Marketing and Advertising is all about Telling Your Full Story

Whatever claim you use to gain attention, the advertisement should tell
a story reasonably complete. If you watch returns, you will find that
certain claims appeal far more than others. But in usual lines a number
of claims appeal to a large percentage. Then present those claims in
every ad for their effect on that percentage.

Some advertisers, for the sake of brevity, present one claim at a time.
Or they write a serial ad, continued in another issue. There is no
greater folly. Those serials almost never connect.

When you once get a person’s attention, then is the time to accomplish
all you ever hope with him. Bring all your good arguments to bear. Cover
every phase of your subject. One fact appeals to some, one to another.
Omit any one and a certain percentage will lose the fact which might
convince.

People are not apt to read successive advertisements on any single line.
No more than you read a news item twice, or a story. In one reading of
an advertisement one decides for or against a proposition. And that
operates against a second reading. So present to the reader, when once
you get him, every important claim you have.

The best advertisers do that. They learn their appealing claims by
tests–by comparing results from various headlines. Gradually they
accumulate a list of claims important enough to use. All those claims
appear in every ad thereafter.

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

Some advertisers go so far as to never change their ads. Single mail
order ads often run year after year without diminishing returns. So with
some general ads. They are perfected ads, embodying in the best way
known all that one has to say. Advertisers do not expect a second
reading. Their constant returns come from getting new readers.

In every ad consider only new customers. People using your product are
not going to read your ads. They have already read and decided. You
might advertise month after month to present users that the product they
use is poison, and they would never know it. So never waste one line of
your space to say something to present users, unless you can say it in
headlines. Bear in mind always that you address an unconverted prospect.

Any reader of your ad is interested, else he would not be a reader. You
are dealing with someone willing to listen. Then do your level best.
That reader, if you lose him now, may never again be a reader.

You are like a salesman in a busy man’s office. He may have tried again
and again to get entree. He may never be admitted again. This is his one
chance to get action, and he must employ it to the full.

This again brings up the question of brevity. The most common expression
you hear about advertising is that people will not read much. Yet a vast
amount of the best-paying advertising shows that people do read much.
Then they write for a book, perhaps–for added information.

There is no fixed rule on this subject of brevity. One sentence may
tell a complete story on a line like chewing gum. It may on an article
like Cream of Wheat. But, whether long or short, an advertising story
should be reasonably complete.

A certain man desired a personal car. He cared little about the price.
He wanted a car to take pride in, else he felt he would never drive it.
But, being a good business man, he wanted value for his money.

His inclination was toward a Rolls-Royce. He also considered a
Pierce-Arrow, a Locomobile and others. But these famous cars offered no
information. Their advertisements were very short. Evidently the makers
considered it undignified to argue comparative merits.

The Marmon, on the contrary, told a complete story. He read columns and
books about it. So he bought a Marmon, and was never sorry. But he
afterwards learned facts about another car at nearly three times the
price which would have sold him that car had he known them.

What folly it is to cry a name in a line like that, plus a few brief
generalities. A car may be a lifetime investment. It involves an
important expenditure. A man interested enough to buy a car will read a
volume about it if the volume is interesting.

So with everything. You may be simply trying to change a woman from one
breakfast food to another, or one tooth paste, or one soap. She is
wedded to what she is using. Perhaps she has used it for years.

You have a hard proposition. If you do not believe it, go to her in
person and try to make the change. Not to merely buy a first package to
please you, but to adopt your brand. A man who once does that at a
woman’s door won’t argue for brief advertisements. He will never again
say, “A sentence will do,” or a name or a claim or a boast.

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

Never be guided in any way by ads which are untraced. Never do anything
because some uninformed advertiser considers that something right.
Never be led in new paths by the blind. Apply to your advertising
ordinary common sense. Take the opinion of nobody, the verdict of
nobody, who knows nothing about his returns.

John Martin

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