This is my once-a-year homage to what may be the best
advertising slogan ever written. If you're a regular reader,
maybe you know of my fawning, practically idolatrous affection for
the original catch phrase of national bookseller Crown Books:
"If you paid full price, you didn't buy it at Crown
Books." You may have your own favorite slogan, but this is
mine, and I'll tell you why.
Slogans are typically self-indulgent afterthoughts that have
little substance. This is a shame, because like the P.S. on a
letter, they virtually always get read. When I was growing up, the
hot slogans were G.E.'s "Progress is our most important
product" and Zenith's "The quality goes in before the
name goes on." Both are cleverly crafted, but like nine-tenths
of the slogans written today, they're all out of steam and
don't pass my acid test for a great slogan: Can it stand by
itself in selling your product?
If you're thinking the Crown Books slogan doesn't have
much bite anymore either, you're right. It lost at least 75
percent of its teeth during the decade or so that nearly every
other bookstore chain in America followed in its discounting
footsteps. But when Crown first came on the scene, it had the
discount-starved book-buying public virtually all to itself. So the
message, with its smartly crafted wording, was, to me, advertising
dynamite and deserving of some sort of brass plaque in the
Copywriter's Hall of Fame. In my opinion, no company has ever
had a harder-working slogan.
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Given my affection for the Crown Books slogan, I'd like to
honor it by tweaking it for a piece of advertising sent in by
Stanley Demski, co-owner of the Traveling Framer Inc. in
Collingswood, New Jersey. He does what the name implies: takes a
bunch of framing choices to homes and offices to let people choose
the materials in the environment where the painting, photo, degree,
commendation or other wall hanging will end up. It's a smart
business concept--and a wonderful name because it states exactly
what its USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is: a traveling framer.
You can't get much better than that.
Demski sent me his two-fold self-mailer and asked how I could
improve it. That's when the Crown Books motto came to mind--as
a headline for his flier and, if he wishes, as a slogan as well. So
to borrow a bit of slogan sizzle, and with proper credit given, I
suggest Demski introduce his business this way: "If You Have
to Leave Home to Pick Out Framing, you haven't heard about The
Traveling Framer." I think it captures the same
your-ignorance-is-costing-you appeal as the Crown Books slogan, but
this time it works as a strong lead-in to the rest of Demski's
self-mailer.
The inside of his piece (not shown) is a good lesson in
compartmentalizing and characterizing your company for customers.
It starts out with a why-we're-different section; then it
describes, in a bulleted format, exactly what the company's
skills are. This is followed by a list that gives typical pricing
for a number of framing and matting combinations. Finally,
there's a partial list of clients along with their
testimonials. It's a hard-working sales piece, and now it has a
much better opener.
Before:
This brochure cover works hard but leads off with an
"everybody can say that" headline.
1. This headline is too
generic to interest the indifferent reader.
2. There are too many
thoughts here to focus on.
After:
The thought expressed here offers a "what rock have you
been living under?" revelation that gets your attention.
1. This is a single-focus,
provocative headline that arouses curiosity.
Q: I've read books and articles on advertising, but no
advice ever helps me create the marketing pieces I want. My efforts
to emulate what experts recommend are usually unsuccessful. What do
you suggest?
A: This is a good question because written expertise and
advice--on any subject--always appears so glibly and effortlessly
developed that there is the assumption the advice itself is easy to
implement. The truth is, developing a strong advertising idea and
then fleshing it out is most often a painstaking process. If you
don't develop a unique concept or set of words the first day
you put yourself up to it, you assume a good idea will never come
to you. Clichés, of course, are easy to spit out. But
advertising originality can be hard to come by.
So let me offer a technique for jump-starting your creativity in
a way you're unlikely to find in any of the many tomes on
advertising. It has nothing to do with pencil-to-paper
brainstorming; rather, it's one that's worked for me time
and again, especially when I'm experiencing writer's block.
I go out to my garage, and I start exercising--yep, jumping up and
down while pondering my advertising task. My preference is skipping
rope; for you, it may be running on the treadmill, doing jumping
jacks, lifting weights or jogging around the block. Removing myself
from the environment in which I'm struggling--my office--and
engaging in a strenuous physical activity typically loosens the
cobwebs and gets my brain to crackle and pop in ways it won't
do otherwise.
This cause and effect has been so consistent that I know I can
almost always count on getting at least one fresh idea per exercise
session. I don't know much about brain chemistry, but I
wouldn't be surprised if my right brain--supposedly the
inventive, intuitive side--gets stimulated by those "creative
juices" we talk about and, through all that jumping around, is
able to pop out a unique idea or two. Maybe it will work for you,
too.
Q: My husband and I have a natural healing products catalog
and wonder what kind of marketing strategies could improve our
business.
A: In my May "Ad Workshop" column, I
wrote about how smart it is to regularly cultivate your current
customers instead of beating the bushes for new ones. And catalog
marketers like you have such strong and (hopefully) well-maintained
databases of names, buying habits and so on, that it's a
pipeline you should be using regularly to keep in touch with your
customers.
Invite back customers whom you haven't heard from in a while
with a $25 gift certificate. They'll almost always spend more,
plus you've re-established contact and perhaps rekindled their
interest in your company. Occasionally include a gift with your
orders. Any unexpected gesture of thoughtfulness and generosity
from your company gets indelibly etched in your customers'
minds and fosters loyalty like few other things can. Free samples
are a good bet for a catalog like yours. They cost relatively
little, especially if you get some co-op help from the
manufacturer. I'd even include a note with your extra gifts
saying how happy you are to have these people as customers and, as
a gesture of appreciation, you'd like them to have some
lavender bath beads to ease away stress at the end of the day. I
wouldn't give a freebie away with every order, or else
they'll start to expect it. Just surprise them every once in a
while.
Jerry Fisher is an advertising copywriter, consultant and
author of Creating Successful Small Business Advertising
($39.95), available by calling (800) 247-6553. If you'd like
Jerry to consider your materials for a makeover in this column,
send them to "Ad Workshop," Entrepreneur, 2392
Morse Ave., Irvine, CA 92614, or e-mail him at
jerry228@aol.com