Offer Service

Remember that the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They
care nothing about your interest or your profit. They seek service for
themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake
in advertising. Ads say in effect, “Buy my brand. Give me the trade you
give to others. Let me have the money.” That is not a popular appeal.

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 Often they do not quote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

The ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information.
They cite advantages to users. Perhaps they offer a sample, or to buy
the first package, or to send something on approval, so the customer may
prove the claims without any cost or risk.

Some of these ads seem altruistic. But they are based on a knowledge of
human nature. The writers know how people are led to buy.

Here again is salesmanship. The good salesman does not merely cry a
name. He doesn’t say, “Buy my article.” He pictures the customer’s side
of his service until the natural result is to buy.

A brush maker has some 2,000 canvassers who sell brushes from house to
house. He is enormously successful in a line which would seem very
difficult. And it would be if his men asked the housewives to buy.

But they don’t. They go to the door and say, “I was sent here to give
you a brush. I have samples here and I want you to take your choice.”

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

Another concern sells coffee, etc., by wagons in some 500 cities. The
man drops in with a half-pound of coffee and says, “Accept this package
and try it. I’ll come back in a few days to ask how you like it.”

Even when he comes back he doesn’t ask for an order. He explains that he
wants to send the woman a fine kitchen utensil. It isn’t free, but if
she likes the coffee he will credit five cents on each pound she buys
until she has paid for the article. Always some service.

The maker of an electric sewing machine motor found advertising
difficult. So, on good advice, he ceased soliciting a purchase. He
offered to send to any home, through any dealer, a motor for one week’s
use. With it would come a man to show how to operate it. “Let us help
you for a week without cost or obligation,” said the ad. Such an offer
was resistless, and about nine in ten of the trials led to sales.

So in many, many lines. Cigar makers send out boxes to anyone and say,
“Smoke ten, then keep them or return them, as you wish.”

Makers of books, typewriters, washing machines, kitchen cabinets, vacuum
sweepers, etc., send out their products without any prepayment. They
say, “Use them a week, then do as you wish.” Practically all merchandise
sold by mail is sent subject to return.

These are all common principles of salesmanship. The most ignorant
peddler applies them. Yet the salesman-in-print very often forgets them.
He talks about his interests. He blazons a name, as though that was of
any importance. His phrase is “Drive people to the stores,” and that is
his attitude in everything he says. People can be coaxed but not driven.
Whatever they do they do to please themselves. Many fewer mistakes would
be made in advertising if these facts were never forgotten.

John Martin

~~~~~~~~~~
This Chapter of Scientific Advertising was brought to you by
The Wealthy Affiliate

 

© Copyright 2009, Laid Off and Laughing