Advertising and Marketing Ideas to Create Phenomenal Profits In YOUR Small Business

“The Secret Of The Book Of Secret Knowledge” PDF Print E-mail
“The Secret Of The Book Of Secret Knowledge”

You may be familiar with this story.

In the middle 1970’s I decided to open a retail store.  I spent six months learning how to run a profitable store from my Mentor Julius Toth.

One day he shows me his “Book Of Secret Knowledge”. It has every display ad he’s ever run and every sales letter he ever sent. Next to the ad, is the cost of the ad, the sales produced from the ad, and the net profit (or loss) from each ad.

Of course, the information this book (it was immense) contained was invaluable.  If you studied the book, it showed the types of ads that worked, the best media to put them in, and the most profitable offers.

Here’s where it gave the most value…

It kept you from making the same mistakes over & over again.

One day I asked Julius “Hey, why not put an ad out that is not so ‘Hypey”? Why not just give good information about why they should consider us for their next vacuum sale?”

I thought it was a brilliant idea…..

Julius flipped the pages and said “You mean like this ad?”

There was a beautiful full page ad, with lots of pretty pictures, and friendly reasons to consider us in the future. It was an ad designer’s Dream.

Next to the ad was the cost of the ad ($4,000 if I remember correctly) and the sales generated from the ad……$0. Zip….Nada…..

Businesses can usually survive a mistake. But they can’t survive the same mistake made over and over and over again.

Do you keep records of the ads you run?
Do you track the sales results from each specific ad?
Do you keep the records of past ads so you can make sure you don’t repeat an offer (or ad or headline) that doesn’t work?
I do.

And, just in case you missed it, the secret of keeping records of your ads is that it keeps you from repeating mistakes.

“What gets measured, gets improved” - Claude