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364 days ago
As colder weather approaches, homeowners feel a different kind of heat - high energy bills and costly repairs, often due to damage from moisture in the home. Often the culprits are inefficient windows and doors that compromise the home's "envelope" - the fixtures and surfaces that together help regulate indoor temperatures and provide protection from the elements. Any leak in the home's envelope hits the pocketbook hard and fast. Energy lost through windows alone can account for 10 percent to 25 percent of a household's heating bill, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. "Now is the time to spend a little extra effort inspecting your home to make sure fixtures are in the best possible condition for combating cold, wet weather," said Joyce Richter, windows expert for Jeld-Wen, a window and door manufacturer. "Look for warping or cracks that indicate repairs or replacements are needed." Jeld-Wen offers these additional tips: * Use your senses ...
364 days ago
“A great title is a work of genius,” said E. Haldeman-Julius in the 1920s. Haldeman-Julius sold 200 million (really) of his “Little Blue Books.” His headlines were his product, because he sold his books by the title. About halfway through his brilliant marketing career he wrote a book called “The First Hundred Million,” in which he shared some of his secrets… EHJ had a system. If a title didn't sell over 10,000 copies in a year, it was sent to a place in his office called "The Hospital" to be given a new title. And if the new title bombed, then it went into "The Morgue." As an example, "Art of Controversy" didn't meet his 10,000 copy quota. The title was changed to: "How to Argue Logically" and sales soared to 30,000 copies. He changed nothing about the book—just the title. Haldeman-Julius discovered that certain words could increase the sales of almost any book. In 1925 "Patent Medicine" sold a measly 3,000 copies. ...
364 days ago
Your first clue to the truth about advertising was written more than 100 years ago. Let me tell you the story of a young, confident copywriter by the name of John E. Kennedy. Early one May evening in 1904, Kennedy, a former Canadian Mountie, sat in a New York barroom. He sent a note upstairs to the office of A.L. Thomas, the head of the Lord and Thomas advertising agency. "I'm in the saloon downstairs,” the note began, “and I can tell you what advertising is. I know you don't know. It will mean much to me to have you know what it is and it will mean much to you. If you wish to know what advertising is, send the word ‘yes’ down by the bell boy. (Signed) John E. Kennedy.” Thomas dismissed the note as arrogance. But his junior partner, Albert Lasker, did not. The note struck a chord with Lasker and he summoned Kennedy to his office that same night. That meeting of Lasker and Kennedy changed the face of advertising—forever. Kennedy told Lasker, "Advertising is ...
364 days ago
What we want changes overnight; what makes us want it hasn’t changed in thousands of years, nor will it change in thousands more. The serious student of marketing can learn much from early analysts of motivation. Here is a bit of George French’s "The Art and Science of Advertising” from the turn of the 20th century… “We know how to appeal to Smith because we know Smith. We know what will please Brown because we know Brown. We know how to get our way with Jones because we know Jones. What the advertiser must know is how to get at Smith, Brown and Jones without knowing any of them. While every man has his personal peculiarities… every man and every mind is controlled, in a large sense and to a great extent, by mind workings which were established before we lived, and are operated in a manner separate from his personality. Our minds are… more mechanical than we are willing to admit. That which we loosely call mind is largely the automatic expression of tendencies controlled by ...
364 days ago
Making a character out of the advertiser brings the message alive. Maxwell Sackheim is most famous for inventing the Book-of-the-Month Club. But before that, he invented some dramatic, and dramatically successful, advertising. One of his patented techniques was to make a character out of the advertiser, writing ads as if the clients themselves were actually talking. One Sackheim client was Frank E. Davis, "The Gloucester Fisherman". This is how Sackheim wrote for him: "There is no use trying. I've tried and tried to tell people about my fish, but I wasn't rigged out to be an ad writer and I can't do it. I can close-haul a sail with the best of them. I know how to pick out the best fish of the catch… But I'll never learn the knack of writing an ad that will tell people why my kind of fish—fresh caught, with the deep sea tang still in it—is lots better than the ordinary store kind. "At least you can taste the difference. So you won't mind, will you, if I ...
