I’ve often mentioned the work of legendary copywriter and marketer Claude Hopkins.
He was one of the pioneers of direct response marketing and many of the techniques that we today regard as fundamental.
Reading through a newsletter today, I was reminded of one of the most successful of his campaigns…
…and how it can help you make virtually any product or service feel unique (even if you’re in a market where most of the offerings are similar).
The campaign was for…
…Schlitz Beer, which at the time was an also-ran in its market.
Hopkins visited the company to conduct his research and was astonished at what he found.
Schlitz took enormous care and attention in how they went about making their beer.
They had their own 4,000-foot-deep artesian wells from which they drew the water for the beer…
… there were wood pulp filters that ensured the water was 100% pure …
… they had a special yeast for the brewing…
… the plant was spotlessly clean and there were “clean rooms” with filtered air …
… and Schlitz’s bottles were sanitized with germ-scalding steam …
… plus there was a lot more they did to make sure the beer was as pure as they could make it.
At the end of his tour of the plant, Hopkins asked why the company didn’t mention all this in their advertising.
The answer was that the company didn’t think that what they did was anything special…
…because every beer company did almost the same!
And none of them mentioned what they did either.
However, Hopkins realised that by being the first to tell customers about the steps beer-makers took to ensure purity…
… his client could take ownership of those techniques in consumers’ minds…
… and convince them that Schlitz really was the purest beer anywhere.
And as a result Schlitz rocketed to #1 and held that position for many years.
So what’s the big marketing lesson? In Hopkins’ own words…
“This is a situation which occurs in most advertising problems. The article is not unique. It embodies no great advantages. Perhaps countless people can make similar products. But tell the pains you take to excel.”
It’s common for business people to take for granted many of the things that go into the creation of their product or service. They think that the public already knows about them.
The reality is that they don’t.
So, it’s well worth taking another look at what you do and how you can explain to your customers the care and attention that you take.
Make sure that it’s relevant to your customers (in the Schlitz case, the purity of the beer was very definitely a point of interest).
And make sure you do it before your competitors!