Chapter 4
Mail Order Advertising:
What It Teaches
The severest test of an advertising man is in selling goods by mail.
But that is a school from which he must graduate before he can hope
for success. There cost and result are immediately apparent. False
theories melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The advertising is
profitable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns. Figures which do
not lie tell one at once the merits of an ad.
This puts men on their mettle. All guesswork is eliminated. Every
mistake is conspicuous. One quickly loses his conceit by learning how
often his judgment errs - often nine times in ten.
There one learns that advertising must be done on a scientific
basis to have any fair chance of success. And he learns that every
wasted dollar adds to the cost of results. Here is a tough efficiency
and economy under a master who can't be fooled. Then, and only
then, is he apt to apply the same principles and keys to all advertising.
A man was selling a five-dollar article. The replies from his ad
cost him 85 cents. Another man submitted an ad which he thought
better. The replies cost $14.20 each. Another man submitted an ad
which for two years brought replies at an average of 41 cents each.
Consider the difference on 250,000 replies per year. Think how
valuable was the man who cut the cost in two. Think what it would
have meant to continue that $14.20 ad without any key on returns.
Yet there are thousands of advertisers who do just that. They
spend large sums on a guess. And they are doing what that man did -
paying for sales from 2 to 35 times what they need cost. A study of
mail order advertising reveals many things worth learning. It is a
prime subject for study. In the first place, if continued, you know
what pays. It is therefore good advertising as applied to that line. The
probability is that the ad has resulted from many traced comparisons.
It is therefore the best advertising, not theoretical. It will not deceive
you. The lessons it teaches are principles which wise men apply to all
advertising.
Mail order advertising is always set in small type. It is usually set
in smaller type than ordinary print. That economy of space is
universal. So it proves conclusively that larger type does not pay.
Remember that when you double your space by doubling the size of
your type. The ad may still be profitable. But traced returns have
proved that you paying a double price for sales. In mail order
advertising there is no waste space. Every line is utilized. Borders are
rarely used. Remember that when you are tempted to leave valuable
space unoccupied.
In mail order advertising there is no palaver. There is no boasting,
save of super-service. There is no useless talk. There is no attempt at
entertainment. There is nothing to amuse. Mail order advertising
usually contains a coupon. That is there to cut out as a reminder of
something the reader has decided to do.
Mail order advertisers know that readers forget. They are reading
a magazine of interest. They may be absorbed in a story. A large
percentage of people who read an ad and decide to act will forget that
decision in five minutes. The mail order advertisers that waste by
tests, and he does not propose to accept it. So he inserts that
reminder to be cut out, and it turns when the reader is ready to act.
In mail order advertising the pictures are always to the point.
They are salesmen in themselves. They earn space they occupy. The
size is gauged by their importance. The picture of a dress one is
trying to sell may occupy much space. Less important things get
smaller spaces. Pictures in ordinary advertising may teach little. They
probably result in whims. But pictures in mail order advertising may
form half the cost of selling. And you may be sure that everything
about them has been decided by many comparative tests. Before you
use useless pictures, merely to decorate or interest, look over some
mail order ads. Mark what their verdict is.
A man advertised an incubator to be sold by mail. Type ads with
right headlines brought excellent returns. But he conceived the idea
that a striking picture would increase those returns. So he increased
his space 50 percent to add a row of chickens in silhouette. It did
make a striking ad, but his cost per reply was increased by exactly that
50 percent. The new ad, costing one-half more for every insertion,
brought not one added sale. The man learned that incubator buyers
were practical people. They were looking for attractive offers, not for
pictures.
Think of the countless untraced campaigns where a whim of that
kind costs half the advertising money without a penny in return. And
it may go on year after year. Mail order advertising tells a complete
story if the purpose is to make an immediate sale. You see no
limitations there are on amount of copy. The motto there is, "The
more you tell the more you sell." And it has never failed to prove out
so in any test we know.
Sometimes the advertiser uses small ads, sometimes large ads.
None are to small to tell a reasonable story. But an ad twice larger
brings twice the returns. A four times larger ad brings four times the
returns, and usually some in addition. But this occurs only when the
larger space is utilized as well as the small space. Set half-page copy in
a page space and you double the cost in returns. We have seen many
a test prove that.
Look at an ad of the Mead Cycle Company - a typical mail order
ad. These have been running for many years. The ads are unchanging.
Mr. Mead told the writer that not for $10,000 would he change a
single word in his ads. For many years he compared one ad with the
other. And the ads you see today are the final results of all those
experiments. Note the picture he uses, the headlines, the economy of
space, the small type. Those ads are as near perfect for their purpose
as an ad can be.
So with any other mail order ad which has long continued. Every
feature, every word and picture teaches advertising at its best. You
may not like them. You may say they are unattractive, crowded, hard
to read - anything you will. But the test of results has proved those
ads the best salesman those lines have yet discovered. And they
certainly pay.
Mail order advertising is the court of least resort. You may get the
same instruction, if you will, by keying other ads. But mail order ads
are models. They are selling goods profitably in a difficult way. It is
far harder to get mail order than to send buyers to the stores. It is
hard to sell goods which can't be seen. Ads which do that are
excellent examples of what advertising should be. We cannot often
follow all the principle of mail order advertising, though we know we
should. The advertiser forces a compromise. Perhaps pride in our ads
has an influence. But every departure from those principles adds to
our selling cost. Therefore it is always a question of what we are
willing to pay for our frivolities. We can at least know what we pay.
We can make keyed comparisons, one ad with another. Whenever we
do we invariably find that the nearer we get to proved mail order
copy the more customers we get for our money.
This is another important chapter. Think it over. What real
difference is there between inducing a customer to order by mail or
order from his dealer? Why should the methods of salesmanship
differ? They should not. When they do, it is for one of two reasons.
Either the advertiser does not know what the mail order advertiser
knows. He is advertising blindly. Or he deliberately sacrifices a
percentage of his returns to gratify some desire.
There is some apology for that, just as there is for fine offices and
buildings. Most of us can afford to do something for pride and
opinion. But let us know what we are doing. Let us know the cost of
our pride. Then, if our advertising fails to bring us the wanted
returns, let us go back to our model - a good mail order ad - and
eliminate some of our waste.
Continue to Headlines
|
Get a page of Hopkins a day. Sign up here and we'll send you one consecutive page from Scientific Advertising
each day.
|