pieces of copy, different styles of illustration, different sizes, different shapes and positions, blind versus signed advertising and any publicity question that puzzles you. The success of one advertising agency is ad- mittedly based on the amount of evidence accumu- lated as to copy, seasons, prospects, fields and publica- tions. This agency can closely forecast what reception will be accorded an advertising campaign. The propor- tions between mediums used for testing and mediums used in making the final appeal have been so carefully; worked out that results are not a matter of conjecture, but may almost be written ahead. Store advertising cannot so easily be put on a ledger 128 GREATER RETURNS basis, but last year's advertising specimens and records will suggest to the storekeeper what to buy this year, what will be the most popular as well as how best to de- scribe and illustrate it, what mediums and sales schemes are most valuable and what sections will produce the most trade or need the most effort. A Southern department store advertiser has a daily sheet on which are tabulated for today and for the cor- responding week-day last year, the sales income and the advertising expense of each store section. This record enables him to develop each department as it shows seasonable chances of profit. A clothing store has a special ruled form which the advertising manager keeps under the glass top of his desk. This form shows the condition of stock and the amount of business done every day for the past year. There is also room on the form for notes regarding weather or other unusual circumstances. When planning publicity, the advertisement writer looks over his chart. He sees, for instance, that business in the men's furnish- ings is not up to the standard maintained on the same day of other years. He calls the department manager. Reference to the manager's detailed charts shows that a certain style of hat is not moving as rapidly as it ought. As a result, copy is concentrated on that line, prices are cut if need be and the department is cleared of its dead wood before the opportunity slips away. In this manner, day by day and year by year the business of each department is steadied and graded upward with a minimum of false steps. Experience is the final word in advertising. The ex- pert advertising man gets it — gets it on paper — and handles it with open eyes, like a ledger sheet, on the basis only of what his advertising produces. iiveisiiy Lioranes DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 27706