book: scientific advertising by claud hopkins

42
Scientific Advertising By Claude C Hopkins Chapter 01 – How advertising laws are established ________________ Page 01 Chapter 02 – Just salesmanship ________________________________ Page 04 Chapter 03 – Offer service ____________________________________ Page 06 Chapter 04 – Mail order advertising – what it teaches _____________ Page 07 Chapter 05 – Headlines _______________________________________ Page 10 Chapter 06 – Psychology ______________________________________ Page 12 Chapter 07 – Being specific ___________________________________ Page 15 Chapter 08 – Tell your full story _______________________________ Page 16 Chapter 09 – Art in advertising ________________________________ Page 19 Chapter 10 – Things to costly __________________________________ Page 21 Chapter 11 – Information _____________________________________ Page 23 Chapter 12 – Strategy ________________________________________ Page 25 Chapter 13 – Use of samples ___________________________________ Page 27 Chapter 14 – Getting distribution ______________________________ Page 30 Chapter 15 – Test campaigns __________________________________ Page 32 Chapter 16 – Leaning on dealers _______________________________ Page 34 Chapter 17 – Individuality ____________________________________ Page 35 Chapter 18 – Negative advertising ______________________________ Page 36 Chapter 19 – Letter writing ___________________________________ Page 37 Chapter 20 – A name that helps ________________________________ Page 39 Chapter 21 – Good business ___________________________________ Page 40

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Page 1: Book: Scientific Advertising by Claud Hopkins

Scientific AdvertisingBy Claude C Hopkins

Chapter 01 – How advertising laws are established ________________ Page 01

Chapter 02 – Just salesmanship ________________________________ Page 04

Chapter 03 – Offer service ____________________________________ Page 06

Chapter 04 – Mail order advertising – what it teaches _____________ Page 07

Chapter 05 – Headlines _______________________________________ Page 10

Chapter 06 – Psychology ______________________________________ Page 12

Chapter 07 – Being specific ___________________________________ Page 15

Chapter 08 – Tell your full story _______________________________ Page 16

Chapter 09 – Art in advertising ________________________________ Page 19

Chapter 10 – Things to costly __________________________________ Page 21

Chapter 11 – Information _____________________________________ Page 23

Chapter 12 – Strategy ________________________________________ Page 25

Chapter 13 – Use of samples ___________________________________ Page 27

Chapter 14 – Getting distribution ______________________________ Page 30

Chapter 15 – Test campaigns __________________________________ Page 32

Chapter 16 – Leaning on dealers _______________________________ Page 34

Chapter 17 – Individuality ____________________________________ Page 35

Chapter 18 – Negative advertising ______________________________ Page 36

Chapter 19 – Letter writing ___________________________________ Page 37

Chapter 20 – A name that helps ________________________________ Page 39

Chapter 21 – Good business ___________________________________ Page 40

Page 2: Book: Scientific Advertising by Claud Hopkins

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Chapter 1How advertising laws are established

The time has come when advertising has insome hands reached the status of a science. Itis based on fixed principles and is reasonablyexact. The causes and effects have been ana-lysed until they are well understood. The cor-rect method of procedure have been provedand established. We know what is most ef-fective, and we act on basic law.

Advertising, once a gamble, has thus be-come, under able direction, one of the safestbusiness ventures. Certainly no other enter-prise with comparable possibilities need in-volve so little risk.

Therefore this book deals, not with theo-ries and opinions, but with well-proved prin-ciples and facts. It is written as a textbook forstudents and a safe guide for advertisers.Every statement has been weighed. The bookis confined to establish fundamentals. If weenter any realms of uncertainty we shall care-fully denote them.

The present status of advertising is due tomany reasons. Much national advertising haslong been handled by large organisationsknown as advertising agencies. Some of theseagencies, in their hundreds of campaigns,have tested and compared the thousands ofplans and ideas. The results have beenwatched and recorded, so no lessons havebeen lost.

Such agencies employ a high grade of tal-ent. None but able and experienced men canmeet the requirements in national advertising.Working in co-operation, learning from eachother and from each new undertaking, someof these men develop into masters.

Individuals may come and go, but theyleave their records and ideas behind them.These become a part of the organisation'sequipment, and a guide to all who follow.Thus, in the course of decades, such agenciesbecome storehouses of advertising experi-ences, proved principles, and methods.

The larger agencies also come into intimatecontact with experts in every department ofbusiness. Their clients are usually dominatingconcerns. So they see the results of countlessmethods and policies. They become a clear-inghouse for every thing pertaining to mer-chandising. Nearly every selling question,which arises in business, is accurately an-swered by many experiences.

Under these conditions, where they longexist, advertising and merchandising becomeexact sciences. Every course is charted. Thecompass of accurate knowledge directs theshortest, safest, cheapest course to any desti-nation.

We learn the principles and prove them byrepeated tests. This is done through keyedadvertising, by traced returns, largely by theuse of coupons. We compare one way withmany others, backward and forward, and rec-ord the results. When one method invariablyproves best, that method becomes a fixedprinciple.

Mail order advertising is traced down tothe fraction of a penny. The cost per replyand cost per dollar of sale show up with utterexactness.

One ad compared to another, one methodwith another. Headlines, settings, sizes, ar-guments and pictures are compared. To re-duce the cost of results even one per centmeans much in some mail order advertising.So no guesswork is permitted. One mustknow what is best. Thus mail order advertis-ing first established many of our basic laws.

In lines where direct returns are impossi-ble we compare one town with another.Scores of methods may be compared in thisway, measured by cost of sales.

But the most common way is by use of thecoupon. We offer a sample, a book, a freepackage, or something to induce direct re-plies. Thus we learn the amount of actionwhich each ad engenders. But those figures are not final. One ad maybring too many worthless replies, another re-

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plies that are valuable. So our final conclu-sions are always based on cost per customeror cost per dollar of sale.

These coupon plans are dealt with furtherin the chapter on "Test Campaigns." Here weexplain only how we employ them to dis-cover advertising principles.

In a large agency coupon returns arewatched and recorded on hundreds of differ-ent lines. In a single line they are sometimesrecorded on thousands of separate ads. Thuswe test everything pertaining to advertising.We answer nearly every possible question bymultitudinous traced returns.

Some things we learn in this way applyonly to particular lines. But even those sup-ply basic principles for analogous undertak-ings.

Others apply to all lines. They becomefundamentals for advertising in general. Theyare universally applied. No wise advertiserwill ever depart from those unvarying laws.

We propose in this book to deal with thosefundamentals, those universal principles. Toteach only established techniques. There isthat technique in advertising, as in all art, sci-ence and mechanics. And it is, as in all lines,a basic essential.

The lack of those fundamentals has beenthe main trouble with advertising of the past.Each worker was a law to himself. All previ-ous knowledge, all progress in the line, was aclosed book to him. It was like a man tryingto build a modern locomotive without firstascertaining what others had done. It was likea Columbus starting out to find an undiscov-ered land.

Men were guided by whims and fancies -vagrant, changing breezes. They rarely ar-rived at their port. When they did - by acci-dent - it was by a long roundabout course.

Each early mariner in this sea mapped hisown separate course. There were no charts toguide him. Not a lighthouse marked a har-

bour; not a buoy showed a reef. The wreckswere unrecorded, so countless ventures cameto grief on the same rocks and shoals.

Advertising was then a gamble - a specu-lation of the rashest sort. One man's guess onthe proper course was as likely to be as goodas another's. There were no safe pilots, be-cause few sailed the same course twice.

The condition has been corrected. Nowthe only uncertainties pertain to people and toproducts, not to methods. It is hard to meas-ure human idiosyncrasies, the preferencesand prejudices, the likes and dislikes that ex-ist. We cannot say that an article will bepopular, but we know how to sell it in themost effective way.

Ventures may fail, but the failures are notdisasters. Losses, when they occur, are buttrifling, and the causes are factors, which hasnothing to do with the advertising.

Advertising has flourished under thesenew conditions. It has multiplied in volume,in prestige and respect. The perils have in-creased many folds. Just because the gamblehas become a science, the speculation is stilla very conservative business.

These facts should be recognised by all.This is no proper field for sophistry or theory,or for any other will-o'-the-wisp. The blindleading the blind is ridiculous. It is pitiful in afield with such vast possibilities. Success is ararity, and maximum success an impossibil-ity, unless one is guided by laws as immuta-ble as the law of gravitation.

So our main purpose here is to set downthose laws, and to tell you how to prove themfor yourself. After them come myriad varia-tions. No two advertising campaigns are everconducted on lines that are identical. Indi-viduality is an essential. Imitation is a re-proach. But those variable things, which de-pend on ingenuity, have no place in a text-book on advertising. This is for groundworkonly.

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Our hope is to foster advertising through abetter understanding. To place it on a busi-ness basis. To have it recognised as amongthe safest, surest ventures, which lead to largereturns.

Thousands of conspicuous successes showits possibilities. Their variety points out itsalmost unlimited scope. Yet thousands whoneed it - who can never attain their desertswithout it - still look upon its accomplish-ments as somewhat accidental.

That was so, but it is not so now. We hopethat this book will throw some new lights onthe subject.

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Chapter 2Just salesmanship

To properly understand advertising or tolearn even its rudiments one must start withthe right conception. Advertising is sales-manship. Its principles are the principles ofsalesmanship. Successes and failures in bothlines are due to like causes. Thus every ad-vertising question should be answered by thesalesman's standards.

Let us emphasise that point. The only pur-pose if advertising is to make sales. It isprofitable or unprofitable according to itsactual sales.

It is not for general effect. It is not to keepyour name before the people. It is not pri-marily to aid your other salesmen.

Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justifyitself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figureits cost and result. Accept no excuses whichgood salesmen do not make. Then you willnot go far wrong.

The difference is only in degree. Adver-tising is multiplied salesmanship. It may ap-peal to thousands while the salesman talks toone. It involves a corresponding cost. Somepeople spend $10 per word on an averageadvertisement. Therefore every ad should bea super - salesman.

A salesman's mistake may cost little. Anadvertisers mistake may cost a thousandtimes that much. So be more cautious, moreexacting.

A mediocre salesman may affect a smallpart of your trade. Mediocre advertising af-fects all of your trade.

Many think of advertising as ad writing.Literary qualifications have no more to dowith it than oratory has with salesmanship.

One must be able to express himselfbriefly, clearly and convincingly, just as asalesman must. But fine writing is a distinctdisadvantage. So is unique literary style.They take attention from the subject. They

reveal the hook. Any studied attempt to sell,if apparent, creates corresponding resistance.

That is so in personal salesmanship as insalesmanship-in-print. Fine talkers are rarelygood salesmen. They inspire buyers with thefear of over-influence. They create the suspi-cion that an effort is made to sell them onother lines than merit.

Successful salesmen are rarely goodspeechmakers. They have few oratoricalgraces. They are plain and sincere men whoknow their customers and know their lines.So it is in ad writing.

Many of the ablest men in advertising aregraduate salesmen. The best we know havebeen house-to-house canvassers. They mayknow little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric,but they know how to use words that con-vince.

There is one simple way to answer manyadvertising questions. Ask yourself, "Wouldit help a salesman sell the goods?" "Would ithelp me sell them if I met a buyer in person?"

A fair answer to those questions avoidscountless mistakes. But when one tries toshow off, or does things merely to pleaseoneself, one is unlikely to strike a chord,which leads people to spend money.

Some argue for slogans, some like cleverconcepts. Would you use them in personalsalesmanship? Can you imagine a customerwhom such things would impress? If not,don't rely on them for selling in print.

Some say, "Be very brief. People will readfor little." Would you say that to a salesman?With a prospect standing before him, wouldyou confine him to any certain number ofwords? That would be an unthinkable handi-cap.

So in advertising. The only readers we getare people whom our subject interests. Noone reads ads for amusement, long or short.Consider them as prospects standing beforeyou, seeking for information. Give themenough to get action.

