Marketing Secrets for the Ages by Yanik Silver - HTML preview

The Greatest Marketing Secrets of the Ages

By Yanik Silver

If you look back to the great ad men of this century you’ll find some incredible marketing strategies you can dust off and use for your own business. I hope you realize, human nature does not change. Human beings will continue being sold by the same appeals that have been used for centuries.

The same things that made people buy 10,000 years ago will continue to work 10,000 years from now. It just doesn’t change. That’s why I want to take you back to the old master’s teachings and let them “write” this special report for me (hey, I need a break anyway).

Well, let’s start with a guy who shares my birthday (exactly 83 years earlier) and my birthplace (Russia), his name is Maxwell Sackheim. Sackheim wrote a spectacular book on marketing called “My First 60 Years in Advertising”. Very out of print and I finally tracked it down after 3 years. For those of you interested in learning about the marketing strategies of Maxwell Sackheim there’s another book called “Billion Dollar Marketing” published by Jerry Buchanan which is excellent. You can get that through www.amazon.com.

Anyway, Max is best remembered for an ad that ran for 40 straight years. That is absolutely incredible. The famous ad has the headline “Do You Make These Mistakes In English?” It was done for the Sherwin Cody’s course on English. For an ad to run for 4 decades without a change to the copy is an incredible feat. And remember this was run by a savvy mail-order advertiser who counted coupons and tracked results. So you know this ad continued to make money.

One of Sackheim’s most effective techniques was making the advertiser a “character”.

 

He would typically write the ads coming from the client’s mouth (in their language) directly to the reader. A down home personal approach.

Here’s what I mean. One of Sackheim’s most famous clients was Frank E. Davis “The Gloucester Fisherman”. For him Sackheim wrote direct mail pieces and later ads that read like this:

“There’s no use trying. I’ve tried and tried to tell people about my fish, but I wasn’t rigged out to be an ad writer and I can’t do it. I can close-haul a sail with the best of them. I know how to pick out the best fish of the catch. I know just which fish will make the tastiest mouthfuls, but I’ll never learn the knack of writing an ad that will tell people why my kind of fish -- fresh caught, prime-grades right off the fishing boats with the deep-sea tang still in it -- is lots better than the ordinary store kind.

“But I can’t explain it, at least you can taste the difference. So you won’t mind, will you if I ship some of my fish direct to your home. It won’t cost you anything unless you feel like keeping it. All I ask is that you try some of my fish at my expense and judge for yourself whether it isn’t exactly what you have always wanted.”

This kind of copy sold tens of thousands of tubs of mackerel all across the country. And the reason this type of advertising succeeded was due to the character of an authentic Gloucester fisherman personified by Sackheim.

Does this technique still work?

You betcha’. Several years later a copywriter named G. Lynn Summer wrote an ad for a pair of pear growers. The ad with the headline “Imagine Harry and Me Advertising Our Pears in Fortune!”

And here’s how Summer wrote the copy:

“Out here on the ranch we don’t pretend to know much about advertising, and maybe we’re foolish spending the price of a tractor for this space; but my brother and I got an idea the other night, and we believe you folks who read Fortune are the kind of folks who’d like to know about it. So here’s our story:...”

The prospect believes the pear growers actually wrote this message. Notice the simple language, just like a farmer might use. And how about the headline? I don’t think that’s proper English but it sure sounds just like we talk. This ad launched an entire industry of selling fruit by mail. Maybe you’ve heard of a little mail order company called Harry and David’s.

Could this concept work again? Yes, yes and yes. Joseph Sugarman (the man responsible for the incredible success of Blu-Blocker sunglasses) tells about a 1977 seminar attendee, named Frank Schultz, who sold grapefruit by mail. He’d never been able to make space advertising work until he wrote an ad based on the “character” formula.

The headline is “A Fluke of Nature” and his copy opens like this:

“I’m a farmer. And the story I tell you is the absolute truth, as incredible as it may seem. It all started in a grove owned by Dr. Webb, our family doctor. One of the men who was picking fruit in the doctor’s orchard came up to the Webb house holding six of the strangest grapefruit anyone has ever seen...(he goes on to tell the story of how mother nature created this almost magical ruby red grapefruit)...

