Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales. It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong.
There is one simple way to answer many advertising questions. Ask yourself,” Would it help a salesman sell the goods?”
Some say “Be very brief. People will read for little.” Would you say that to a salesman? With a prospect standing before him, would you confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable handicap. So in advertising. The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests. No one reads ads for amusements, long or short.
Don’t think of people in the mass. That gives you a blurred view. Think of a typical individual, man or woman, who is likely to want what you sell. Don’t try to be amusing. Money spending is a serious matter. Don’t boast, for all people resent it. Don’t try to show off. Do just what you think a good salesman should do with a half-sold person before him.
Guesswork is very expensive.
The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else.
The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want. But next to that comes lack of true salesmanship.
Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising.
The best ads ask no one to buy. That is useless. Often they do not quote a price. They do not say that dealers handle the product. The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information.
The purpose of a headline is to pick out people you can interest.
What you have will interest certain people only, and for certain reasons. You care only for those people. Then create a headline which will hail those people only.
So in advertising. It is commonly said that people do not read advertisements.
Always bear these facts in mind. People are hurried. The average person worth cultivating has too much to read. They skip threefourths of the reading matter which they pay to get. They are not going to read your business talk unless you make it worth their while and let the headline show it.
The identical ad run with various headlines differs tremendously in its returns. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five or ten times over. So we compare headlines until we know what sort of appeal pays best.
Address the people you seek, and them only.
Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring. You will never need to unlearn what you learn about them.
We learn, for instance, that curiosity is one of the strongest human incentives. We employ it whenever we can.
We learn that cheapness is not a strong appeal. Americans are extravagant. They want bargains but not cheapness. They want to feel that they can afford to eat and have and wear the best. Treat them as if they could not and they resent your attitude.
We learn that people judge largely by price. They are not experts.
“Two men came to me, each offering me a horse. Both made equal claims. They were good horses, kind and gentle. A child could drive them. One man said, “Try the horse for a week. If my claims are not true, come back for your money.” The other man also said, “Try the horse for a week.” But he added, “Come and pay me then.” I naturally bought the second mans horse.”
When a man knows that something belongs to them—something with his name on—he will make an effort to get it, even though the thing is a trifle.
An offer limited to a certain class of people is far more effective than a general offer.
An identical offer made in a different way may bring multiplied returns. Somewhere in the mines of business experience we must find the best method somehow.
The weight of an argument may often be multiplied by making it specific.
A dealer may say, “Our prices have been reduced” without creating any marked impression. But when he says “Our prices have been reduced 25 percent” he gets the full value of his announcement.
If a claim is worth making, make it in the most impressive way.
People are not apt to read successive advertisements on any single line. No more than you read a news item twice, or a story. In one reading of an advertisement one decides for or against a proposition. And that operates against a second reading. So present to the reader, when once you get him, every important claim you have. The best advertisers do that. They learn their appealing claims by tests—by comparing results from various headlines. Gradually they accumulate a list of claims important enough to use. All those claims appear in every ad thereafter.
Use pictures only to attract those who may profit you. Use them only when they form a better selling argument than the same amount of space set in type.
But the picture must help sell the goods. It should help more than anything else could do in like space, else use that something else.
Some things you do may cut all your results in two. Other things can be done which multiply those results. Minor costs are insignificant when compared with basic principles. One man may do business in a shed, another in a palace. That is immaterial. The great question is, ones power to get the maximum results.
We must learn what a user spends a year, else we shall not know if users are worth the cost of getting. We must learn the total consumption, else we may overspend. We must learn the percentage of readers to whom our product appeals. We must often gather this data on classes. The percentage may differ on farms and in cities. The cost of advertising largely depends on the percentage of waste circulation. Thus an advertising campaign is usually preceded by a very large volume of data.
The ad seems so simple, and it must be simple to appeal to simple people. But back of that ad may lie reams of data, volumes of information, months of research. So this is no lazy mans field.
A high price creates resistance. It tends to limit ones field. The cost of getting an added profit may be more than the profit. It is a well-known fact that the greatest profits are made on great volume at small profit.
The product itself should be its own best salesman. Not the product alone, but the product plus a mental impression, and atmosphere, which you place around it.
Whenever possible we introduce a personality into our ads. By making a man famous we make his product famous. When we claim an improvement, naming the man who made it adds effect.
In successful advertising great pains are taken to never change our tone. That which won so many is probably the best way to win others.
To attack a rival is never good advertising. Don’t point out others’ faults. It is not permitted in the best mediums. It is never good policy. The selfish purpose is apparent. It looks unfair, not sporty. If you abhor knockers, always appear a good fellow.
Compare the results of two ads, one negative, one positive. One presenting the dark side, one the bright side. One warning, the other inviting. You will be surprised. You will find that the positive ad out pulls the other four to one, if you have our experience. The “Before and after taking” ads are follies of the past. They never had a place save with the afflicted. Never let their memory lead you to picture the gloomy side of things.