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Some advocate large type and big head-lines. Yet they do not admire salesmen whotalk in loud voices. People read all they careto read in 8-point type. Our magazines andnewspapers are printed in that type. Folks areaccustomed to it. Anything larger is like loudconversation. It gains no worth while atten-tion. It may not be offensive, but it is uselessand wasteful. It multiplies the cost of yourstory. And to many it seems loud and blatant.

Others look for something queer and un-usual. They want ads distinctive in style orillustration. Would you want that in a sales-man? Do not men who act and dress in nor-mal ways make a far better impression?

Some insist in dressy ads. That is all rightto a certain degree, but is quite important.Some poorly dressed men prove to be excel-lent salesmen. Over dress in either is a fault.

So with countless questions. Measurethem by salesmen's standards, not by amuse-ment standards. Ads are not written to enter-tain. When they do, those entertainmentseekers are little likely to be the peoplewhom you want.

That is one of the greatest advertisingfaults. Ad writers abandon their parts. Theyforget they are salesmen and try to be per-formers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.

When you plan or prepare an advertise-ment, keep before you a typical buyer. Yoursubject, your headline has gained his or herattention. Then in everything be guided bywhat you would do if you met the buyer face-to-face. If you are a normal man and a goodsalesman you will then do your level best.

Don't think of people in the mass. Thatgives you a blurred view. Think of a typicalindividual, man or women, who is likely towant what you sell. Don't try to be amusing.Money spending is a serious matter. Don'tboast, for all people resent it. Don't try toshow off. Do just what you think a goodsalesman should do with a half-sold personbefore him.

Some advertising men go out in person andsell to people before they plan to write an ad.One of the ablest of them has spent weeks onone article, selling from house to house. Inthis way they learn the reactions from differ-ent forms of argument and approach. Theylearn what possible buyers want and the fac-tors, which don't appeal. It is quite custom-ary to interview hundreds of possible cus-tomers.

Others send out questionnaires to learn theattitude of the buyers. In some way all mustlearn how to strike responsive chords.Guesswork is very expensive.

The maker of an advertised article knowsthe manufacturing side and probably thedealer's side. But this very knowledge oftenleads him astray in respect to customers. Hisinterests are not in their interests.

The advertising man studies the consumer.He tries to place himself in the position of thebuyer. His success largely depends on doingthat to the exclusion of everything else.

This book will contain no more importantchapter than this one on salesmanship. Thereason for most of the non-successes in ad-vertising is trying to sell people what they donot want. But next to that comes lack of truesalesmanship.

Some ads are planned and written with atotally wrong conception. They are written toplease the seller. The interests of the buyerare forgotten. One can never sell goods prof-itable, in person or in print, when that attitudeexists.

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Chapter 3Offer service

Remember the people you address are self-ish, as we all are. The care nothing aboutyour interests or your profit. They seek serv-ice for themselves. Ignoring this fact is acommon mistake and a costly mistake in ad-vertising. Ads say in effect, "Buy my brand.Give me the trade you give to others. Let mehave the money." That is not a popular ap-peal.

The best ads ask no one to buy. That isuseless. Often they do not quote a price. Theydo not say that dealers handle the product.

The ads are based entirely on service.They offer wanted information. They site ad-vantages to users. Perhaps they offer a sam-ple, or to buy the first package, or to sendsomething on approval, so the customer mayprove the claims without any cost or risks.

Some of these ads seem altruistic. Butthey are based on the knowledge of humannature. The writers know how people are ledto buy.

Here again is salesmanship. The goodsalesman does not merely cry a name. Hedoesn't say, "Buy my article." He picturesthe customer's side of his service until thenatural result is to buy.

A brush maker has some 2,000 canvasserswho sells brushes from house to house. He isenormously successful in a line, which wouldseem very difficult. And it would be for hismen asked the housewives to buy.

But they don't. They go to the door andsay, "I was sent here to give you a brush. Ihave samples here and I want you to takeyour choice."

The housewife is all smiles and attention.In picking out one brush she sees several shewants. She is also anxious to reciprocate thegift. So the salesman gets an order.

Another concern sells coffee etc, by wag-ons in some 500 cities. The man drops in

with a half-pound of coffee and says, "Ac-cept this package and try it. I'll come back ina few days to ask you how you liked it."

Even when he comes back he doesn't askfor an order. He explains that he wants tosend the women a fine kitchen utensil. It isn'tfree, but if she likes the coffee he will creditfive cents on each pound she buys until shehas paid for the article. Always some service.

The maker of the electric sewing machinemotor found advertising difficult. So, ongood advice, he ceased soliciting a purchase.He offered to send to any home, through anydealer, a motor for one week's use. With itwould come a man to show her how to oper-ate it. "Let us help you for a week withoutcost or obligation," said the ad. Such an offerwas resistless and about nine in ten of the tri-als led to sales.

So in many, many lines. Cigar makerssend out boxes to anyone and say, "Smoketen, then keep them or return them, as youwish."

Makers of books, typewriters, washingmachines, kitchen cabinets, vacuum sweep-ers, etc, send out their products without anyprepayment. They say, "Use them a week,then do as you wish." Practically all mer-chandise sold by mail is sent subject to re-turn.

These are all common principles of sales-manship. The most ignorant peddler appliesthem. Yet the salesman-in-print very oftenforgets them. He talks about his interest. Heblazons a name, as though that was of im-portance. His phrase is, "Drive people to thestores," and that is his attitude in everythinghe says.

People can be coaxed but not driven.Whatever they do they do to please them-selves. Many fewer mistakes would be madein advertising if these facts were never for-gotten.

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Chapter 4Mail order advertising - what it teaches

The severest test of an advertising man is inselling goods by mail. But that is a schoolfrom which he must graduate before he canhope for success. Their cost and result areimmediately apparent. False theories meltaway like snowflakes in the sun. The adver-tising is profitable or it is not, clearly on theface of returns. Figures, which do not lie, tellone at once the merits of an ad.

This puts men on their mettle. All guess-work is eliminated. Every mistake is con-spicuous. One quickly loses his conceit bylearning how often his judgment errs - oftennine times in ten.

There one learns that advertising must bedone on a scientific basis to have any fairchance of success. And he learns that everywasted dollar adds to the cost of results.

Here is a tough efficiency and economyunder a master who can't be fooled. Then,and only then, is he apt to apply the sameprinciples 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 hethought better. The replies cost $14.20 each.Another man submitted an ad, which for twoyears brought replies at an average of 41cents each.

Consider the difference, on 250,000 re-plies per year. Think how valuable was theman who cut the cost in two. Think what itwould have meant to continue that $14.20 adwithout any key on returns.

Yet there are thousands of advertisers whodo just that. They spend large sums on aguess. And they are doing what that man did- paying for sales from 2 to 35 times whatthey need cost.

A study of mail order advertising revealsmany things worth learning. It is a primesubject for study. In the first place, if contin-

ued, you know that it pays. It is thereforegood advertising as applied to that line.

The probability is that the ad has resultedfrom many traced comparisons. It is thereforethe best advertising, not theoretical. It willnot deceive you. The lessons it teaches areprinciples which wise men apply to all ad-vertising.

Mail order advertising is always set insmall type. It is usually set in smaller typethan ordinary print. That economy of space isuniversal. So it proves conclusively thatlarger type does not pay.

Remember that when you double yourspace by doubling the size of your type. Thead may still be profitable. But traced returnshave proved that you are paying a doubleprice for sales.

In mail order advertising there is no wasteof space. Every line is utilised. Borders arerarely used. Remember that when you aretempted to leave valuable space unoccupied.

In mail order advertising there is no pa-laver. There is no boasting, save of super-service. There is no useless talk. There is noattempt at entertainment. There is nothing toamuse.

Mail order advertising usually contains acoupon. That is there to get some action outof the converts partly made. It is there to cutout as a reminder of something the reader hasdecided to do.

Mail order advertisers know that readersforget. They are reading a magazine of inter-est. They may be absorbed in a story. A largepercentage of people who read an ad and de-cide to act will forget that decision in fiveminutes. The mail order advertisers knowsthat waste from tests, and he does not pro-pose to accept it. So he inserts that reminderto be cut out, and it turns up when the readeris ready to act.

In mail order advertising the pictures arealways to the point. They are salesmen inthemselves. They earn the space they occupy.

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The size is gauged by their importance. Thepicture of a dress one is trying to sell mayoccupy much space. Less important thingsget smaller spaces.

Pictures in ordinary advertising may teachlittle. They probably result in whims. Butpictures in mail order advertising may formhalf the cost of selling. And you may be surethat everything about them has been decidedby many comparative tests.

Before you use useless pictures, merely todecorate or interest, look over some mail or-der ads. Mark what their verdict is.

A man advertised an incubator to be soldby mail. Type ads with right headlinesbrought excellent returns. But he conceivedthe idea that a striking picture would increasethose returns. So he increased his space 50per cent to add a row of chickens in silhou-ette.

It did make a striking ad, but his cost perreply was increased by exactly that 50 percent. The new ad, costing one-half more forevery insertion, brought not one added sale.

The man learned that incubator buyerswere practical people. They were looking forattractive offers, not for pictures.

Think of the countless untraced cam-paigns where a whim of that kind costs halfthe advertising money without a penny inreturn. And it may go on year after year.

Mail order advertising tells a completestory if the purpose is to make an immediatesale. You see no limitations there on theamount of copy.

The motto there is, "The more you tell themore you sell." And it has never failed toprove out so in any test we know.

Sometimes the advertiser uses small ads,sometimes-large ads. None are too small totell a reasonable story. But an ad twice largerbrings twice the returns. A four-times-largerad brings four times the returns, and usuallysome in addition.

But this occurs only when the larger spaceis utilised as well as the small space. Set half-page copy in a page space and you double thecost in returns. We have seen many a testprove that.

Look at an ad of the Mead Cycle Com-pany - a typical mail order ad. These havebeen running for many years. The ads are un-changing. Mr. Mead told the writer that notfor $10,000 would he change a single word inhis ads.

For many years he compared one ad withthe other. And the ads you see today are thefinal results of all those experiments. Notethe picture he uses, the headlines, the econ-omy of space, the small type. Those ads areas near perfect for their purpose as an ad canbe.

So with any other mail order ad which haslong continued. Every feature, every wordand picture teaches advertising at its best.You may not like them. You may say theyare unattractive, crowded, and hard to read -anything you will. But the test of results hasproved those ads the best salesman thoselines have yet discovered. And they certainlypay.

Mail order advertising is the court of lastresort. You may get the same instruction, ifyou will, by keying other ads. But mail orderads are models. They are selling goods prof-itably in a difficult way. It is far harder to getmail order than to send buyers to the stores. Itis hard to sell goods, which can't be seen.Ads, which do that, are excellent examples ofwhat advertising should be.

We cannot often follow all the principle ofmail order advertising, though we know weshould. The advertiser forces a compromise.Perhaps pride in our ads has an influence. Butevery departure from those principles adds toour selling cost. Therefore it is always aquestion of what we are willing to pay for ourfrivolities.

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We can at least know what we pay. Wecan make keyed comparisons, one ad withanother. Whenever we do, we invariably findthat the nearer we get to proved mail ordercopy the more customers we get for ourmoney.

This is another important chapter. Think itover. What real difference is there betweeninducing a customer to order by mail or orderfrom his dealer? Why should the methods ofsalesmanship differ?

They should not! When they do, it is forone of two reasons. Either the advertiser doesnot know what the mail order advertiserknows. Or he is advertising blindly. Or he isdeliberately sacrificing a percentage of hisreturns to gratify some desire.

There is some apology for that, just asthere is for fine offices and buildings. Mostof us can afford to do something for prideand opinion. But let us know what we aredoing. Let us know the cost of our pride.Then, if our advertising fails to bring us thewanted returns, let us go back to our model -a good mail order ad - and eliminate some ofour waste.

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Chapter 5Headlines

The difference between advertising and per-sonal salesmanship lies largely in personalcontact. The salesman is there to demand at-tention. He cannot be ignored. The adver-tisement can be ignored.

But the salesman wastes much of his timeon prospects whom he can never hope to in-terest. He cannot pick them out. The adver-tisement is read only by interested peoplewho, by their own volition, study what wehave to say.