“ ...And when we pick the fruit, we’re just as fussy. Every one of us takes a ‘picking ring’ when we harvest. If the fruit is small enough to pass through the ring -- we don’t pick it! It simply isn’t big enough to qualify as a Royal Ruby Red! Even after picking there are other careful inspections each fruit mush pass before I’ll accept it. I size the fruit. And I grade it fro beauty. Sometimes the fruit will be wind scarred. I won’t accept it. Or sometimes it will have a bulge on the stem and that we call “sheep nose.” I won’t accept it...”

Using words like “picking ring” and “sheep’s nose” really gives the impression of this grapefruit grower writing in his own language right to you.

 

Okay, so what do fish and fruit have to do with your business? Lots.

 

In fact, you can use the same “character” formula to attract more customers. Could you do something like this?

“I’m not a professional ad writer. I’m a __<your profession>___ but what I have to say is so important that I decided to sit down to write you this message in best way I know. Lately I’ve had a lot of people asking me about __________. Even though I tried and tried to write a good ad telling people all about _______, I just can’t do it. So I finally figured, why not just tell you exactly what I would tell you if we sat down for a cup of coffee…”

This could a very persuasive ad or letter. And I’d bet it would do well. Another concept that goes along with this is using an ‘Open Letter’ technique in the advertisement. This gives you the opportunity to have a heart-to-heart with the reader.

Norman Cousins used this same powerful technique to launch his new magazine “World Review Magazine” after he resigned from the “Saturday Review”. He ran his ad with the headline “An Open Letter to the Readers of The New York Times” and signed it himself. For 3 insertions in the NY Times he paid $15,711 and he brought back a healthy $54,923.00 worth of subscriptions. Not too shabby.

Here’s more...

Max Sackheim is also known for originating the Book-of-the-Month club. But, he points out that he really wasn’t the first to offer a subscription library. Way back in 1731 Benjamin Franklin had started a subscription library in the colonies. After he started his famous “Book-of-the-month” club many hundreds of others were started, some successful, some not. (My favorite is the ‘Kosher Salami-of-the-Month Club’.)

And here’s what Sackheim has to say about using ideas from other places, “Every advertising man is familiar with the phrase ‘my business is different.’ Nearly every time I have tried to convince an advertiser that a plan which has worked successfully in another business might work successful in his, he has at least thought, if he did not say it, that his business is different. But old and used ideas can be adapted to any business.”

The underline is my own. Now, what can you learn from Sackheim’s book-ofthe-month business? A whole lot. One of your hardest jobs is getting people to do something...pick up the phone, call you, buy from you. People are like big lazy sloths. No disrespect intended, but why do you think successful ads must use deadlines, oneday sales, and other limited offers to get people to do something.

You know in my own company – sometime when we put out a mailing we we’ll use a deadline date stamped in red – and we get a lot of sales on the last day. These people wait and wait until the last day finally rolls around and they decide to buy.

Well, Sackheim discovered how use this common human characteristic to his advantage by employing a ‘negative option plan’. Every month members of the book club would be notified of the selection of the month and then it would be sent automatically to them unless they sent back the BRE (business reply envelope) provided. This way if they had to say “no” to buying the book and unless the company received back a “no” reply is was assumed they wanted the book.

This concept is so successful that almost every “of-the-month” club today operates in this fashion.

Let me give a modern example. I recently saw a print ad for “Proactiv solution”. Maybe you’ve seen the infomercial for this product. It’s an acne product designed by two dermatologists and endorsed by Judith Light (“Who’s the Boss” star).

The print ad use a great coupon order form – here is the copy:

“YES! I would love to have clear, smooth, blemish-free skin! Please send me Proactiv Solution, the advanced Dermatologists’ system that heals and prevents acne, with a risk-free 60 day guarantee!”

“When you order now, you’ll receive free membership in the Proactiv Solution Clear Skin Club. You’ll automatically receive a new kit every two months, and you’ll lock-in the low wholesale price of only $39.95 as long as you are a member. That’s a savings of nearly 50% over individual product prices in the kit. There are no minimum number of kits to buy, and you can cancel your membership at any time.”

So, now as a member I get a zit kit sent to me and the company keeps charging my credit card every two months. Pretty good deal for the company...let’s do a quick calculation: 5,000 members (very, very conservative) at $39.95 every 2 months = $ 199,750.00. And I’m sure a majority of that is profit. I can’t imagine this goop costing them too much.

I hope that gives you an idea. And if you start whining about how “it won’t work for me” or “my business is different” then you’re just thinking creatively enough. Nearly any business can put their customers on some continuity program.

