The Tailoring Book
A subscription ad kit for tailors, edited by Charles Austin Bates and sold for $25 with a coupon book that bought a letter of criticism, a plan for moving from credit to cash, a year of the paper Good Advertising, and 225 coupons for illustration cuts at 16 cents each.
What it is
A subscription ad kit for tailors, edited by Charles Austin Bates and sold for $25 with a coupon book that bought a letter of criticism, a plan for moving from credit to cash, a year of the paper Good Advertising, and 225 coupons for illustration cuts at 16 cents each. It opens with an essay, How to Advertise the Tailoring Business: win rivals' customers and convert men who wear ready-made clothes, fix the shop before advertising, spend mostly in the home newspaper, avoid "scheme advertising" such as church programmes and grocers' paper sacks, answer in each ad what customers ask at the counter, vary space with what there is to say, and price every cloth in the window. More than 150 numbered ready-made ads follow, each a cut and copy printed on one side for tearing out, then catch-lines and ledgers for ad contracts and daily sales against spend.
Why read it now
Much still holds. Ads that answer the questions a customer asks in the shop are what content marketers now call answering buyer questions, and the customers write the brief for free. Putting prices in the window fits later studies in which showing prices and costs openly raised buyers' trust. His rule to fix the product before advertising matches modern growth advice: advertising speeds up whatever reputation you already have. The daily ledger, this year beside last, is a crude but honest check on spend, though it cannot separate the ad's effect from season or weather; holdout tests do that now. What has dated: many ready-made ads sell through fear of women's judgment and social shame, and the kit contradicts its own advice, since one generic ad can run under any tailor's name. His case against a fixed yearly budget also runs against Binet and Field's evidence that brands which stop and start spending lose share. Use: a thobe or abaya tailor can list the ten questions customers ask at the counter, answer one per post with a price, and log sales against spend each day.
Passages worth keeping
Good advertising won't convince people that poor work is good work. Advertising is not a substitute for a lack of ability or facilities.
الإعلان الجيد لا يجعل العمل الرديء جيدًا في أعين الناس، ولا يعوض نقص المهارة أو الأدوات، فأصلح عملك أولًا.
The best ads are those which give the kind of information that a customer usually asks for when he calls on you.
أفضل إعلان هو الذي يقدم المعلومات نفسها التي يسأل عنها الزبون عادة حين يزور المحل.
When you are writing an ad, just imagine that you are writing a letter of advice to a friend of yours, who is extremely ignorant, so far as dress is concerned.
اكتب الإعلان كأنك تنصح صديقًا لا يعرف شيئًا عن اللباس، بلغة بسيطة وتفاصيل واضحة.
Every piece of cloth shown should have a price card on it, telling the price for making a suit or overcoat from it. There should be no secret about your prices.
ضع على كل قماش معروض بطاقة تذكر سعر تفصيل البدلة أو المعطف منه، ولا تُخفِ أسعارك، لأن المارّ يتذكر السعر ويعود.
After you have kept it carefully for a few months, you will find that it will indicate with a good deal of certainty just what your advertising is doing for you.
إذا سجلت المبيعات اليومية وكلفة الإعلان بعناية بضعة أشهر، عرفت بدرجة جيدة من اليقين ما يفعله الإعلان لتجارتك.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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