“I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you. Someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top.”
– An English Professor
We might not want to admit this, but sometimes this is the response our prospects have to our marketing.
They can’t understand what we’re trying to say.
And what’s even worse, they sometimes misunderstand what we’re saying completely.
When Marketing Goes Horribly Wrong
Check out these hilarious examples of marketing gone wrong that James S. O’Rourke and Elizabeth A. Tuleja share in Module 4: Intercultural Communication for Business (Managerial Communication) 2nd Edition…
“Communicating with a target market means more than tossing out catchy slogans.
“A few companies learned this the hard way when they tried to translate their catchy English slogans directly into Spanish.
“Braniff Airlines beckoned its passengers to ‘Fly in Leather,’ and Eastern Airlines proclaimed that ‘We Earn Our Wings Daily.’
“Both of these now-defunct airlines were terribly mistaken.
“A Spanish speaker would think Braniff was asking its riders to ‘Fly Naked,’ and a Spanish translation of the Eastern slogan evoked a final destination in heaven, following death.
“A few classic marketing blunders: General Motors discovered too late that ‘Nova‘ literally means ‘Doesn’t go‘ in Spanish.
“Coors encouraged its English-speaking customers to ‘Turn It Loose,’ but the phrase in Spanish meant ‘Suffer from Diarrhea.'”
From Module 4: Intercultural Communication for Business (Managerial Communication) 2nd Edition
Get Ready to Time Travel
Today, we’re about to go back in time.
98 years to be exact.
What you’re about to read below is pulled from a book published in 1921 called (get ready for a crazy LONG title)…
BETTER ADVERTISING A Practical Manual of the Principles of Advertising, Embracing Institutional and Direct Advertising, Reason Why and Human Interest Copy, Elements of the Advertisement, and the Make Up of Advertising Circulars and Folders by John M. Manly and John A Powell.
That’s quite a title, huh? 🙂
The title might be more exhausting than it is breathtaking, but this book really does reveal one of the keys to creating better advertising (and marketing).
Advertising is ‘Sales Talk’ Reduced to Type
I want you to pay close attention to the powerful truth from Manly and Powell that I share below.
Because it will reveal to you one of the ways to make your marketing more effective.
Ready? Let’s open the book and take a peek…
“Advertising is ‘sales talk’ reduced to type.
“Scientific principles must underlie any kind of successful sales talk, but—and this is the important feature—the personality of the talker envelops the scientific features with his magnetism and personal qualities, his persuasiveness, his knowledge of his subject, his very manners, even.“His talk is not cold and formal, but sincere and warm and winning—with the psychological ingredients so well mixed as to be invisible in the solution.
“Advertising copy, then, is not to be thought of as a mere formal announcement, not a mere listing of goods with prices attached, not even as a formal solicitation to buy, but as a talk from the prospective seller to the prospective customer.
“No matter how highly educated the seller may be, he does not talk to his customer in the formal language commonly called ‘rhetorical.’
“He brings into his conversation all the elements that will make it interesting. He avoids anything but ‘homely’ language, suited to the occasion. He talks, he does not ‘converse.’
“So should advertising be — it must have the same warm elements of a conversation that draws and interests by being human.
“An attractive analysis of the proposition itself, accompanied by a common-sense appeal which is based on a thorough knowledge of the motives and instincts that actuate the average purchaser—that is the secret of good advertising.”
BETTER ADVERTISING by John M. Manly and John A Powell
The Best Content Marketing and Direct Response Marketing
I really love that excerpt above.
In fact, I would encourage you to reread that excerpt above a couple of times.
Because as I think about it, the wisdom it contains is the secret behind all of the best content marketing and direct response marketing I’ve ever seen.
But the four things that stood out the most to me are these:
- Write with personality
- Write as a real person would speak, with real people in mind
- Write in a way so that you draw people in
- Write in a way that presents your ideas in an interesting way
A Great Example for You
As I was writing this post, I happened to jump over to my open Facebook tab (bad habit!) and I came across a post that a friend shared from The South Texas Chapter of the American College of Healthcare Executives (STC-ACHE).
In that post, they shared a bunch of pictures from a series of creative billboards from Baycare Health Systems.
The billboards were marketing to help people to understand when they should go to the E.R. vs Urgent Care.
As I looked at them, I realized that they are a creative example of what Manly and Powell were talking about:
- They have a personality
- Have real people in mind
- Were done in a way to draw people in
- Are presented in an interesting way
Want to See More of What’s Inside Manly and Powell’s Book?
If you would like to see inside BETTER ADVERTISING, I’d be glad to post a PDF version in our DRCM Membership Resource Area.
(Chapter 3 Direct Marketing has some more, powerful information in it.)
Or, if you’d prefer, I’d be glad to pull out more of the nuggets from this book and share them with you here.
Just let me know what you prefer!
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P.S. This is one way you can deal with the content marketing problem no one wants to talk about.
