Intensive Selling: Increasing Profitable Sales Through Supplemental Direct Advertising Methods
A 144-page handbook by Flint McNaughton, published in Chicago by Selling Aid. Part One argues that direct advertising is the largest US ad category, about $420 million of an estimated $930 million a year, and that letters and printed matter should back up salesmen: one maker cut calls per order from seven to five with three letters per salesman.
What it is
A 144-page handbook by Flint McNaughton, published in Chicago by Selling Aid. Part One argues that direct advertising is the largest US ad category, about $420 million of an estimated $930 million a year, and that letters and printed matter should back up salesmen: one maker cut calls per order from seven to five with three letters per salesman. It reprints the ten Standards of Practice of the direct advertising department of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World. The other seven parts cover enclosures: slips and booklets that ride free in letters, invoices and statements, package inserts, return cards in house organs, booklets and blotters. It cites tests, such as 4,000 letters in four lots of 1,000 where a booklet enclosure pulled 15% against 8% for a letter with only a reply card, and ends on planning copy and cutting printing costs.
Why read it now
What holds: the book's strongest thread is measurement. It asks for a test on part of the list before the full mailing, warns that one firm's results may not transfer to another, and says cost per inquiry misleads when cost per sale is what counts, the same trap as judging campaigns on cost per lead today. The idea of free distribution, riding on mail you already send, maps onto order confirmations, delivery boxes, receipts and WhatsApp service messages. Its advice to send one enclosure rather than a stuffed envelope, to plan inserts in a series, and to add a reply card that makes answering easy still matches response testing. What has dated: blotters, poster stamps and postal weights; figures quoted from trade papers with no method given; and the war-time framing. Use: pick one message every customer already gets, such as the order confirmation, and test a single insert or link against a version without it, measured on sales, not clicks.
Passages worth keeping
The disposition to consider cost per inquiry instead of cost per sale has led many a firm to false analysis.
الاستفسار وسيلة لا غاية، ومن يحكم على إعلانه بتكلفة الاستفسار بدل تكلفة البيع يصل إلى استنتاجات خاطئة.
An advertisement in a publication is a speech to a crowd, a letter or a mailing folder is a talk to one man in his easy chair at home, after dinner, or at his desk during the day.
الإعلان في الصحيفة خطبة أمام جمهور، أما الرسالة فحديث مع شخص واحد في بيته أو مكتبه، ولذلك يكون أثرها أقرب وأكثر خصوصية.
While tests can be referred to as guides, it must be remembered that each selling proposition has its own peculiar features; and results that apply to the selling conditions of one firm may not apply to those of another concern.
نتائج تجارب الآخرين دليل يسترشد به فقط، وعلى كل شركة أن تجرب بنفسها لأن ظروف البيع تختلف من نشاط إلى آخر.
Quite the reverse; a number of enclosures in a single envelope confuse the reader.
حشو الظرف بعدة نشرات لا يزيد فرص البيع، بل يربك القارئ ويجعله يرمي الجميع، ومرفق واحد جيد أنفع.
The simple blotter, sent out harum-skarum, has but little more actual advertising value than the postage stamp that bears it, even if it is sufficiently attractive to win a place on the desk.
المادة الدعائية التي ترسل عشوائيًا بلا خطة ولا سلسلة لا قيمة لها تقريبًا، حتى لو كانت جميلة واحتفظ بها المتلقي.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
If this library is useful, leave an email
We send new patterns, ads, and notes when we add them. Name and phone are optional.
You are on the list
We will write when we add more library material.