The purpose of the headline is to pick outpeople you can interest. You wish to talk tosomeone in a crowd, so the first thing yousay is, "Hey there, Bill Jones" to get the rightperson's attention.

The same in an advertisement, what youhave will interest certain people only and forcertain reasons. You care only for those peo-ple, so create a headline, which will hailthose people only!

Perhaps a blind headline or some cleverconcept will attract many times as many. Butthey may consist of mostly impossible sub-jects for what you have to offer. And thepeople you are after may never realise thatthe ad refers to something they may want.

Headlines on ads are like headlines onnews items. Nobody reads a whole newspa-per. One is interested in financial news, onein political, one in society, one in cookery,one in sports, etc. There are whole pages inany newspaper, which we may never scan atall. Yet other people might turn directly tothose pages.

We pick out what we wish to read byheadlines, and we don't want those headlinesmisleading. The writing of headlines is oneof the greatest journalistic arts. They eitherconceal or reveal an interest.

Suppose a newspaper article stated that acertain woman was the most beautiful in the

city. That article would be of intense interestto that woman and her friends. But neithershe nor her friends would ever read it if theheadline was "Egyptian Psychology."

So in advertising it is commonly said thatpeople do not read advertisements. That issilly of course. We who spend millions inadvertising and watch the returns marvel atthe readers we get. Again and again we see20 per cent of all the readers of a newspapercut out a certain coupon.

But people do not read ads for amuse-ment. They don't read ads which, at a glance,seem to offer nothing interesting. A double-page ad on a women's dresses will not gain aglance from a man. Nor will a shaving creamad from a woman.

Always bear these facts in mind. Peopleare hurried. The average person worth culti-vating has too much to read. They skip three-fourths of the reading matter, which they payto get. They are not going to read your busi-ness talk unless you make it worth their whileand let the headline show it.

People will not be bored in print. Theymay listen politely at a dinner table to boastsand personalities, life history, etc. But inprint they choose their own companions, theirown subjects. They want to be amused orbenefited. They want economy, beauty, laborsaving, good things to eat and wear. Theremay be products, which interest them morethan anything else in the magazine, but theywill never know it unless the headline orpicture tells them.

The writer of this chapter spends far moretime on headlines that on writing. He oftenspends hours on a single headline. Oftenscores of headlines are discarded before theright one is selected. For the entire returnfrom an ad depends on attracting the rightsort of readers. The best of salesmanship hasno chance whatever unless we get a hearing.

The vast difference in headlines is shownby keyed returns, which this book advocates.The identical ad run with various headlines

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differs tremendously in its returns. It is notuncommon for a change in headlines to mul-tiply returns by five or ten times over.

So we compare headlines until we knowwhat sort of appeal pays best. That differs inevery line, of course.

The writer has before him keyed returnson nearly two thousand headlines used on asingle product. The story in these ads arenearly identical. But the returns vary enor-mously, due to the headlines. So with everykeyed return in our record appears the head-line that we used.

Thus we learn what type of headline hasthe most widespread appeal. The product hasmany uses. It fosters beauty. It prevents dis-ease. It aids daintiness and cleanliness. Welearn to exactness which quality most of ourreaders seek.

That does not mean we neglect the others.One sort of appeal may bring half the returnsof another, yet be important enough to beprofitable. We overlook no field that pays,but we know what proportion of our adsshould, in the headline, attract any certainclass.

For this same reason we employ a vastvariety of ads. If we are using twenty maga-zines we may use twenty separate ads. Thisbecause circulation’s overlap, and because aconsiderable percentage of people are at-tracted by each of several forms of approach.We wish to reach them all.

On soap, for instance, the headline "KeepClean" might attract a very small percentage.It is too commonplace. So might the head-line, "No animal fat." People may not caremuch about that. The headline, "It floats"might prove interesting. But a headline refer-ring to beauty or complexion might attractmany times as many. An automobile ad might refer in the head-line to a good universal joint. It might fallflat, because so few buyers think of universaljoints. The same ad with a headline, " The

Sportiest of Sport Bodies," might out pull theother fifty to one.

This is enough to suggest the importanceof headlines. Anyone who keys ads will beamazed at the difference. The appeals we likebest will rarely prove best, because we do notknow enough people to average up their de-sires. So we learn on each line by experi-ment.

But back of all lies fixed principles. Youare presenting an ad to millions. Among themis a percentage, small or large, whom youhope to interest. Go after that percentage andtry to strike the chord that responds. If youare advertising corsets, men and childrendon't interest you. If you are advertising ci-gars, you have no use for non-smokers. Ra-zors won't attract women; rouge will not in-terest men.

Don't think that those millions will readyour ads to find out if your product interests.They will decide by a glance - by your head-line or your pictures. Address the people youseek and them only.

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Chapter 6Psychology

The competent advertising man must under-stand psychology. The more he knows aboutit the better. He must learn that certain effectslead to certain reactions, and use that knowl-edge to increase results and avoid mistakes.

Human nature is perpetual. In most re-spects it is the same today as in the time ofCaesar. So the principles of psychology arefixed and enduring. You will never need tounlearn what you learn about them.

We learn, for instance, that curiosity isone of the strongest human incentives. Weemploy it whenever we can. Puffed Wheatand Puffed Rice were made successfullargely trough curiosity. "Grains puffed to 8times the normal size." "Foods shot fromguns." "125 million steam explosionscaused in every kernel." These foods werefailures before that factor was discovered.

We learn that cheapness is not a strongappeal. Americans are extravagant. Theywant bargains but not cheapness. They wantto feel that they can afford to eat and haveand wear the best. Treat them as if they couldnot and they resent your attitude.

We learn that people judge largely byprice. They are not experts. In the BritishNational Gallery is a painting, which is an-nounced in a catalogue to have cost$750,000. Most people at first pass it by at aglance. Then later they get farther on in thecatalogue and learn what the painting cost.They return then and surround it.

A department store advertised at oneEaster time a $100 hat, and the floor couldnot hold the women who came to see it.

We often employ this factor in psychol-ogy. Perhaps we are advertising a valuableformula. To merely say that would not beimpressive. So we state - as a fact - that wepaid $100,000 for that formula. That state-ment when tried has won a wealth of respect.

Many articles are sold under guarantee - socommonly sold that guarantees have ceasedto be impressive. But one concern made afortune by offering a dealer's signed warrant.The dealer to whom one paid his moneyagreed in writing to pay it back if asked. In-stead of a far-away stranger, a neighbourgave the warrant. The results have led manyto try that plan, and it has always proved ef-fective.

Many have advertised, "Try it for a week.If you don't like it we'll return your money."Then someone conceived the idea of sendinggoods without any money down, and saying,"Pay in a week if you like them." Thatproved many times as impressive.

One great advertising man stated the dif-ference this way: "Two men came to me,each offering me a horse. Both made equalclaims. They were good horses, kind andgentle. A child could drive them. One mansaid, 'Try the horse for a week. If my claimsare not true, come back for your money.' Theother man also said, 'Try the horse for week.'But he added, 'Come and pay me then.' Inaturally bought the second man's horse."

Now countless things - cigars, typewriters,washing machines, books, etc. - are sent outin this way on approval. And we find thatpeople are honest. The losses are very small.

An advertiser offered a set of books tobusinessmen. The advertising was unprofit-able, so he consulted another expert. The adswere impressive. The offer seemed attractive."But," said the second man, "let us add onelittle touch which I have found effective. Letus offer to put the buyer's name in gilt letter-ing on each book." That was done, and withscarcely another change in the ads they soldsome hundreds of thousands of books.

Through some peculiar kink in humanpsychology the names in gilt gave muchadded value to the books.

Many send out small gifts, like memoran-dum books, to customers and prospects. Theyget very small results. One man sent out a

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letter to the effect that he had a leather-covered book with a man's name on it. It waswaiting on him and would be sent on request.The form of request was enclosed, and it alsoasked for certain information. That informa-tion indicated lines on which a man might besold.

Nearly all men, it was found, filled outthat request and supplied the information.When a man knows that something belongsto him - something with his name on - he willmake an effort to get it, even though the thingis a trifle.

In the same way it is found that an offerlimited to a certain class of people is far moreeffective than a general offer. For instance,an offer limited to veterans of the war, or tomembers of a lodge or sect, or to executives.Those who are entitled to any seeming ad-vantage will go a long way not to lose thatadvantage.

An advertiser suffered much from sub-stitution. He said, "Look out for substitutes,""Be sure you get this brand," etc., with noeffect. Those were selfish appeals.

Then he said, "Try our rivals' too" - saidit in his headlines. He invited comparisonsand showed that he did not fear them. Thatcorrected the situation. Buyers were carefulto get the brand so conspicuously superiorthat its maker could court a trial of the rest.

Two advertisers offered food productsnearly identical. Both offered a full-sizepackage as an introduction. But one gave hispackage free. The other bought the package.A coupon was good at any store for a pack-age, for which the maker paid retail price.

The first advertiser failed and the secondsucceeded. The first even lost a large part ofthe trade he had. He cheapened his productby giving a 15-cent package away. It is hardto pay for an article, which has once beenfree. It is like paying railroad fare after trav-elling on a pass.

The other gained added respect for his ar-ticle by paying retail price to let the user tryit. An article good enough for the maker tobuy is good enough for the user to buy. It isvastly different to pay 15 cents to let you tryan article that to simply say, "It's free."

So with sampling. Hand an unwantedproduct to a housewife and she pays it slightrespect. She is in no mood to see its virtues.But get her to ask for a sample after readingyour story, and she is in a very different po-sition. She knows your claims. She is inter-ested in them, else she would not act, and sheexpects to find the qualities you told.

There is a great deal in mental impression.Submit five articles exactly alike and fivepeople may choose one of them. But pointout in one some qualities to notice and eve-ryone will find them. The five people thenwill all choose the same article.

If people can be made sick or well bymental impressions, they can be made to fa-vour a certain brand in that way. And that, onsome lines, is the only way to win them.

Two concerns, side by side, sold women'sclothing on installments. The appeal, ofcourse, was to poor girls who desire to dressbetter. One treated them like poor girls andmade the bare business offer.

The other put a woman in charge - amotherly, dignified, capable woman. Theydid business in her name. They used her pic-ture. She signed all ads and letters. She wroteto these girls like a friend. She knew herselfwhat it meant to a girl not to be able to dressher best. She had long sought a chance tosupply women good clothes and give them allseason to pay. Now she was able to do so,with the aid of men behind her.

There was no comparison in those twoappeals. It was not long before this woman'slong established next-door rival had to quit.

The backers of this business sold housefurnishings on installments. Sending outcatalogues promiscuously did not pay. Of-

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fering long-time credit often seems like a re-flection.

But when a married woman bought gar-ments from Mrs _, and paid as agreed, theywrote to her something like this: "Mrs._,whom we know, tells us that you are one ofher good customers. She has dealt with you,she says, and you do just as you agree, so wehave opened with you a credit account on ourbooks, good any time you wish. When youwant anything in furnishings, just order it.Pay nothing in advance. We are very glad tosend it without any investigation to a personrecommended as you are.

That was flattering. Naturally those peo-ple, when they wanted some furniture, wouldorder from that house.

There are endless phases to psychology.Some people know them by instinct. Many ofthem are taught by experience, but we learnmost of them from others. When we see awinning method we note it down for usewhen occasion offers.

These things are very important. An iden-tical offer made in a different way may bringmultiplied returns. Somewhere in the minesof business experience we must find the bestmethod somehow.

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Chapter 7Being specific

Platitudes and generalities roll off the humanunderstanding like water from a duck. Theyleave no impression whatever. To say, "Bestin the world," "Lowest price in existence,"etc. is at best simply claiming the expected.But superlatives of that sort are usually dam-aging. They suggest looseness of expression,a tendency to exaggerate a careless truth.They lead readers to discount all the state-ments that you make.

