Once again Halloween draws near…
…that time of year when the barrier between our world and the worlds beyond becomes a little thinner.
It is often a time of strange events…
…that may produce a sense of horror!
Indeed, in 2018 marketers might well shudder when they review the current situation.
In the retail arena, there is an ongoing massacre of once successful companies like Sears in the US and House of Fraser in the UK…
…with the survivors struggling with declining sales and shrinking profits.
In general, it seems to be getting harder to bring in new customers and make sales…whether that’s online or offline.
But perhaps what is most frightening is…
…a widespread lack of business and marketing knowledge among business-folk. In a recent newsletter Dan Kennedy observes…
“Apparently, the impulse to gather information about a subject/need and create a foundation of knowledge so as not to skate on the thin ice of ignorance is a dying practice.”
Now, this may not be a new phenomenon. When copywriting legend John Carlton started out, one of the first things he did was to immerse himself in the classics such as “Scientific Advertising”. He assumed that everyone in the field would do so…and was astounded that few people did.
In good times, when success can come easily, businesses can perhaps get by without in-depth knowledge. In tough times, however, ignorance can be very costly.
Indeed, I have commented on this in previous years…
“Halloween 2016…Recurring Marketing Nightmares…”
…and…
“Halloween 2014 – Marketing Warnings From Beyond The Grave…”
It’s worth repeating something from those posts…
…that in his classic book “Scientific Advertising”, Hopkins set out what can be regarded as a manifesto for effective advertising and marketing. Based on his own experience working on campaigns for many clients, Hopkins believed that he had identified the fundamental principles to success in advertising and marketing. In his own words…
“The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood.
The correct methods of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic law.
Advertising, once a gamble, has thus become, under able direction, one of the safest business ventures.”
It is strange indeed that his ideas and principles…his scientific methods…have been largely forgotten in today’s mainstream advertising and marketing world.
He would probably be HORRIFIED at the vast amounts of money spent on advertising with absolutely no effort to track and record the results! The result is that all too many businesses are trapped in the recurring nightmare of knowing that much of the money they are spending on advertising is wasted…
…and yet they don’t know which part. Even worse, they feel they have to continue with such wasteful advertising…because that’s the “conventional wisdom” and they don’t know there is a better way.
Fortunately, there is a better way…the path of direct response marketing and advertising.
If you haven’t already read “Scientific Advertising” then you can save yourself from the horrors of money BLEEDING out of your bank account because of ads and marketing that doesn’t work…
…by simply reading my introduction to Claude’s strategies and techniques in…
”Of course, it’s well worth reading the original in full.
It can be pretty scary skating on thin ice…whether literally or in the sense of not being properly informed about marketing matters. This Halloween…at a time when the spirit world is reckoned to draw closer to our reality….the words of the great Claude Hopkins from beyond the grave can help you steer clear of advertising and marketing horrors!