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It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns from five or ten times over. So we compare headlines until we know what sort of appeal pays best. That differs in every line, of course. The writer has before him keyed returns on nearly two thousand headlines used on a single product. The story in these ads are nearly identical. But the returns vary enormously, due to the headlines.
So with every keyed return in our record appears the headlines that we used. Thus we learn what type of headline has the most widespread appeal. The product has many uses. It fosters beauty. It prevents disease. It aides daintiness and cleanliness. We learn to exactness which quality most of our readers seek. This does not mean we neglect the others. One sort of appeal may bring half the returns of another, yet be important enough to be profitable. We overlook no field that pays. But we know what proportion of our ads should, in the headline, attract any certain class.
For this same reason we employ a vast variety of ads. If we are
using twenty magazines we may use twenty separate ads. This
because circulation's overlap, and because a considerable percentage of people are attracted by each of several forms of approach. We wish to reach them all.
On a soap, for instance, the headline "Keep Clean" might attract a
very small percentage. It is to commonplace. So might the headline, "No animal fat." People may not care much about that. The headline, "It floats" might prove interesting. But a headline referring to beauty or complexion might attract many times as many.
An automobile ad might refer in the headline to a good universal joint. It might fall flat, because so few buyers think of universal joints. The same ad with a headline, "The Sportiest of Sport Bodies," might out pull the other fifty to one.
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