It’s worthwhile to study how Sackheim built the book-of-the month and other continuity, TFN, automatic shipment plans, or till forbid plans. Initially he would give people one book free if they agreed to buy 3 more or 4 more over the course of the year.

Then they tried using “Any Two Books Free Provided You Purchase Your First Subscription volume for $2.00.” However, he discovered his best results (about a 40% increase) came from this simple change. “Any 3 of these Fine Books for Only $2.00.” It means the same thing, people in both offers were getting 3 books for $2.00 but somehow the way this was worded had greater appeal. This goes to show you the importance of testing.

So taking this proven information into account it would make sense when starting your automatic shipment plan that you should consider doing a low priced introductory offer. Remember, you are actually doing most people a favor because nearly everyone is too busy to remember to come to your office or reorder. Think in your own life, I’m sure you’ve meant to get around to doing or buying something but you just kept putting it off.

How about if you have a dog or cat? Wouldn’t you appreciate it if your veterinary hospital sent you Fluffy’s flea and tick treatment every 3 months instead of schlepping down to the smelly animal hospital. I’d bet you would. And what if they offered a preferential deal and then a discount on treatments?

Same thing here. It is your responsibility to make sure customers continue using the products you recommend because that way they will get the optimum results they were looking for. Using a membership plan is the best way to make sure this occurs.

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Magic Words That Increase Your Bottom Line

Maybe you’ve heard the expression “sell the sizzle not the steak.” Well that’s Elmer Wheeler and his book “Tested Sentences That Sell” from 1937 reveals the ‘tested selling sentences’ that Wheeler uncovered by testing over 105,000 words on more than 19,000,000 people.

Doing so he found conclusive evidence that certain words would produce incredible differences in results over other words. And I’ll tell you all about them in a moment, but first it’s interesting to know the way this all got started. When Wheeler was an ad salesman for several newspapers he developed a fine sales presentation for retail merchants. He would come in and tell the retailers about his paper’s large circulation and how people who needed to buy shirts, hosiery, umbrellas, etc. would be done to their store to buy. But the reply he got was “So what?” The retailer would point to hundreds of people in the aisles of his store and tell Mr. Wheeler they come down here but they don’t buy.

Making a careful analysis Wheeler concluded that the weak link in the sales process were the salespeople behind the counter. He realized the sales were made or lost by the sales clerk in the stores. And to a great degree depending on what they said determined how much merchandise was sold. This is how Wheeler formed the “Wheeler Word Laboratory” and his 10 years of research might just be profitable to you today.

Here are a few great examples. At a pharmacy, the clerk would ask customers walking in “Are you on your feet much?” Then he’d hand them a shoe insole and say “This will ease your feet. It’s made especially for people who are on their feet a lot.” This sold hundreds of insoles every week.

Or another testing selling sentence (of 100 tried) worked best to get 250,000 motorists to open their hood in one week. You know the worthless phrase “Can I check your oil?” This question makes it easy to say “no”. The question Wheeler found to work best was “Is your oil at the safe driving level?” This worked 58% of the time.

Then Wheeler also found that if waiters asked, “Would you care to order a red or white wine with your dinner?” It would double the sales of wine. Or how about this example? When a customer would ask for a drink the order-taker would normally ask “small or large?” The typical response was “I’ll take the small one.” Well, simply changing to an assumptive question, “Large one?” proved 7 out 10 people would say “yes”!

Pretty impressive, huh? All with the power of words. So again, what’s this all mean to your business? You’re probably not a gas station, pharmacy or a restaurant... but let’s just see if we can’t breakdown the powerful elements Wheeler discovered:

1. Ask a question that breaks through a prospect’s mental indifference. Something they can’t say “so what?” to.

 

Here’s an example:

 

“Mrs. Jones, are you concerned about wrinkles?”

If the prospect says “yes” then your staff member will simply say “This new procedure actually erases wrinkles and makes you look years younger!” and hand them over your free special report on laser resurfacing.

This follows the proven pattern Wheeler used for insole sales. Very easy to duplicate for your business.

 

2. Don’t ask “if” but ask “which”.

This is what Wheeler calls his “Wheelerpoint 4” and by this he means is you should always frame your words to give the prospect a choice between something and something. Not something and nothing. By asking the right questions, you’ll get the answer you want.