People recognise a certain license in sell-ing talk as they do poetry. A man may say,"Supreme in quality" without seeming a liar,though one may know that the other brandsare equally as good. One expects a salesmanto put his best foot forward and excuses someexaggeration born of enthusiasm. But just forthat reason general statements count for little.And a man inclined to superlatives must ex-pect that his every statement will be takenwith some caution

But a man who makes a specific claim iseither telling the truth or a lie. People do notexpect an advertiser to lie. They know that hecan't lie in the best mediums. The growingrespect in advertising has largely comethrough a growing regard for its truth.

So a definite statement is usually ac-cepted. Actual figures are not generally dis-counted. Specific facts, when stated, havetheir full weight and effect.

This is very important to consider inwritten or personal salesmanship. The weightof an argument may often be multiplied bymaking it specific. Say that a tungsten lampgives more light than a carbon and you leavesome doubt. Say it gives three and one-thirdtimes the light and people realise that youhave made tests and comparisons.

A dealer may say, "Our prices have beenreduced" without creating any marked im-pression. But when he says, "Our prices have

been reduced 25 per cent" he gets the fullvalue of his announcement.

A mail order advertiser sold women'sclothing to people of the poorer classes. Foryears he used the slogan, "Lowest prices inAmerica." His rivals all copied that. Then heguaranteed to undersell any other dealer. Hisrivals did likewise. Soon those claims be-came common to every advertiser in his line,and they became commonplace.

Then under able advice, he changed hisstatement to "Our net profit is 3 per cent."That was a definite statement and it provedvery impressive. With their volume of busi-ness it was evident that their prices must beminimum. No one could be expected to dobusiness on less than 3 per cent. The nextyear their business made a sensational in-crease.

At one time in the automobile businessthere was a general impression that profitswere excessive. One well-advised advertisercame out with this statement; "Our profit is 9per cent." Then he cited actual costs on thehidden costs of a $1,500 car. They amountedto $735, without including anything onecould easily see. This advertiser made a greatsuccess along those lines at that time.

Shaving soaps have long been advertised"Abundant lather," "Does not dry on theface," "Acts quickly," etc. One advertiser hadas good a chance as the other to impressthose claims.

Then a new maker came into the field. Itwas a tremendously difficult field, for everycustomer had to be taken from someone else.He stated specific facts. He said, "Multipliesitself in lather 250 times" "Softens the beardin one minute." "Maintains its creamy full-ness for ten minutes on the face." "The finalresult of testing and comparing 130 formu-las." Perhaps never in advertising has therebeen a quicker and greater success in anequally difficult field.

Makers of safety razors have long adver-tised quick shaves. One maker advertised a

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78-second shave. That was definite. It indi-cated actual tests. That man at once made asensational advance in his sales.

In the old days all beers were advertisedas "Pure," The claim made no impression.The bigger the type used the bigger the folly.After millions had been spent to impress aplatitude, one brewer pictured a plate glasswhere beer was cooled in filtered air. Hepictured a filter of white wood pulp throughwhich every drop was cleared. He told howbottles were washed four times by machin-ery. How he went down 4,000 feet for purewater. How 1,018 experiments had beenmade to attain a yeast to give beer thatmatchless flavour. And how all the yeast wasforever made from that adopted mother cell.

All claims were such as any brewer mighthave made. They were mere essentials in or-dinary brewing. But he was the first to tellthe people about them, while others criedmerely "pure beer." He made the greatestsuccess that was ever made in beer advertis-ing.

"Used the world over" is a very elasticclaim. Then one advertiser said, "Used by thepeoples of 52 nations," and many others fol-lowed.

One statement may take as much room asanother, yet a definite statement is manytimes as effective. The difference is vast. If aclaim is worth making, make it in the mostimpressive way.

All these effects must be studied. Sales-manship-in-print is very expensive. A sales-man's loose talk matters little. But when youare talking to millions at enormous cost, theweight of your claims is important.

No generality has any weight whatever. Itis like saying, "How do you do?" When youhave no intention of inquiring about one'shealth. But specific claims when made inprint are taken at their value.

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Chapter 8Tell your full story

Whatever claims you use to gain attention,the advertisement should tell a story reasona-bly complete. If you watch returns, you willfind that certain claims appeal far more thatothers. But in usual lines a number of claimsappeal to a large percentage. Then presentthose claims in every ad for their effect onthat percentage.

Some advertisers, for sake of brevity, pre-sent one claim at a time. Or they write a se-rial ad, continued in another issue. There isno greater folly. Those serials almost neverconnect.

When you once get a person's attention,then is the time to accomplish all ever hopewith him. Bring all your good arguments tobare. Cover every phase of your subject. Onefact appeals to some, one to another. Omitany one and a certain percentage will lose thefact, which might convince.

People are not apt to read successive ad-vertisements on any single line. No morethan you read a news item twice, or a story.In one reading of an advertisement one de-cides for or against a proposition. And thatoperates against a second reading. So presentto the reader, when once you get him, everyimportant claim you have.

The best advertisers do that. They learntheir appealing claims by tests - by compar-ing results from various headlines. Graduallythey accumulate a list of claims importantenough to use. All those claims appear inevery ad thereafter.

The advertisements seem monotonous tothe men who read them all. A complete storyis always the same. But one must considerthat the average reader is only once a reader,probably. And what you fail to tell him inthat ad is something he may never know.

Some advertisers go so far as to neverchange their ads. Single mail order ads oftenrun year after year without diminishing re-

turns. So with some general ads. They areperfected ads, embodying in the best wayknown all that one has to say. Advertisers donot expect a second reading. Their constantreturns come from getting new readers.

In every ad consider only new customers.People using your product are not going toread your ads. They have already read anddecided. You might advertise month aftermonth to present users that the product theyuse is poison, and they would never know it.So never waste one line of your space to saysomething to present to users, unless you cansay it in your headlines. Bear in mind alwaysthat you can address an unconverted pros-pect.

Any reader of your ad is interested; elsehe would not be a reader. You are dealingwith someone willing to listen. So do yourlevel best. That reader, if you lose him now,may never again be a reader.

You are like a salesman in a busy man'soffice. He may have tried again and again toget entree. He may never be admitted again.This is his one chance to get action, and hemust employ it to the full.

This brings up the question of brevity. Themost common expression you hear about ad-vertising is that people will not read much.Yet a vast amount of the best-paying adver-tising shows that people do read much. Thenthey write for a book, perhaps - for addedinformation.

There is fixed rule on this subject of brev-ity. One sentence may tell a complete storyon a line like chewing gum. It may on an ar-ticle like Cream of Wheat. But, whether longor short, an advertising story should be rea-sonably complete.

A certain man desired a personal car. Hecared little about the price. He wanted a carto take pride in; else he felt he would neverdrive it. But, being a good businessman, hewanted value for his money.

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His inclination was towards a RollsRoyce. He also considered a Pierce-Arrow, aLocomobile and others. But these famouscars offered no information. Their advertise-ments were very short. Evidently the makersconsidered it undignified to argue compara-tive merits.

The Marmon, on the contrary, told a com-plete story. He read columns and books aboutit. So he bought a Marmon, and was neversorry. But he afterwards learned facts aboutanother car at nearly three times the price,which would have sold him the car, had heknown them.

What folly it is to cry a name in a line likethat, plus a few brief generalities. A car maybe a lifetime investment. It involves an im-portant expenditure. A man interested enoughto buy a car will read a volume about it if thevolume is interesting.

So with everything, you may be simplytrying to change a woman from one breakfastfood to another, or one toothpaste, or onesoap. She is wedded to what she is using.Perhaps she has used it for years.

You have a hard proposition. If you do notbelieve it, go to her in person and try to makethe change. Not to merely buy a first packageto please you, but to adopt your brand. A manwho once does that at a woman's door won'targue for brief advertisements. He will neveragain say, "A sentence will do," or a nameclaim or a boast.

Nor will the man who traces his results.Note that brief ads are never keyed. Note thatevery traced ad tells a complete story, thoughit takes columns to tell.

Never be guided in any way by ads, whichare untraced. Never do anything becausesome uninformed advertiser considers thatsomething right. Never be led in new pathsby the blind. Apply to your advertising ordi-nary common sense. Take the opinion of no-body, whom knows nothing about his returns.

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Chapter 9Art in advertising

Pictures in advertising are very expensive.Not in cost of good art work alone, but in thecost of space. From one-third to one-half ofan advertising campaign is often staked onthe power of the pictures.

Anything expensive must be effective;else it involves much waste. So art in adver-tising is a study of paramount importance.

Pictures should not be used merely be-cause they are interesting, or to attract atten-tion, or to decorate an ad. We have coveredthese points elsewhere. Ads are not written tointerest, please or amuse. You are not writingto please the hoi- polloi. You are writing on aserious subject - the subject of moneyspending. And you address a restricted mi-nority.

Use pictures only to attract those who mayprofit you. Use them only when they form abetter selling argument than the same amountof space set in type.

Mail order advertisers, as we have said,have pictures down to a science. Some uselarge pictures, some small, some omit pic-tures entirely. A noticeable fact is that noneof them uses expensive artwork. Be sure thatall these things are done for reasons madeapparent by results.

Any other advertiser should apply thesame principles. Or, if none exist to apply tohis line, he should work out his own by tests.It is certainly unwise to spend large sums ona dubious adventure.

Pictures in many lines form a major fac-tor. Omitting the lines where the article itselfshould be pictured. In some lines, like ArrowCollars and most in clothing advertising,pictures have proved most convincing. Notonly in picturing the collar or the clothes, butalso in picturing men whom others envy, insurroundings which others covet. The pic-tures subtly suggest that these articles of ap-parel will aid men to those desired positions.

So with correspondence schools. Theirs istraced advertising. Picturing men in high po-sitions of taking upward steps forms a veryconvincing argument.

So with beauty articles. Picturing beautifulwomen, admired and attractive, is a supremeinducement. But there is a great advantage inincluding a fascinated man. Women desirebeauty largely because of men. Then showthem using their beauty, as women do use it,to gain maximum effect.

Advertising pictures should not be eccen-tric. Don't treat your subject lightly. Don'tlessen respect for yourself or your article byany attempt at frivolity. People do not pa-tronise a clown. There are two things aboutwhich men should not joke. One is business,the other is home.

An eccentric picture may do you seriousdamage. One may gain attention by wearinga fool's cap. But he would ruin his sellingprospects.

Then a picture, which is eccentric orunique, takes attention from your subject.You cannot afford to do that. Your main ap-peal lies in headline. Over-shadow that andyou kill it. Don't, to gain general and uselessattention, sacrifice the attention that youwant.

Don't be like a salesman who wears con-spicuous clothes. The small percentage heappeals to are not usually good buyers. Thegreat majority of the sane and thrifty heartilydespite him. Be normal in everything you dowhen you are seeking confidence and con-viction.

Generalities cannot be applied to art.There are seeming exceptions to most state-ments. Each line must be studied by itself.

But the picture must help sell the goods. Itshould help more than anything else could doin like space, else use that something else. Many pictures tell a story better than typecan do. In advertising of Puffed Grains thepicture of the grains were found to be most

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effective. They awake curiosity. No figuredrawing in that case compares in results withthese grains.

Other pictures form a total loss. We havecited cases of that kind. The only way toknow, as is with most other questions, is bycompared results.

There are disputed questions in artwork,which we will cite without expressing opin-ions. They seem to be answered both ways,according to the line, which is advertised.

Does it pay better to use fine art work orordinary? Some advertisers pay up to $2,000per drawing. They figure that the space is ex-pensive. The art cost is small in comparison.So they consider the best worth its cost.

Others argue that few people have arteducation. They bring out their ideas, andbring them out well, at a fraction of the cost.Mail order advertisers are generally in thisclass.

The question is one of small moment.Certainly good art pays as well as mediocre.And the cost of preparing ads is very smallcompared with the cost of insertion.

Should every ad have a new picture? Ormay a picture be repeated? Both viewpointshave many supporters. The probability is thatrepetition is an economy. We are after newcustomers always. It is not probable that theyremember a picture we have used before. Ifthey do, repetition does not detract.

