When most people talk about marketing, what they really are talking about is advertising. Yet, very few people really understand how advertising can be the most important investment that they make in their business. One of the greatest minds in advertising, and arguably the father of modern advertising, was Claude C. Hopkins (1866-1932). In fact, David Ogilvie, the giant of advertising in the 20th century, said that nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising unless they have read Hopkins’ work at least seven times.
One of the great dreams of Mr. Hopkins was that modern advertising would be embraced and that old forms would fade into obscurity. Interestingly, very few have adopted his methods. What you see today are visages of old-school promotion, dressed in modern garb. Yet, if everyone knew the potential profit in scientific advertising, they would see how archaic most ads today are.
Here are a few examples of what Hopkins meant by scientific advertising. If you’ve read my column, these ideas should sound familiar.
One of my favorites is that the only purpose for advertising is to sell. In fact, Hopkins believed that each ad should be considered one of your sales people. If an ad does not create sales, there is no reason to run it. Furthermore, while pictures can help with selling, advertising is not about fine art. Leave that for the museums and galleries. Forget about image advertising or brand awareness – large corporations can do that because they can afford to flush their money away. If your ads are not selling, they are costing you money.
How do you know that your ads are selling? First, you need to measure and test everything. Before you spend a lot of money on an advertising campaign, you need to run several tests to know what works and what doesn’t. When you find the ad that sells run it for as long as it works. A big mistake that advertisers make is that they stop running their ads too soon. You may grow tired of your ads, but your opinion doesn’t matter. What matters is that your ads are selling. Keep them running until they stop working. Then, and only then, replace the old ad with the next one that you have tested as a seller.
By knowing the response to your ads, you will then be able to deduce the cost per new customer. This is extremely valuable information when you need to decide between advertising campaigns.
These ideas just made sense to me when I learned them. Yet, why do people continue to waste money on advertising that doesn’t work? Statistics tell us that eighty percent do. It’s a shame, because your marketing should be an investment, not an expense.
So before you hire your new advertising executive or consultant, you may want to find out if they’ve read Mr. Hopkins’ books.
No comments:
Post a Comment