Just like the waiter asking if the person preferred white or red wine with dinner you can do the same thing. Using packages You give your customers a choice between good, better or best packages. Or even just a basic or deluxe package. Now, the choice becomes which option to choose instead of do I choose to have this procedure done.

Assuming the prospective customer is ready to make their buying decision, you could ask something like this: “Would you like the deluxe package of _____ for only $750 more or just the basic package?”

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“A Good Title Is A Work of Genius”

That’s what E. Haldeman-Julius said about changing the title of a book to increase sales. And he should know, he’s the guy who sold more than 100,000,000 “little blue books” during the first part of the 20th century. His book entitled “The First Hundred Million” gives a rare glimpse of how to use these tested title words to increase your profits. Haldeman-Julius simply advertised his list of books by title in a newspaper or magazine ad. There was no selling copy, only the title of the book. That’s it.

If a title didn’t sell over 10,000 copies a year it was sent to a place in his office called “The Hospital” and it was in this area a new title was usually given. He tells about a book originally titled the “Art of Controversy” which never really sold until it was changed to “How to Argue Logically” and then it leapt up to 30,000 copies. Nothing else was changed inside the book, just the title.

And from this research Haldeman-Julius discovered certain title words that could increase the sales of almost any book when applied. For instance the words “The Truth About” increased sales for one book. Starting as “Patent Medicine” a book by Dr. Arthur Cramp only sold 3,000 copies in 1925. Changed to “The Truth About Patent Medicine” it rose up to a respectable 10,000 copies. So the words “The Truth About” are magical.

Next, he found the words “Life” and “Love” to work well. Followed by the worn, but still very powerful phrase “How To”. As I went back over his list of sales by category titles with “How To” starting them almost always placed at the top. Take for example the title “How to Psycho-Analyze Yourself” with 43,000 copies sold while a similar title “Psycho-Analysis Explained” sold 38,000 copies and “How I PsychoAnalyzed Myself” did only 13,500 copies. Moving on Haldeman-Julius discovered the public was (and still is) clamoring for facts. So the words “The Facts You Should Know” proved a big winner.

The way you should use this wisdom from the ages is applying it to titles, free reports and your headlines. For instance, if I was a cosmetic surgeon I’d give out free reports like this: “The Facts You Should Know About Liposuction” or “The Truth About Laser Hair Removal” or “How To Erase The Years With Laser Resurfacing”. Each of these could almost be a headline by themselves. That’s what you want to strive for because that’s what people want!

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Preemptive Advertising Strikes

One of the most famous ad men from the 1920’s was Claude Hopkins, perhaps you’ve heard of him. Hopkins is really the Father of modern advertising. He invented test marketing, coupon sampling and copy research. Many of the companies he helped start are still going strong, like, Palmolive, Pepsodent, Quaker Oats, etc.

He wrote two excellent books called “Scientific Advertising” and “My Life in Advertising”. You can get these published together at www.amazon.com. It’s well worth your reading.

In fact, the late advertising great David Ogilvy says “Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read Scientific Advertising seven times.” Pretty powerful statement and I agree.

Anyway, let me share with you one of Hopkins greatest secrets for attracting more business. It’s called the strategy of performing preemptive strikes. That means telling a story and educating the prospect about how things are done in your industry. Usually it’s the same thing any one of your competitors could tell. But by telling it first you gain a tremendous advantage.

Hopkins rightly states in his book that a majority of advertising done in his times (and I’d have to say today as well) is based on the plea “Buy my brand”, “Come to my store”, “Give me the money which you give to others”. Usually this falls in the category of boasting and bragging advertising. Consumers don’t care one lick about you, they care about the benefits they’ll get from dealing with you.

So here’s how Hopkins used this psychology to grow Van Camp’s pork and bean business. After doing some research Hopkins found that 94% of housewives were baking their own beans at home and only 6% were buying canned beans. But everybody advertising canned baked beans was shouting “Buy my brand”. There was no benefit. That’s why Hopkins would run advertising explaining how it took 16 hours to bake beans at home and you could never make home baked beans digestible.

He went on to talk about the crispy beans on top and the mushy beans on the bottom. Then he explained the process Van Camp’s used to select their beans, of the soft water they used, how they made the skins less tough by removing the lime. And of the steam ovens where the beans were baked at 245 degrees in sealed containers so no flavor was lost. Then finally he offered a free sample for comparison.

