Chiropractic Advertising

239 Pages·1997·2.53 MB·English

CHIROPRACTIC
ADVERTISING
BY
HARRY E. VEDDER. D. C.. Ph. C.
FIRST EDITION
COPYRIGHT, 1924
HARRY E. VEDDER, D. C., Ph. C.
DAVENPORT, IOWA, U. S. A.
DEDICATION
The study of advertising is at once the study of human
emotions, primal motives, and life itself. Such knowledge can be
best gained through experience. It has been my privilege to be very
close to the Chiropractic Profession. From that association I have
learned many lessons. Much of the knowledge I have gained has
been given me by chiropractors. My work has been to correlate and
systematize the result of their experience and set it down in this
form for the benefit of the entire profession.
It is then only fitting that I dedicate this work to the thousands
of men and women chiropractors who need it most and whose
performance has made this the outstanding health science of all
time.
HARRY E. VEDDER. D.C., Ph.C.
PREFACE
In entering upon the discussion of advertising, I am quite
aware that this is a subject upon which many volumes have been
written. These books have been compiled by the very best brains in
the advertising profession. They are agreed in the main on the
fundamental principles of advertising, but this particular book is
written for the special benefit of the Chiropractic profession.
These pages are written after a most careful investigation of
methods of advertising now employed by chiropractors together
with a recapitulation as to the results obtained by them. Very
carefully prepared questionnaires were sent out to a considerable
number of successful chiropractors located in the large commercial
centers and all sections of the country were included; thus to avoid
the possibility of gaining information which might be applicable to
one location while it was not applicable to another, or gaining such
information as to be of value only to large city practitioners and
vice versa. The author was very careful in selecting the names of
those to whom this questionnaire was sent. He selected men and
women who have been in practice from one to twelve years and
included only those who have been eminently successful in this
profession. The whole intent has been to correlate the information
and experience, which has been dearly bought in many cases, and
to produce a concise and truthful report. This, then, may act as a
guide to other practitioners and to those new in the profession, and
save them the useless expenditure of many thousands of dollars
each year.
Advertising and its psychology is a profession in itself and it
will not be my intent to educate the chiropractor in that profession.
I shall not go extensively into the psychology of advertising
because that merely states the reason why
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PREFACE
certain principles are followed and the chiropractor can make no
practical use of that knowledge. I shall simply state the facts, any
one of which can be readily substantiated and for all of which a
sound reason exists. I know, however, that the chiropractors have
neither the time nor the inclination to go into all of the by-paths
covered by the psychology of advertising. The thing this
profession is interested in is “what to do” and I am relying on the
confidence which the field has in the author and his experience in
advertising to convince them of the soundness of the methods laid
down.
It is, of course, within the purview of every chiropractor to
study the recognized authorities on advertising, but all of these
deal, in the main, with commercial commodities. The stories are
written around these commercial commodities, examples are
drawn from them, and the lessons are driven home with them. It
would be very difficult for the chiropractor to gain the information
from such a discourse as well as if it were written around his own
profession. The principles are the same whether one be advertising
automobiles, or toothbrushes, or service; yet the method of
presenting the subject matter based upon those principles must be
entirely different.
This book deals with the Chiropractic profession and its
advertising problem. There is no question but that the chiro-
practors are the most progressive profession, not only in a
scientific way, but in the matter of advertising. We are the first
health profession to enter into the spirit of advertising on an
extensive scale. Undoubtedly the Chiropractic profession and its
activity along this line will eventually force other professions to
follow its lead.
The chiropractor is justified in employing the various
advertising media to present his service to the public. That is the
only way he could have, in the past, obtained recognition of his
science. Had he been content to follow the old beaten paths
employed by other professions, he could not have educated and
held public attention in the same degree as he has
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PREFACE
been able to do through advertising. I would venture the opinion,
however, that a large percentage of the money spent by
chiropractors in their various forms of advertising has been very
largely wasted, either for the reason that the wrong media were
employed, or because the copy was improperly built. Building
advertising copy is an art which very few people attain and yet it is
not a difficult matter to understand. It is one thing, however, to
understand the principles and quite another thing to create material
which will best embody those principles. A most liberal education,
and perhaps the most practical education of all, can be obtained by
reading and studying the advertisements that appear in the leading
periodicals of the day. In the Saturday Evening Post,
Cosmopolitan, Red Book, and many other standard magazines, the
advertisements are written by the very best advertising men in the
country and if one but searches, he will find the same underlying
principles embodied in all of these advertisements. There are
various methods of advertising, but whether it be newspaper
advertising, direct by mail advertising, or some other form, the
same principles should be utilized in all. It will, therefore, be my
intention to construct this outline in such a way as to embody the
fundamental principles of all advertising, showing how they are
applicable in various methods, and then giving the reader the
benefit of definite examples of each.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
SELECTING A LOCATION...........................................................................11
Personal Characteristics—Community—Office Location ( Small Town,
Large or Small City).