Do colour pictures pay better than blackand white? Not generally, according to theevidence we have gathered to date. Yet thereare exceptions. Certain food dishes look farbetter in colours. Tests on lines like oranges,and desserts etc. show that colour pays. Col-our comes close to placing the products onactual exhibition.

But colour used to amuse or to gain atten-tion is like anything else that we use for thatpurpose. It may attract many times as manypeople, yet not secure a hearing from asmany whom we want.

The general rule applies. Do nothing tomerely interest, amuse, or attract. That is notyour province. Do only that which wins thepeople you are after in the cheapest possibleway.

But these are minor questions. They aremere economies, not largely affecting the re-sults of a campaign.

Some things you do may cut all your re-sults in two. Other things can be done whichmultiply those results. Minor costs are insig-nificant when compared with basic princi-ples. One man may do business in a shed,another in a palace. That is immaterial. Thegreat question is one's power to get themaximum results.

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Chapter 10Things too costly

Many things are possible in advertisingwhich are too costly to attempt. That is an-other reason why every project and methodshould be weighed and determined by aknown scale of cost and result.

Changing people's habits is very expen-sive. A project, which involves that, must beseriously considered. To sell shaving soap tothe peasants of Russia one would first need tochange their beard wearing habits. The costwould be excessive, Yet countless advertiserstry to do things almost as impossible. Justbecause questions are not ably considered,and results are traced but unknown.

For instance, the advertiser of a dentifricemay spend much space and money to educatepeople to brush their teeth. Test, which weknow of, have indicated that the cost of suchconverts may run from $20 to $25 each. Notonly because of the difficulty, but becausemuch of the advertising goes to people al-ready converted.

Such a cost, of course, is unthinkable. Onemight not in a lifetime get it back in sales.The maker who learned these facts by testsmake no attempt to educate people to thetooth brush habit. What cannot be done on alarge scale profitably can not be done on asmall scale. So not one line in any ad is de-voted to this object. This maker, who is con-stantly guided in everything by keying everyad, has made remarkable success.

Another dentifrice maker spends muchmoney to make converts to the toothbrush.The object is commendable, but altruistic.The new business he creates is shared by hisrivals. He is wondering why his sales in-crease is in no way commensurate with hisexpenditure.

An advertiser at one time spent muchmoney to educate people to the use of oat-meal. The results were too small to discover.All people know of oatmeal. As a food for

children it has age-old fame. Doctors haveadvised it for many generations. People whodon't serve oatmeal are therefore difficult tostart. Perhaps their objections are insur-mountable. Anyway, the cost proved to bebeyond all possible return.

There are many advertisers who knowfacts like these and concede them. Theywould not think of devoting a whole cam-paign to any such impossible object. Yet theydevote a share of their space to that object.That is only the same folly on a smaller scale.It is not good business.

No one orange grower or raisin growercould attempt to increase the consumption ofthose fruits. The cost might be a thousandtimes his share of the returns. But thousandsof growers combined have done it on thoseand many other lines. There lies one of thegreat possibilities of advertising develop-ment. The general consumption of scores offoods can be profitably increased. But it mustbe done on wide co-operation.

No advertiser could afford to educate peo-ple on vitamins or germicides. Such thingsare done by authorities, through countlesscolumns of unpaid-for space. But great suc-cesses have been made by going to peoplealready educated and satisfying their createdwants.

It is a very shrewd thing to watch the de-velopment of a popular trend, the creation ofnew desires. Then at the right time offer tosatisfy those desires. That was done onyeast’s, for instance, and on numerous anti-septics. It can every year be done on newthings which some popular fashion or wide-spread influence is bring into vogue. But it isa very different thing to create that fashion,taste or influence for all in your field toshare.

There are something's we know of whichmight possibly be sold to half the homes inthe country. A Dakin-fluid germicide, for in-stance. But the consumption would be verysmall. A small bottle might last for years.

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Customers might cost $1.50 each. And therevenue per customer might not in ten yearsrepay the cost of getting. Mail order sales onsingle articles, however popular, rarely costless than $2.50 each. It is reasonable to sup-pose that sales made through dealers on likearticles will cost approximately as much.Those facts must be considered on any one-sale article. Possibly one user will win others.But traced returns as in mail order advertisingwould prohibit much advertising, which isnow being done.

Costly mistakes are made by blindly fol-lowing some ill-conceived idea. An article,for instance, may have many uses, one ofwhich is to prevent disease. Prevention is nota popular subject, however much it shouldbe. People will do much to cure trouble, butpeople in general will do little to prevent it.This has been proved by many disappoint-ments.

One may spend much money in arguingprevention when the same money spent onanother claim would bring many times thesales. A heading, which asserts one claim,may bring ten times the results of a heading,which asserted another. An advertiser may gofar astray unless he finds out.

A toothpaste may tend to prevent decay. Itmay also beautify teeth. Tests will probablyshow that the latter appeal is many times asstrong as the former. The most successfultoothpaste advertiser never features toothtroubles in his headlines. Tests have provedthem unappealing. Other advertisers in thisline center on those troubles. That is oftenbecause results are not known and compared.

A soap may tend to cure eczema. It may atthe same time improve complexion. The ec-zema claim may appeal to one in a hundredwhile the beauty claims would appeal tonearly all. To even mention the eczemaclaims might destroy the beauty claims.

A man has a relief for asthma. It has doneso much for him he considers it a great ad-vertising possibility. We have no statistics on

this subject. We do not the percentage ofpeople who suffer from asthma. A canvassmight show it to be one in a hundred. If so,he would need to cover a hundred uselessreaders to reach one he wants. His cost ofresult might be twenty times as high as onanother article, which appeals to one in five.That excessive cost would probably meandisaster. For reasons like these every newadvertiser should seek for wise advice. Noone with the interests of advertising at heartwill advise any dubious venture.

Some claims not popular enough to fea-ture in the main are still popular enough toconsider. They influence a certain number ofpeople - say one-fourth of your possible cus-tomers. Such claims may be featured to ad-vantage in a certain percentage of headlines.It should probably be included in every ad-vertisement. But those are not things to guessat. They should be decided by actual knowl-edge, usually by traced returns.

This chapter, like every chapter, points outa very important reason for knowing yourresults. Scientific advertising is impossiblewithout that. So is safe advertising. So ismaximum profit.

Groping in the dark in this field hasprobably cost enough money to pay the na-tional debt. That is what has filled the adver-tising graveyards. That is what has discour-aged thousands who could profit in this field.And the dawn of knowledge is what isbringing a new day in the advertising busi-ness

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Chapter 11Information

An ad-writer, to have a chance at success,must gain full information on his subject.The library of an ad agency should havebooks on every line that calls for research. Apainstaking advertising man will often readfor weeks on some problem, which comes up.

Perhaps in many volumes he will find fewfacts to use. But some one fact may be thekeynote of success.

This writer has just completed an enor-mous amount of reading, medical and other-wise, on coffee. This to advertise a coffeewithout caffeine. One scientific article out ofa thousand perused gave the keynote for thatcampaign. It was the fact that caffeinestimulation comes two hours after drinking.So the immediate bracing effects which peo-ple seek from coffee do not come from thecaffeine. Removing caffeine does not removethe kick. It does not modify coffee's delights,for caffeine is tasteless and odourless.

Caffeine-less coffee has been advertisedfor years. People regarded it like near beer.Only through weeks of reading did we find away to put it in another light.

To advertise toothpaste this writer has alsoread many volumes of scientific matter dry asdust. But in the middle of one volume hefound the idea which has helped make mil-lions for that tooth paste maker. And hasmade this campaign one of the sensations ofadvertising.

Genius is the art of taking pains. The ad-vertising man who spares the midnight oilwill never get very far.

Before advertising a food product, 130men were employed for weeks to interviewall classes of consumers.

On another line, letters we sent to 12,000physicians. Questionnaires are often mailedto tens of thousands of men and women toget the viewpoint of consumers.

A $25,000-a-year man, before advertisingoutfits for acetylene gas, spent weeks in go-ing from farm to farm. Another man did thaton a tractor.

Before advertising a shaving cream, onethousand men were asked to state what theymost desired in a shaving soap.

Called on to advertise pork and beans, acanvass was made of some thousand ofhomes. Theretofore all pork and bean adver-tising has been based on "Buy my brand."That canvass showed that only 4 per cent ofthe people used any canned pork and beans.Ninety-six per cent baked their beans athome. The problem was not to sell a particu-lar brand. Any such attempt appealed to onlyfour per cent. The right appeal was to win thepeople away from home-baked beans. Theadvertising, which without knowledge musthave failed, proved a great success.

A canvas is made, not only of homes, butalso of dealers. Competition is measured up.

Every advertiser of a similar product iswritten for his literature and claims. Thus westart with exact information on all that arerivals are doing.

Clipping bureaus are patronised, so thateverything printed on our subject comes tothe man who writes ads.

Every comment that comes from consum-ers or dealers goes to this man's desk.

It is often necessary in a line to learn thetotal expenditure. We must learn what a userspends a year, else we shall not know if usersare worth the cost of getting.

We must learn the total consumption, elsewe may overspend.

We must learn the percentage of readersto whom our product appeals. We must oftengather this data on classes. The percentagemay differ on farms and in cities. The cost ofadvertising largely depends on the percentageof waste circulation.

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Thus a very large volume of data usuallyprecedes an advertising campaign. Even anexperimental campaign, for effective experi-ments cost a great deal of work and time.

Often chemists are employed to prove ordisprove doubtful claims. An advertiser, inall good faith, makes an impressive assertion.If it is true, it will form a big factor in adver-tising. If untrue, it may prove a boomerang.And it may bar our ads from good mediums.It is remarkable how often a maker proveswrong on assertions he has made for years.

Impressive claims are made far more im-pressive by making them exact. So many ex-periments are made to get the actual figures.For instance, a certain drink is known to havea large food value. That simple assertion isnot very convincing. So we send the drink tothe laboratory and find that its food value is425 calories per pint. One pint is equal to sixeggs in calories of nutriment. That claimmakes a great impression.

In every line involving scientific details acensor is appointed. The ad-writer, howeverwell informed, may draw wrong inferencesfrom facts. So an authority passes on everyadvertisement.

The uninformed would be staggered toknow the amount of work involved in a sin-gle ad. Weeks of work sometimes. The adseems so simple, and it must be simple to ap-peal to simple people. But back of that admay lie reams of data, volumes of informa-tion, months of research.

So this is no lazy man's field.

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Chapter 12Strategy

Advertising is much like war, minus thevenom. Or much, if you prefer, like a gameof chess. We are usually out to capture others'citadels or garner others' trade.

We must have skill and knowledge. Wemust have training and experience, also rightequipment. We must have proper ammuni-tion, and enough. We dare not underestimateopponents. Our intelligence department is avital factor, as told in the previous chapter.We need alliances with dealers, as anotherchapter tells. We also need strategy of theablest sort, to multiply the value of ourforces.

Sometimes in new campaigns comes thequestion of a name. That may be most im-portant. Often the right name is an adver-tisement in itself. It may tell a fairly completestory, like Shredded Wheat, Cream of Wheat,Puffed Rice, Spearmint Gum, PalmoliveSoap, etc.

That may be a great advantage. The nameis usually conspicuously displayed. Many aname has proved to be the greatest factor inan article's success. Other names prove a dis-tinct disadvantage - Toasted Corn Flakes, forinstance. Too many others may share a de-mand with the man who builds it up.

Many coined names without meaninghave succeeded. Kodak, Karo etc., are exam-ples. They are exclusive. The advertiser whogives them meaning never needs to share hisadvantage. But a significant name, whichhelps to impress a dominant claim, is cer-tainly a good advantage. Names that tell sto-ries have been worth millions of dollars. So agreat deal of research often precedes the se-lection of a name.

Sometimes a price must be decided. Ahigh price creates resistance. It tends to limitone's field. The cost of getting an addedprofit may be more than the profit.