This campaign was an enormous success, yet every other canned bean manufacturer could tell the exact same story. However, if they tried people would have thought of them only as copycats.

Okay, how about another example from Claude Hopkins. This is how he used preemptive strikes to rocket a so-so beer brand from 5th place into a tie for 1st place in market share. Listen up.

Schlitz Beer hired Hopkins to increase their falling market share. Every beer manufacturer at this time was screaming “PURE” in their ads. In fact, companies were spending a fortune just advertising this 4 letter word as big and as bold as they could. They even took out double pages ads to put that word in even bigger letters. All this shouting and no explaining was making zero impressions on people. Nobody ever explained what ‘pure’ was until Hopkins came in.

The first thing Hopkins did was take a factory tour. On this tour he was shown plate-glass rooms where beer was dripping over pipes. Inquiring the reason for this, Hopkins was told that those rooms were filled with filtered air, so the beer could be cooled in without any impurities.

Next, he was shown huge expensive filters filled with white-wood pulp that provided a superior filtering process. The manufacturer then went on to explain how they cleaned every pump and pipe, twice daily to assure purity. And also how each bottle was sterilized not once or twice, but four times before being filled with beer.

Then, Hopkins was shown the 4,000 foot deep artesian wells dug to provide the cleanest and purest water available, even though the factory was right on the shore of Lake Michigan. (At this time Lake Michigan was not polluted and could provide clean water.)

Finally, Hopkins was lead into a laboratory and was shown the mother yeast cell, that was a product of 1,200 experiments to bring out the robust flavor. And he was told all the yeast used in making Schlitz beer was developed from that original yeast cell.

After his tour Hopkins was amazed, “Why don’t you tell people these things?”

 

The manufacturer’s reply was because every beer manufacturer does it the same way.

And to that Hopkins replied, “But, others have never told this story...” And he went off to create an advertising campaign explaining to people what makes Schlitz beer pure. He told the same story any brewer could have. He gave a meaning to purity. And because of this Schlitz moved from 5th to a tie for 1st place in just a few months.

Really, this whole process is just educating. Educating prospective patients about how a cosmetic procedure is done, educating them about the causes of (wrinkles, fatty deposits, sagging eyelids, etc.), educating them about the solutions, educating them about the good and bad aspects of it, etc.

You simply cannot over educate people. Now, by tying this in to our automatic marketing systems (recorded messages, free reports, etc.) you can put this whole system of educating on autopilot

Maybe you’re thinking anything from the 1920’s can’t possibly work today -- WRONG!

Murray Raphel (a retail direct marketing consultant) tells the story of how he was visiting one of his clients, Ethan Allen Furniture, and he noticed carpenters in the back room repairing furniture. He asked, “Do you make furniture here?”

The reply from the manager of this store was, “No, those are carpenters doing work on Ethan Allen wood furniture.” He went on to explain how every customer is given a lifetime guarantee on all their wood pieces. And of course he said, “But all Ethan Allen stores do this.”

But of course no other store advertises this fact. Soon Raphel ran an ad stating “Every piece of Ethan Allen wooden furniture is guaranteed for your lifetime!”

 

And wouldn’t you know it, a competitor soon ran the same guarantee in their ad. But guess who got the credit for the guarantee? That’s right -- the original store.

So take the time now to write down what you do in your practice (even if it’s the exact same as any other cosmetic surgeon). Soon, you’ll come up with a list of preemptive strikes you can use.

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The Secrets of Powerful Letters From The Man Who Sold Coal By Train Carload

Okay, the next secret from the ages comes from “The Robert Collier Letter Book” by Robert Collier. This has long been out of print and very difficult to locate. Collier was able to sell almost everything under the sun and make millions. He started out selling coal by the train carload just through direct mail letters. Robert Collier’s book is practically the bible of how to write letters that get results...and right now I want to reveal to you how to use a few of his little-known secrets of effective sales letters.

Collier tells where the idea for his famous “Will you do me a favor?” letter came from. He tells how he read about a manager whose company had been extremely competitive with another company and it was in this manager’s best interest that the two companies should join together. This manager figured that people feel most kindly to someone for whom they’ve just done a favor for. So he went to his rival and asked him for a favor, he wanted to know how to handle customers taking advantage of their terms. Well, this little technique helped to bring these two companies together.

So Collier rightly figured it might work in print. He used it to get rid of 20,000 raincoats and over a dozen other