CHAPTER II
QUESTIONNAIRE RETURNS......................................................................30
Discussion of—Newspaper and Telephone Directory Advertising—
Signs—Direct by Mail—Tracts and Pamphlets—Getting Started—
Pulpit Influence.
CHAPTER III
CAPITALIZE YOUR RESULTS....................................................................79
Duty vs. Ethics—Satisfied Patients—Proper Methods—Dismissing
Patients.
CHAPTER IV
HEADLINES...................................................................................................90
Brevity—Blind Headlines—Live News—Bold Type.
CHAPTER V
DISPLAY ADVERTISING.............................................................................99
Location as to Page—Makeup of Space—Size of Space and Con-
trast—Titles—Action Lines.
CHAPTER VI
ANALYSIS OF DISPLAY ADVERTISING.................................................109
CHAPTER VII
SELLING.......................................................................................................134
Function of Advertising—Consistency—Class and Age Appeals.
CHAPTER VIII
CHIROPRACTIC—BUSINESS OR PROFESSION....................................142
Build for the Future—Rolling Stones—Drifters—The Remedy.
CHAPTER IX
PRICE CUTTING..........................................................................................149
Cost of Your Training and Worth of Health.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER X
CONFIDENCE..............................................................................................154
CHAPTER XI
FRIENDLINESS...........................................................................................163
CHAPTER XII
THE PEOPLE RULE.....................................................................................168
CHAPTER XIII
SUGGESTIONS FROM THE FIELD...........................................................173
CHAPTER XIV
DIRECT BY MAIL ADVERTISING............................................................180
CHAPTER XV
PROPER LETTERS FOR CAMPAIGN, “A” SERIES.................................186
Discussion of Letters for Direct by Mail Campaign.
CHAPTER XVI
PROPER LETTERS FOR DIRECT CAMPAIGN, “B” SERIES..................209
CHAPTER XVII
LETTERS ADVERTISING SPINOGRAPH.................................................225
CHAPTER XVIII
LETTERS ADVERTISING NEUROCALOMETER....................................233
EXPLANATORY..........................................................................................241
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CHAPTER I
SELECTING A LOCATION
When the Chiropractic student nears the completion of his
professional training, he is most vitally interested in finding a
location where the natural conditions will be most favorable to him
in the successful conduct of his practice. He is at a period in his
career which is most important and one which calls for an
absolutely honest and candid analysis of himself. It is quite natural
that his desires should play a part in his decision and it is perfectly
right that they should, because the desires of an individual indicate
to a certain degree his adaptability and his qualifications.
Personal Characteristics
Some people are always ill at ease when they come in contact
with strangers. They become confused, embarrassed, and do not
show their real characters to the best advantage. In most of these
cases they realize their own shortcoming and this adds to the
embarrassment which is already present. Let these same people
become acquainted with other people and they are perfectly at
ease. They find that they are able to discuss topics of mutual
interest, and under the influence of acquaintanceship and
friendliness, they show an entirely different personality than was
displayed on the first meeting.
Other people there are of the type commonly spoken of as
“hail fellow well met.” They are perfectly at ease when introduced
to total strangers. They apparently find no difficulty in making
conversation and becoming instantly agreeable. They have the
happy faculty of attracting other people.
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CHIROPRACTIC ADVERTISING
to them quickly and yet they may not be of more solid worth than
the other type. In fact, there are many cases where they have not
the real foundation of character behind them which the reticent
individual possesses. Yet on first meeting they are exceedingly
agreeable and adaptable.
Small or Large Community?
These are two extremes of people. It is true that either can, by
training, master himself to the degree that he may take on some of
the attributes of the other, but neither can be wholly successful in
striving to change his personality. Each should realize that he is
fitted to mingle in an entirely different community. The man who
is very well thought of and perfectly at ease in a city, may prove to
be decidedly unpopular in a small town; and the man who is
exceedingly popular in a small town may, upon his advent to the
city, find that he is a stranger in a strange land, unaccustomed to
the habits and ways of city folks. He mistakes their attitude of
independence as snobbishness, as coldness, and as heartlessness.
He is not adapted to the life of the city.
One of the first things that a prospective chiropractor should
do is to analyze his fitness for practicing among different groups of
people. It is not always true that the man or woman brought up in a
small town is best fitted for that sort of a community. Many of
these people, by natural inclination, are adapted to city
associations and by the same virtue many people who have been
brought up in cities are splendidly adapted to making friends and
being successful in small communities. But in the main I believe it
can be safely said that the individual who has been brought up in a
small town is better adapted for practice in a small town, while the
person reared in a city is better adapted for practice there. This is
for the very good reason that their entire early training acquaints
them with the interests of these different communities.
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