It is a well-known fact that the greatestprofits are made on great volume at smallprofit. Campbell's Soups, Palmolive Soap,Karo Syrup and Ford cars are conspicuousexamples. A price, which appeals only to -say 10 percent - multiplies the cost of selling.

But on other lines high price is unimpor-tant. High profit is essential. The line mayhave small sale per customer. One hardlycares what he pays for a corn remedy becausehe uses little. The maker must have a largemargin because of small consumption.

On other lines a higher price may even bean inducement. Such lines are judged largelyby price. A product which costs more thanthe ordinary is considered above the ordinary.So the price question is always a very bigfactor in strategy.

Competition must be considered. What arethe forces against you? What have they inprice or quality or claims to weigh againstyour appeal? What have you to win tradeagainst them? What have you to hold tradeagainst them when you get it?

How strongly are your rivals entrenched?There are some fields, which are almost im-pregnable. They are usually lines, which cre-ate a new habit, or custom and which typifythat custom with consumers. They so domi-nate a field that one can hardly hope to in-vade it. They have volume, the profit to makea tremendous fight.

Such fields are being constantly invaded.But it is done through some convincing ad-vantage, or through very superior salesman-ship-in-print.

Other lines are only less difficult. A newshaving soap, as an example. About everypossible customer is using a rival soap. Mostof them are satisfied with it. Many are wed-ded to it. The appeal must be strong enoughto win those people from long-establishedfavour.

Such things are not accomplished by hap-hazard efforts. Not by considering people in

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the mass and making blind stabs for their fa-vours. We must consider individuals, typicalpeople who are using rival brands. A man ona Pullman, for instance, using his favouritesoap. What could you say to him in person toget him to change to yours? We cannot goafter thousands of men until we learn how towin one.

The maker may say that he has no distinc-tions. He is making a good product, but muchlike others. He deserves a good share of thetrade, but he has nothing exclusive to offer.However, there is nearly always somethingimpressive which others have not told. Wemust discover it. We must have a seemingadvantage. People don't quit habits withoutreason.

There is the problem of substitution andhow to head it off. That often steals much ofone's trade. This must be considered in one'soriginal plan. One must have foresight to seeall eventualities, and the wisdom to establishhis defenses in advance.

Many pioneers in the line establish largedemands. Then, through some fault in theirfoundations, lose a large share of the harvest.Theirs is a mere brand, for instance, where itmight have stood for an exclusive product.

Vaseline is an example. That product es-tablished a new demand, then almost mo-nopolized that demand through wisdom at thestart. To have called it some different brandof petroleum jelly might have made a differ-ence of millions in results.

Jell-O, Postum, Victrola, Kodak, etc. es-tablished coined names, which came to typifya product. Some such names have been ad-mitted to the dictionary. They have becomecommon names, though coined and exclu-sive.

Royal Baking Powder and Toasted CornFlakes, on the other hand, when they pio-neered their fields, left the way open to per-petual substitution. So did Horlick's MaltedMilk.

The attitude of dealers must be considered.There is a growing inclination to limit lines,to avoid duplicate lines, to lesson inventories.If this applies to your line, how will dealersreceive it? If there is opposition, how can wecircumvent it?

The problems of distribution are importantand enormous. To advertise something thatfew dealers supply is a waste of ammunition.Those problems will be considered in anotherchapter.

These are samples of the problems whichadvertising men must solve. These are someof the reasons why vast experience is neces-sary. One oversight may cost the client mil-lions in the end. One wrong piece of strategymay prohibit success. Things done in oneway may be twice as easy, half as costly, aswhen done another way.

Advertising without this preparation islike a waterfall going to waste. The powermight be there, but it is not made effective.We must center the force and direct it in apractical direction.

Advertising often looks very simple.Thousands of men claim ability to do it. Andthere is still is a wide impression that manymen can. As a result, much advertising goesby favour. But the men who know realise thatthe problems are as many and as important asthe problems in building a skyscraper. Andmany of them lie in the foundations.

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Chapter 13Use of samples

The product itself should be its own bestsalesman. Not the product alone, but theproduct plus a mental impression, and atmos-phere, which you place around it. That beingso, samples are of prime importance. How-ever expensive, they usually form the cheap-est selling method. A salesman might as wellgo out without his sample case as an adver-tiser.

Sampling does not apply to little thingsalone, like foods or proprietaries. It can beapplied in some way to almost every thing.We have sampled clothing. We are now sam-pling phonograph records.

Samples serve numerous valuable pur-poses. They enable on to use the word "Free"in ads. That often multiplies readers. Mostpeople want to learn about any offered gift.Test often show that samples pay for them-selves - perhaps several times over - in mul-tiplying the readers of your ads without addi-tional cost of space.

A sample gets action. The reader of yourad may not be convinced to the point ofbuying. But he ready to learn more about theproduct that you offer. So he cuts out a cou-pon, lays it aside, and later mails it or pres-ents it. Without that coupon he would soonforget.

Then you have the name and address of aninterested prospect. You can start him usingyour product. You can give him fuller infor-mation. You can follow him up.

That reader might not again read one ofyour ads in six months. Your impressionwould be lost. But when he writes you, youhave a chance to complete with that prospectall that can be done. In that saving of wastethe sample pays for itself.

Sometimes a small sample is not a fairtest. Then we may send an order on thedealer for a full-size package. Or we may

make the coupon good for a package at thestore. Thus we get a longer test.

You say that is expensive. So is it expen-sive to gain a prospect's interest. It may costyou 50 cents to get the person to the point ofwriting for a sample. Don't stop at 15 centsadditional to make that interest valuable.

Another way in which samples pay is bykeying your advertisements. They register theinterest you create. Thus you can compareone with the another ad, headline, plan andmethod.

That means in any line an enormous sav-ing. The wisest, most experienced man can-not tell what will most appeal in any line ofcopy. Without a key to guide you, your re-turns are very apt to cost you twice what theyneed cost. And we know that some ads on thesame product will cost ten times what otherscost. A sample may pay for itself severaltimes over by giving you an accurate check.

Again samples enable you to refer cus-tomers where they can be supplied. This isimportant before you attain general distribu-tion.

Many advertisers lose much by beingpenny wise. They are afraid of imposition, orthey try to save pennies. That is why they askten cents for a sample, or a stamp or two.Getting that dime may cost them from 40cents to $1. That is, it may add that to thecost of replies. But it is remarkable howmany will pay that addition rather than offera sample free.

Putting a price on a sample greatly retardsreplies. Then it prohibits you from using theword "Free," and as we have stated, that word"free" will generally more than pay for yoursamples.

For the same reason some advertisers say,"You buy one package, we will buy theother." Or they make a coupon good for partof the purchase price. Any keyed returns willclearly prove that such offers do not pay. Be-fore a prospect is converted, it is approxi-

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mately as hard to get half price for your arti-cle as to get the full price for it.

Bear in mind that you are the seller. Youare the one courting interest. Then don't makeit difficult to exhibit that interest. Don't askyour prospects to pay for your selling efforts.Three in four will refuse to pay - perhapsnine in ten.

Cost of requests for samples differ inevery line. It depends on your breadth of ap-peal. Some things appeal to everybody, someto a small percentage. One issue of the papersin Greater New York brought 1,460,000 re-quest for a can of evaporated milk. On achocolate drink, one-fifth the coupons pub-lished are presented. Another line not widelyused may bring a fraction of that number.

But the cost of inquiries is usually enoughto be important. Then don't neglect them.Don't stint your efforts with those you havehalf sold. An inquiry means that a prospecthas read your story and is interested. He orshe would like to try your product and learnmore about it. Do what you would do if thatprospect stood before you.

Cost of inquiries depends largely on howthey come. Asking people to mail the couponbrings minimum returns. Often four times asmany will present that coupon for a sample atthe store.

On a line before the writer now, sampleinquiries obtained by mail average 70 centseach. The same ads bring inquiries at from 18cents to 22 cents each when the coupons arepresented at a local store.

Most people write few letters. Writing isan effort. Perhaps they have no stamps in thehouse. Most people will pay carfare to get asample rather than two cents postage. There-fore, it is always best, where possible; tohave samples delivered locally.

On one line three methods were offered.The woman could write for a sample, or tele-phone, or call at a store. Seventy per cent ofthe inquiries came by telephone. The use of

the telephone is more common and conven-ient than the use of stamps.

Sometimes it is not possible to supply alldealers with samples. Then we refer peopleto some central stores. These stores are gladto have many people come there. And otherdealers do not generally object so long asthey share in the sales.

It is important to have these dealers sendyou the coupons promptly. Then you canfollow up the inquiries while their interest isfresh.

It is said that sample users repeat. They doto some extent. But repeaters form a smallpercentage. Figure it in your cost.

Say to the woman, "Only one sample to ahome" and few women will try to get more ofthem. And the few who cheat you are notgenerally the people who would buy. So youare not losing purchasers, but the samplesonly.

On numerous lines we have for long of-fered full-sized packages free. The packageswere priced at from 10 cents to 50 cents each.In certain territories for a time we havechecked up on repeaters. And we found theloss much less than the cost of checking.

In some lines samples would be wasted onchildren, and they are most apt to get them.Then say in your coupon "adults only."Children will not present such coupons, andthey will rarely mail them in.

But one must be careful about publishingcoupons good for a full-size package at anystore. Some people, and even dealers, maybuy up many papers. We do not announce thedate of such offers. And we insert them inSunday papers, not so easily bought up.

But we do not advocate samples given outpromiscuously. Samples distributed tohomes, like waifs on the doorsteps, probablynever pay. Many of them never reach thehouse the housewife. When they do, there isno prediction for them. The product is cheap-ened. It is not introduced in a favorable way.

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So with demonstrations in stores, there isalways a way to get the same results at afraction of the cost.

Many advertisers do not understand this.They supply thousands of samples to dealersto be handed out, as they will. Could a tracebe placed on the cost of returns, the adver-tiser would be stunned.

Give samples to interested people only.Give them only to people who exhibit thatinterest by some effort. Give them only topeople whom you have told your story. Firstcreate an atmosphere of respect, a desire, anexpectation. When people are in that mood,your sample will usually confirm the quali-ties you claim.

Here again comes the advantage of figur-ing cost per customer. That is the only way togauge advertising. Samples sometimes seemto double advertising cost. They often costmore than the advertising. Yet, rightly used,they almost invariably form the cheapest wayto get customers. And that is what you want.

The arguments against samples are usu-ally biased. They may come from advertisingagents who like to see all the advertisingmoney spent in print. Answer such argumentsby tests. Try some towns with them, somewithout. Where samples are effectively em-ployed, we rarely find a line where they donot lesson the cost per customer.

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Chapter 14Getting distribution

Most advertisers are confronted with theproblem of getting distribution. National ad-vertising is unthinkable without that. A ven-ture cannot be profitable if nine in ten of theconverts fail to find the goods. To force dealers to stock by bringing re-peated demands may be enormously expen-sive. To cover the country with a sellingforce is usually impossible. To get dealers tostock an unknown line on promise of adver-tising is not easy. They have seen to manyefforts fail, too many promises rescinded.

We cannot discuss all plans for gettingdistribution. There are scores of ways em-ployed, according to the enterprise. Somestart by soliciting direct sales - mail orders -until the volume of demand forces dealers tosupply.

Some get into touch with prospects by asample or other offer, then refer them to cer-tain dealers who are stocked.

Some well-known can get a large percent-age of dealers to stock in advance underguarantee of sale. Some consign goods tojobbers so dealers can easily order. Somename certain dealers in their ads until dealersin general stock.

The problems in this line are numberless.The successful methods are many. But mostof them apply to lines too few to be worthyof discussion in a book like this.

We shall deal here with articles of wideappeal and repeated sales, like foods or pro-prietary articles.

We usually start with local advertising,even though magazine advertising is bestadapted to the article. We get our distributiontown by town, then change to national adver-tising.

Sometimes we name the dealers who arestocked. As others stock, we add their names.When a local campaign is proposed, naming

certain dealers, the average dealer wants tobe included. It is often possible to get most ofthem by offering to name them in the firstfew ads.

