How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab
Pg 1 An advertisement cannot stimulate sales if it is not read; it cannot be read if it is not seen; and it will not be seen unless it can Get Attention
Pg 22 One of the principal objectives of a headline is to strike as directly as possible right at a situation confronting the reader
Pg 36 Pictures of ppl, children and animals are natural attention winners. A large, simple pic gets more reader attention than several small pics. A pic of a woman, young child, or baby generally gets greater attention from women than from men. A pic of a man will generally get greater attention from men than from women
Pg 55 Ppl are more likely to agree with you if you first agree with them, by showing them that you have a sympathetic understanding of how they already feel
Pg 58 Statisticians have figured, using the law of probability, that a 100vote poll would probs be 20% wrong, 1000vote poll is 6% wrong, 50,000 is 1% wrong. Errors grow smaller as the number of ballots increases
Pg 67 The real advertising writer who is after results makes the reader want something, and then provides what the reader will consider a good excuse for buying it
Pg 75 A little bad makes the good believable
Pg 76 The easiest way to make a person believe what you are going to tell him is first to tell him something that he already knows is true
Pg 91 If a salesman neglects to make a good close he can make another call. But a poor closing or a nonclosing advertisement makes an ineffective visit to every one of its prospects
Pg 136 The more quickly you refer to your offer in the body matter of your advertisement the more likely you are to increase inquiries. The reason is obvious, yet often overlooked
Pg 147 Experience indicates that a full-page ad will not bring twice as many inquiries as a half page, it is more likely to produce abt 2/3 as many more inquiries
Pg 147 A full color ad will often bring about 50% more inquires than the same one in black n white
Pg 149 Advertisers make every effort to obtain right-hand pagers rather than left-hand pgs
Pg 149 After entering a retail store, twice as many ppl will normally swing to the right rather than to the left
Pg 149 Back page comes first, right page on inside cover comes next, than any of the next 5 right hand side pages, then the left hand side facing the 3rd cover. The page opposite the table of contents is often desired because of increased reader traffic
Pg 182 $2.00 vs $2.50: $2.00 price was 62.2% better….$2.75 vs $1.98: $1.98 was 87% better
Pg 186 If an advertising campaign just doesnt click with sales when it is fresh and new, it is not wise to keep betting for a long period on that particular copy approach
Pg 210 Unpleasant thins may sometimes be learned as readily as pleasant things, but the most ineffective stimuli are those which arouse little or no emotional response
Pg 221 Two salesmen arrive in Africa. One saw the shoeless natives of that particular part of Africa and wired his home office: “nobody wears shoes, returning. The other salesman wired home: “double initial order, nobody has shoes
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