Time was, advertising was a gamble, a possible money pit. Companies wanting to sell products and services would, basically, throw different ads up against the wall and see what 'took.' There was nothing scientific about it. That all began to change early in the last century, when advertising approached its heyday.

As Claude Hopkins wrote in Scientific Advertising, back in 1923, “The time has come when advertising has ... reached the status of science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. Causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct methods and procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic laws.”

Ad agencies that are on top of their game have learned from those that preceded them. For decades, the largest agencies in the world tested hundreds of ad campaigns, compared thousands of ideas and watched and recorded the results. Everything was compared, from headlines to typeface to arguments and photos. This led to successful principles, time-tested methods, all of which come in to play in today's marketplace.

These principles and methods are available to you today. Keyed advertising and traced returns continually prove those fundamentals to be correct. When even one cent makes a difference in mail order advertising, no guesswork is permitted. In direct response advertising, we offer a variety of different orders and incentives to capture the customer's interest. But you need to be careful: offering the wrong sample or free offer might bring too many worthless responses.

That's why the best ad agencies measure the cost per customer or cost per dollar of sale. They follow the fundamentals, the best techniques. And the results prove them out. The lack of these fundamentals has been the main problem with much of RV advertising: Too many dealers become frustrated with the poor results they've experienced by conducting their own ad campaigns.

Our main purpose in this blog is to set down the laws of the best fundamental advertising elements, and show you how to prove them for yourself. We hope to encourage better advertising through better understanding. Our success in doing so will help you recognize advertising as among the safest, surest ways to reach large returns.