Whether you advertise few or many deal-ers, the others will stock in very short order ifthe advertising is successful. Then the tradeis referred to all dealers.

The sample plans dealt with in the previ-ous chapter aid quick distribution. They oftenpay for themselves in this way alone.

If the samples are distributed locally, thecoupon names the store. The prospects whogo there to get the samples know that thosestores are supplied, if a nearer dealer is not.Thus little trade is lost.

When sample inquiries come to the ad-vertiser, inquiries are referred to certain deal-ers at the start. Enough demand is centeredthere to force those dealers to supply it.

Sometimes most stores are supplied withsamples, but on the requirement of a certainpurchase. You supply a dozen samples witha dozen packages, for instance. Then inquir-ies for samples are referred to all stores. Thisquickly forces general distribution. Dealersdon't like to have their customers go to com-petitors even for a sample.

Where a coupon is used, good at any storefor a full-size package, the problem of distri-bution becomes simple. Mail to dealer’sproofs of the ad, which will contain a cou-pon. Point out to each that many of his cus-tomers are bound to present that coupon.Each coupon presents a cash sale at fullprofit. No average dealer will let those cou-pon customers go elsewhere.

Such a free-package offer often pays foritself in this way. It forms the cheapest wayof getting general distribution.

Some of the most successful advertisershave done this in a national way. They haveinserted coupon ads in magazines, each cou-pon good at any store for a full-size package.A proof of the ad is sent to dealers in ad-

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vance, with a list of the magazines to be used,and their circulation.

In this way, in one week sometimes, mak-ers attain a reasonable national distribution.And the coupon ad, when it appears, com-pletes it. Here again the free packages costless than other ways of forcing distribution.And they start thousands of users besides.Palmolive Soap and Puffed Grains are amongthe products, which attain their distribution inthat way.

Half the circulation of a newspaper maygo to outside towns. That half may be wastedif you offer a sample at local stores. Say inyour coupon that outside people should writeyou for a sample. When they write, do notmail the sample. Send the samples to a localstore, and refer inquiries to that store. Mail-ing a sample may make a convert who cannotbe supplied. But the store, which supplies thesample, will usually supply demand.

In these ways, many advertisers get na-tional distribution without employing a singlesalesman. They get it immediately. And theyget it at far lower cost than by any othermethod. There are advertisers who, in start-ing, send every dealer a few packages as agift. That is better, perhaps, than losing cus-tomers created. But it is very expensive.Those free packages must be sold by adver-tising. Figure their cost at your selling price,and you will see that you are paying a highcost per dealer. A salesman might sell thesesmall stocks at a lower cost. And other meth-ods might be vastly cheaper.

Sending stocks on consignment to retail-ers is not widely favoured. Many dealers re-sent it. Collections are difficult. And un-businesslike methods do not win dealer re-spect.

The plans advocated here are the bestplans yet discovered for the lines to whichthey apply. Other lines require differentmethods. The ramifications are too many todiscuss in a book like this.

But don't start advertising without distri-bution. Don't get distribution by methods tooexpensive. Or by slow old-fashioned meth-ods. The loss of time may cost you enor-mously in sales. And it may enable energeticrivals to get ahead of you.

Go to men who know by countless experi-ences the best plan to apply to your line.

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Chapter 15Test campaigns

Almost any questions can be answered,cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test cam-paign. That is the way to answer them, not byarguments around a table. Go to the court oflast resort. The buyers of your product.

On every new project there comes up thequestion of selling that article profitably. Youand your friends may like it, but the majoritymay not. Some rival product may be betterliked or cheaper. It may be strongly en-trenched. The users won away from it maycost too much to get.

People may buy and not repeat. The arti-cle may last too long. It may appeal to asmall percentage, so most of your advertisinggoes to waste.

There are many surprises in advertising. Aproject you will laugh at may make a greatsuccess. A project you are sure of may falldown. All because tastes differ so. None ofus know enough people's desires to get anaverage viewpoint.

In the old days, advertisers ventured ontheir own opinions. The few guessed right,the many wrong. Those were the times of ad-vertising disaster. Even those who succeededcame close to the verge before the time isturned. They did not know their cost percustomer or their sale per customer. The costof selling might take a long to come back.Often it never came back.

Now we let the thousands decide what themillions will do. We make a small venture,and watch cost and result. When we learnwhat a thousand customers cost, we knowalmost exactly what a million will cost.When we learn what they buy, we know whata million will buy.

We establish averages on a small scale,and those averages always hold. We knowour cost, we know our sale, and we know ourprofit and loss. We know how soon our cost

comes back. Before we spread out, we proveour undertaking absolutely safe. So there aretoday no advertising disasters piloted by menwho know.

Perhaps we try out our project in four orfive towns. We may use a sample offer or afree package to get users started quickly.Then we wait and see if users buy those sam-ples. If they do, will they continue? Howmuch will they buy? How long does it takefor the profit to return our cost of selling?

A test like this may cost $3,000 to $5,000.It is not all lost, even when the productproves unpopular. Some sales are made.Nearly every test will in time bring back theentire cost.

Sometimes we find that the cost of the ad-vertising comes back before the bills are due.That means that the product can be advertisedwithout investment. Many a great advertiserhas been built up without any cost whateverbeyond immediate receipts. That is an idealsituation.

On another product it may take threemonths to bring back the cost with a profit.But one is sure of his profit in that time.When he spreads out he must finance ac-cordingly.

Think what this means. A man has whathe considers an advertising possibility. Butnational advertising looks so big and expen-sive that he dare not undertake it.

Now he presents it in a few averagetowns, at a very moderate cost. With almostno risk whatever. From the few thousands helearns what the millions will do. Then he actsaccordingly. If he then branches he knows toa certainty just what his results will be.

He is playing on the safe side of a hundredto one shot. If the article is successful, it maymake him millions. If he is mistaken about it,the loss is a trifle.

These are facts we desire to emphasiseand spread. All our largest accounts are nowbuilt in this way, from very small beginnings.

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When businessmen realise that this can bedone, hundreds of others will do it. Forcountless fortune-earners now lie dormant.

The largest advertiser in the world makesa business of starting such projects. One byone he finds out winners. Now he has twenty-six, and together they earn many millionsyearly.

These test campaigns have other purposes.They answer countless questions, which arisein business.

A large food advertiser felt that his prod-uct would be more popular in another form.He and all his advisers were certain about it.They were willing to act on this suppositionwithout consulting the consumers, but wiseradvice prevailed.

He inserted an ad in a few towns with acoupon, good at any store for a package ofthe new-style product. Then he wrote to theusers about it. They were almost unanimousin their disapproval.

Later the same product was suggested instill another form. The previous verdict madethe change look dubious. The advertiserhardly thought a test to be worth while. Buthe submitted the question to a few thousandwomen in a similar way and 91 per centvoted for it. Now he has a unique product,which promises to largely increase his sales.

These tests cost about $1,000 each. Thefirst one saved him a very costly mistake.The second will probably bring him largeprofits.

Then we try test campaigns to try out newmethods on advertising already successful.Thus we constantly seek for better methods,without interrupting plans already provedout.

In five years for one food advertiser wetried out over fifty separate plans. Every littlewhile we found an improvement, so the re-sults of our advertising constantly grew. Atthe end of five years we found the best plan

of all. It reduced our cost of selling by 75 percent. That is, it was four times more effectivethan the best plan used before.

That is what mail order advertisers do - tryout plan after plan to constantly reduce thecost. Why should any general advertiser beless business-like and careful?

Another service of the test campaign isthis:

An advertiser is doing mediocre advertis-ing. A skilled advertising agent feels that hecan greatly increase results. The advertiser isdoubtful. He is doing fairly well. He has alli-ances, which he hesitates to break. So he isinclined to let well enough alone.

Now the question can be submitted to theverdict of a test. The new agent may take afew towns, without interfering with the gen-eral campaign. Then compare his results withthe general results and prove his greater skill.

Plausible arguments are easy in this line.One man after another comes to an advertiserto claim superior knowledge or ability. It ishard to decide, and decisions may be wrong.

Now actual figures gained at a small costcan settle the question definitely. The adver-tiser makes no commitment. It is like sayingto a salesman, "Go out for a week andprove." A large percentage of all the adver-tising done would change hands if thismethod were applied.

Again we come back to scientific adver-tising. Suppose a chemist would say in anarbitrary way that this compound was best, orthat better. You would little respect hisopinion. He makes tests - sometimes hun-dreds of tests - to actually know which isbest. He will never state a supposition beforehe has proved it. How long before advertisersin general will apply that exactness to adver-tising?

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Chapter 16Leaning on dealers

We cannot depend much in most lines on theactive help of jobbers or of dealers. They arebusy. They have many lines to consider. Theprofit on advertised lines is not generallylarge. And an advertised article is apt to besold at cut prices.

The average dealer does what you woulddo. He exerts himself on brands of his own, ifat all. Not on another man's brand.

The dealer will often try to make youthink otherwise. He will ask some aid or con-cession on the ground of extra effort. Adver-tisers often give extra discounts. Or theymake loading offers - perhaps one case freein ten - in the belief that loaded dealers willmake extra efforts.

This may be so on rare lines, but not gen-erally. And the efforts if made do not usuallyincrease the total sales. They merely swingtrade from one store to another.

On most lines, making a sale withoutmaking a convert does not count for much.Sales made by conviction - by advertising -are likely to bring permanent customers.People who buy through casual recommen-dations do not often stick. Next time some-one else gives other advice.

Revenue, which belongs to the advertiser,is often given away without adequate return.These discounts and gifts could be far betterspent in securing new customers.

Free goods must be sold, and by your ownefforts usually. One extra case with tenmeans that advertising must sell ten per centmore to bring you the same return. The dealerwould probably buy just as much if you lethim buy as convenient.

Much money is often frittered away onother forms of dealer help. Perhaps on win-dow or store displays. A window display,acting as a reminder, may bring to one dealer

a lion's share of the trade. Yet it may not in-crease your total sales at all.

Those are facts to find out. Try one townin one way, one in another. Compare totalsales in those towns. In many lines such testswill show that costly displays are worthless.A growing number of experienced advertisersspend no money on displays.

This is all in line of general publicity, sopopular long ago. Casting bread upon thewaters and hoping for its return. Most adver-tising was of that sort twenty years ago.

Now we put things to the test. We com-pare cost and result on every form of expen-diture. It is very easily done. Very manycostly wastes are eliminated by this modernprocess.

Scientific advertising has altered many oldplans and conceptions. It has proved manylong-established methods to be folly. Andwhy should we not apply to these things thesame criterion we apply to other forms ofselling? Or to manufacturing costs?

Your object in all advertising is to buynew customers at a price, which pays a profit.You have no interest in garnering trade at anyparticular store. Learn what your consumerscost and what they buy. If they cost you onedollar each, figure that every wasted dollarcosts you a possible customer.

Your business will be built in that way,not by dealer help. You must do your ownselling, make your own success. Be content ifdealers fill the orders that you bring. Elimi-nate your wastes. Spend all your ammunitionwhere it counts for most.

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Chapter 17Individuality

A person who desires to make an impressionmust stand out in some way. Being eccentric,being abnormal is not a distinction to covet.But doing admirable things in a different waygives one a great advantage.

So with salesman, in person or in print.There is uniqueness, which belittles andarouses resentment. There is refreshinguniqueness, which enhances, which we wel-come and remember. Fortunate is the sales-man who has it.

We try to give each advertiser a becomingstyle. We make him distinctive, perhaps notin appearance, but in manner and in tone. Heis given an individuality best suited to thepeople he addresses.

One man appears rugged and honest in aline where rugged honesty counts. One maybe a good fellow where choice is a matter offavour. In other lines the man stands out byimpressing himself as an authority.

We have already cited a case where awoman made a great success in sellingclothing to girls, solely through a created per-sonality, which won.

That's why we have signed ads sometimes- to give them a personal authority. A man istalking - a man who takes pride in his ac-complishments - not a "soulless corporation."Whenever possible we introduce a personal-ity into our ads. By making a man famous wemake his product famous. When we claim animprovement, naming the man who made itadds effect.

