Guaranteeing Results from Advertising

Is it possible to guarantee advertising results? If you approach advertising as a science instead of an art results are fairly predictable.

The first tangible return from an advertiser’s money, when invested in space, is an
inquiry about the product. That inquiry may be verbal to a clerk over the counter, or it may be by mail, in a written, stamped and posted letter.

But, in either case, it is just an inquiry for the goods, of one sort or another. It is the first
practical evidence that the money spent is earning something tangible in return.

Now it may take two or three times as much conviction in copy to make a consumer
write an inquiry for goods, and post it, as it would have taken to make that same consumer
inquire verbally for the goods advertised, when passing a store that should sell them.

But, when he does inquire verbally from a retailer, there are two or three times as many
chances of substitution, of “Don’t-keep-it” or “Here’s-something-better,” as there would
have been if that same consumer had written direct for it by mail.

Therefore, the advertisement which sends consumers to retailers, should be as full of
conviction as the successful Mail-Order Advertisement, in order to fortify that consumer
against substitution, “Don’t-keep-it,” and “Here’s-something-better.”

Because, if the advertisement fails to thus fortify the consumer with “Reason-Why” and
conviction, it may simply send him to the retail store to be switched on to a competing line
of goods with which the retailer is heavily stocked, or which his clerks favor the sale of in
preference to ours.

In that case the advertising we pay for would sell goods for our non-advertising
competitors.

Half the money spent to “Keep-the-Name-before-the-People” results today in this
substitution of non-advertised articles for the articles advertised through general publicity.

“General Publicity” copy, when tested, is found in almost every case too weak to sell goods
profitably by mail. Additionally, any copy which is not strong enough, or convincing enough, to sell
goods by mail, is not strong enough to make the consumer resist substitution, and the “Don’t-
keep-that-kind” influence of retail conditions.

“General Advertising” copy, to succeed, profitably, must therefore cause not only a verbal
Inquiry for the goods, but must also have enough strong conviction saturated into it to make
the consumer insist upon getting the goods he asks for, against probable substituting
influence.

It must therefore give him better “Reason-why” he should buy our goods than he is likely to
hear from the retail Salesman for the competing goods that Salesman may want to substitute.
And, it must give him these “reason-why” in such lucid thought-form that he can understand
without effort, so impressively that he will believe our reasoning claims. It must accomplish
this in spite of his natural distrust of all advertisement statements.

This means that we must put into General Advertising Copy the precise qualities that would be
necessary to sell goods profitably by mail. More than half the people who inquire for
advertised goods out of Curiosity as a result of “General Publicity” (“Keeping-the-Name-
before-the-People,” etc.) do not buy them when they see them.

Because the competing goods look just as fine when shown and recommended by the
substituting salesman, the curiosity inquiry having no firm foundation of “Reason-Why”
under it cannot combat the personal influence of the salesman.

This is why not more than a fourth of those who, out of mere curiosity, buy the first package,
through “General Publicity,” ever buy the second or third consecutive package of the same
article. Because they do not buy on Conviction

Meantime, it usually takes about all the profit in the first purchase of any “Generally
Advertised” article to pay the cost of introducing it to the Consumer’s notice, through
Advertising.

But, with “Reason-Why” Salesmanship-on-Paper, results are insured and far more cumulative.
Because, a Consumer need only be convinced once, through “Reason-why” “Salesmanship-
on-paper,” that the article is what he should, for his own sake, buy and use.

When we thus convince him, we achieve more than fortifying him against substitution.

We also help his imagination to find and recognize, in the article advertised, the very qualities
claimed and proved for it in the Copy. These qualities he might never have discovered for
himself, nor appreciated if he had casually discovered them, in a mere “Curiosity” purchase.

Because, through General Publicity, his attention had only been “attracted,” not compelled and
enduringly impressed with a logical understanding of these qualities.

But, when once convinced in advance of purchase, through “Reason-Why” Salesmanship-in-
Type, that the qualities claimed for the article do exist in them, he starts using that article with a
mental acceptance of these qualities.

Because he begins using the article with an advance knowledge of, and belief in, its good
points, his appreciation becomes permanent if the goods merit it.

He therefore makes a second, third, and further consecutive purchases of the article as a
result of having once read a single convincing “Reason-Why” advertisement about it.

This is where large and cumulative profits must come to the General Advertiser-on the second,
third and continued purchases by Readers of the first advertisement that reached their
Convictions.

These conviction qualities in copy are shown, by test, to be just as necessary in Advertising
design to sell goods profitably today, through Retailers to Consumers, as they are to sell goods
direct by mail to Consumers.

That is why every Advertisement for goods to be sold through Retailers (against substitution,
and “Don’t keep-it” influences), should have as much positive selling force, “Reason-why” and
conviction in it, as would be necessary to sell the goods by mail direct to Consumers.

The difference in Results from Space in which this direct selling force of “Reason-Why” has
been used, and in results from similar space filled with “General Publicity,” is often more than
60 per cent. Conclusive tests on Copy have clearly proved this, and preceding article cites a
vivid example of it from actual experience.

Any Advertiser who uses mere “General Publicity” when he might have all that and, in addition,
a positive Selling force combined with it is losing 50 percent to 80 per cent of the results he
might have had from the same identical appropriation.

Selling tests made on various kinds of Copy and Mediums have proved this for “Reason-Why”
which is the Heart and Soul and Essence of all good Advertising.