ScientificAdvertising.com Chapter 4 Mail Order Advertising: What It Teaches
The severest test of an advertising man is in selling goods by mail. But that is a school from which he must graduate before he can hope for success. There cost and result are immediately apparent. False theories melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The advertising is profitable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns. Figures which do not lie tell one at once the merits of an ad. This puts men on their mettle. All guesswork is eliminated. Every mistake is conspicuous. One quickly loses his conceit by learning how often his judgment errs - often nine times in ten. There one learns that advertising must be done on a scientific basis to have any fair chance of success. And he learns that every wasted dollar adds to the cost of results. Here is a tough efficiency and economy under a master who can't be fooled. Then, and only then, is he apt to apply the same principles and keys to all advertising. A man was selling a five-dollar article. The replies from his ad cost him 85 cents. Another man submitted an ad which he thought better. The replies cost $14.20 each. Another man submitted an ad which for two years brought replies at an average of 41 cents each. Consider the difference on 250,000 replies per year. Think how valuable was the man who cut the cost in two. Think what it would have meant to continue that $14.20 ad without any key on returns. Yet there are thousands of advertisers who do just that. They spend large sums on a guess. And they are doing what that man did - paying for sales from 2 to 35 times what they need cost. A study of mail order advertising reveals many things worth learning. It is a prime subject for study. In the first place, if continued, you know what pays. It is therefore good advertising as applied to that line. The probability is that the ad has resulted from many traced comparisons.
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