Then we take care not to change an indi-viduality which has proved appealing. Beforea man writes a new ad on that line, he getsinto the spirit adopted by the advertiser. Heplays a part as an actor plays it.

In successful advertising great pains aretaken to never change our tone. That whichwon so many is probably the best way to win

others. Then people come to know us. Webuild on that acquaintance rather than intro-duce a stranger. People do not know us byname alone, but by looks and mannerisms.Appearing different every time we meetnever builds up confidence.

Then we don't want people to think thatsalesmanship is made to order. That our ap-peals are created, studied, artificial. Theymust seem to come from the heart, and thesame heart always, save where a wrong tackforces a complete change.

There are winning personalities in ads aswell as people. To some we are glad to listen,others bore us. Some are refreshing, somecommonplace. Some inspire confidence,some caution.

To create the right individuality is a su-preme accomplishment. Then an advertiser'sgrowing reputation on that line brings himever-increasing prestige. Never weary of thatpart. Remember that a change in our charac-teristics would compel our best friends to getacquainted all over.

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Chapter 18Negative advertising

To attack a rival is never good advertising.Don't point out others' faults. It is not per-mitted in the best mediums. It is never goodpolicy. The selfish purpose is apparent. Itlooks unfair, not sporty. If you abhor knock-ers, always appear a good fellow.

Show a bright side, the happy and attrac-tive side, and not the dark and uninviting sideof things. Show beauty, not homeliness;health, not sickness. Don't show the wrinklesyou propose to remove, but the face as it willappear. Your customers know all about thewrinkles.

In advertising a dentifrice, show prettyteeth, not bad teeth. Talk of coming goodconditions, not conditions that exist. In ad-vertising clothes, picture well-dressed people,not the shabby. Picture successful men, notfailures, when you advertise a businesscourse. Picture what others wish to be notwhat they may be now.

We are attracted by sunshine, beauty,happiness, health, and success. Then pointthe way to them, not the way out of the oppo-site.

Picture envied people, not the envious.

Tell people what to do not what to avoid.

Make your every ad breath good cheer.We always dodge a Lugubrious Blue.

Assume that people will do what you ask.Say, "Send now for this sample. "Don't say,"Why do you neglect this offer?" That sug-gests that people are neglecting. Invite themto follow the crowd.

Compare the results of two ads, one nega-tive, and one positive. One presenting thedark side, one the bright side. One warning,the other inviting. You will be surprised. Youwill find that the positive ad out pulls theother four to one, if you have our experience.

The "Before and after taking" ads are fol-lies of the past. They never had a place savewith the afflicted. Never let their memorylead you to picture the gloomy side of things.

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Chapter 19Letter writing

This is another phase of advertising which allof us have to consider. It enters, or shouldenter, into all campaigns. Every businessmanreceives a large number of circular letters.Most of them go direct to the wastebasket.But he acts on others, and others are filed forreference.

Analyse those letters. The ones you act onor the ones you keep have a headline, whichattracted your interest. At a glance they offersomething that you want, something you maywish to know.

Remember that point in all advertising.

A certain buyer spends $50,000,000 peryear. Every letter, every circular, whichcomes to his desk, gets its deserved attention.He wants information on the lines he buys.

But we have often watched him. In oneminute a score of letters may drop into thewastebasket. Then one is laid aside. That issomething to consider at once. Another isfiled under the heading "Varnish." And laterwhen he buys varnish that letter will turn up.

That buyer won several prizes by articleson good buying. His articles were based oninformation. Yet the great masses of matterwhich came to him never got more than aglance.

The same principles apply to all advertis-ing. Letter writers overlook them just as ad-vertisers do. They fail to get the right atten-tion. They fail to tell what buyers wish toknow.

One magazine sends out millions of lettersannually. Some to get subscriptions, some tosell books. Before the publisher sends outfive million letters he puts a few thousands totest. He may try twenty-five letters, each witha thousand prospects. He learns what resultswill cost. Perhaps the plan is abandoned be-cause it appears unprofitable. If not, the let-ter, which pays best, is the letter that he uses.

Just as men are doing now in all scientificadvertising.

Mail order advertisers do likewise. Theytest their letters as they test their ads. A gen-eral letter is never used until it proves itselfbest among many actual returns.

Letter writing has much to do with adver-tising. Letters to inquirers, follow-up letters.Wherever possible they should be tested.Where that is not possible, they should bebased on knowledge gained by tests.

We find the same difference in letters asin ads. Some get action, some do not. Somecomplete a sale; some forfeit the impressiongained. These are letters, going usually tohalf-made converts, are tremendously im-portant.

Experience generally shows that a two-cent letter gets no more attention than a one-cent letter. Fine stationary no more than poorstationery. The whole appeal lies in the mat-ter.

A letter, which goes to an inquirer, is likea salesman going to an interested prospect.You know what created that interest. Thenfollow it up along that line, not on some dif-ferent argument. Complete the impressionalready created. Don't undertake anotherguess.

Do something if possible to get immediateaction. Offer some inducement for it. Or tellwhat delay may cost. Note how many suc-cessful selling letters place a limit on an of-fer. It expires on a certain date. That is alldone to get prompt decision, to overcome thetendency to delay.

A mail order advertiser offered a cata-logue. The inquirer might send for three orfour similar catalogues. He had that competi-tion in making a sale.

So he wrote a letter when he sent hiscatalogue, and enclosed a personal card. Hesaid, "You are a new customer, and we wantto make you welcome. So when you sendyour order please enclose this card. The

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writer wants to see that you get a gift with theorder - something you can keep."

With an old customer he gave some otherreason for the gift. The offer aroused curios-ity. It gave preference to his catalogue. With-out some compelling reason for orderingelsewhere, the woman sent the order to him.The gift paid for itself several times over bybringing larger sales per catalogue.

The ways for getting action are many.Rarely can one way be applied to two lines.But the principles are universal. Strike whilethe iron is hot. Get a decision then. Have itfollowed by prompt action when you can.

You can afford to pay for prompt actionrather than lose by delay. One advertiser in-duced hundreds of thousands of women tobuy six packages of his product and send himthe trademarks, to secure a premium offergood only for one week.

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Chapter 20A name that helps

There is great advantage in a name that tellsa story. The name is usually prominently dis-played. To justify the space it occupies, itshould aid the advertising. Some such namesare almost complete advertisements in them-selves. May Breath is such a name. Cream ofWheat is another. That name alone has beenworth a fortune. Other examples are DutchCleanser, Cuticura, Dynashine, MinuteTapioca, 3-in-One Oil, Holeproof, Alcorub,Etc.

Such names may be protected, yet thename itself describes the product, so it makesa valuable display.

Other coined names are meaningless.Some examples are Kodak, Karo, Sapolio,Vaseline, Kotex, Lux, Postum, etc. They canbe protected, and long-continued advertisingmay give them a meaning. When this is ac-complished they become very valuable. Butthe great majority of them never attain status.

Such names do not aid the advertising. Itis very doubtful that they justify display. Theservice of the product, not the name, is theimportant thing in advertising. A vast amountof space is wasted in displaying names andpictures, which tell no selling story. The ten-dency of modern advertising is to eliminatewaste.

Other coined names signify ingredients,which anyone may use. Examples are Syrupof Figs, Coconut Oil Shampoo, Tar Soap,Palmolive Soap, etc.

Such products may dominate a market ifthe price is reasonable, but they must to a de-gree meet competition. They invite substitu-tion. They are naturally classified with otherproducts, which have like ingredients, so theprice must remain in that class.

Toasted Corn Flakes and Malted Milk areexamples of unfortunate names. In each ofthose cases one advertiser created a new de-mand. When the demand was created, others

shared it because they could use the name.The originators depended only on a brand. Itis interesting to speculate on how much moreprofitable a coined name might have been.

On a patented product it must be remem-bered that the right to a name expires withthat patent. Names like Castoria, Aspirin,Shredded Wheat Biscuit, etc., have becomecommon property.

This is a very serious point to consider. Itoften makes a patent an undesirable protec-tion.

Another serious fault in coined names isfrivolity. In seeking uniqueness one getssomething trivial. And that is a fatal handicapin a serious product. It almost prohibits re-spect.

When a product must be called by a com-mon name, the best auxiliary name is a man'sname. It is much better than a coined name,for it shows that some man is proud of hiscreation.

Thus the question of a name is of seriousimportance in laying the foundations of anew undertaking. Some names have becomethe chief factors in success. Some have lostfor their originators four-fifths of the tradethey developed.

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Chapter 21Good business

A rapid stream ran by the writer's boyhoodhome. The stream turned a wooden wheeland the wheel ran a mill. Under that primitivemethod, all but a fraction of the stream's po-tentiality went to waste.

Then someone applied scientific methodsto that stream - put in a turbine and dynamos.Now, with no more water, no more power, itruns a large manufacturing plant.

We think of that stream when we seewasted advertising power. And we see it eve-rywhere - hundreds of examples. Enormouspotentialities - millions of circulation - usedto turn a mill wheel. While other use thatsame power with manifold effect.

We see countless ads running year afteryear which we know to be unprofitable. Menspending five dollars to do what one-dollarmight do. Men getting back 30 per cent oftheir cost when they might get 150 per cent.And the facts could be easily proved.

We see wasted space, frivolity, cleverconcepts, and entertainment. Costly pagesfilled with palaver which, if employed bysalesman, would reflect on his sanity. Butthose ads are always UN-keyed. The moneyis spent blindly, merely to satisfy some ad-vertising whim.

Not new advertisers only. Many an oldadvertiser has little or no idea of his adver-tising results. The business is growingthrough many efforts combined, and adver-tising is given its share of the credit.

An advertiser of many years standing,spending as high as $700,000 per year, toldthe writer he did not know whether his ad-vertising was worth anything or not. Some-times he thought that his business would bejust as large without it.

The writer replied, "I do know. Your ad-vertising is utterly unprofitable, and I couldprove it to you next week. End an ad with an

offer to pay five dollars to anyone who writesyou that he read the ad through. The scarcityof replies will amaze you."

Think what a confession - that millions ofdollars are being spent without knowledge ofresults. Such a policy applied to all factors ina business would bring ruin short order.

You see other ads, which you may not likeas well. They may seem crowded or verbose.They are not attractive to you, for you areseeking something to admire something toentertain. But you will note that those ads arekeyed. The probability is that out of scores oftraced ads the type, which you see, has paidthe best.

Many other ads, which are not keyed now,were keyed at the beginning. They are basedon known statistics. They won on a smallscale before they ever ran on large scale.Those advertisers are utilising their enormouspowers in full.

Advertising is prima facie evidence thatthe man who pays believes that advertising isgood. It has brought great results to others; itmust be good for him. So he takes it likesome secret tonic which others have en-dorsed. If the business thrives, the tonic getscredit. Otherwise, the failure is due to fate.

That seems almost unbelievable. Even astorekeeper who inserts a twenty-dollar adknows whether it pays or not. Every line of abig store's ad is charged to the proper de-partment. And every inch used must the nextday justify its cost.

Yet most national advertising is donewithout justification. It is merely presumed topay. A little test might show a way to multi-ply returns.

Such methods, still so prevalent, are notvery far from their end. The advertising menwho practice them see the writing on thewall. The time is fast coming when men whospend money are going to know what theyget. Good business and efficiency will be ap-plied to advertising. Men and methods will

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be measured by the known returns, and onlycompetent men can survive.

Only one hour ago an old advertising mansaid to the writer, "The day for our type isdone. Bunk has lost its power. Sophistry isbeing displaced by actuality. And I tremble atthe trend."

So do hundreds tremble. Enormous ad-vertising is being done along scientific lines.Its success is common knowledge. Advertis-ers along other lines will not much longer becontent.

We who can meet the test welcome thesechanged conditions. Advertisers will multiplywhen they see that advertising can be safeand sure. Small expenditures made on aguess will grow to big ones on a certainty.Our line of business will be finer, cleaner,when the gamble is removed. And we shallbe prouder of it when we are judged on merit.