Internet Marketing &
Business Promotion
Five Things You Can Learn
about Advertising from Dr. Frank B. Robinson
by Joe Vitale
Are
you having trouble selling your product or service?
Are you feeling like the chaotic state of the world
prevents you from succeeding? Are you wondering how
you can increase your sales in the most cost effective
ways? Are you feeling like your competition is breathing
down your neck?
Many of my clients feel the same way. They want to
succeed, to make a nice living in their business, but
they feel overwhelmed, uncertain, and even despondent.
They feel they have too much competition. They feel
marketing doesn't work, or takes too much work. They
feel people don't have enough money today to spend on
what they are selling.
And that's why I think it's time to reveal the strange
story of the long forgotten "crackpot" mail-order
prophet.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s the average
person didn't have enough money to feed themselves or
their family, let alone enough extra cash to order books
through the mail. Yet during those lean years one man
made a fortune selling books and courses entirely by
mail. His name was Frank B. Robinson. He founded "Psychiana,"
the world's eighth largest religion and the world's
largest mail-order religion.
You may never have heard of him or his movement before
today. But during the 1930s and 40s, Robinson's name
traveled around the world. Millions of people read his
books, studied his lessons, and practiced his methods.
The press called his positive thinking, new thought
religion a "media business" because Robinson
advertised so heavily.
In 1928 Robinson wrote an ad for his new philosophy
that began with the headline, "I TALKED WITH GOD."
An advertising agency in Spokane, Washington said the
ad would never work. But Frank believed in his message
and trusted his hunches. He borrowed $2,500 from people
he barely knew, spent most of it on printing his lessons,
and invested $400 to place his ad in "Psychology
Magazine."
That ad pulled 5,300 responses. Robinson ran it in
numerous magazines and it always pulled a 3% to 21%
response. Within a year he had a full-time job fulfilling
requests for his books and lessons, soon shipping a
million pieces of mail a year out of his office in Moscow,
Idaho. The post office in that little town had to move
into a bigger building to handle all the mail.
Robinson's ads appeared in 140 newspapers, 180 magazines,
and on 60 radio stations, all at the same time. His
postal bill in 1938 amounted to $16,000 and his printing
bill hit $40,000. He received 60,000 pieces of mail
a day, reached more than two million people, and sent
his message to 67 countries---all within one year of
running his first ad.
"Advertising is educating the public to who you
are, where you are, and what service you have to offer,"
Robinson wrote. "The only man or organization who
should not advertise is the one who has nothing to offer."
What can we learn from Frank B. Robinson?
1. He believed in his product. When you don't believe
in what you are trying to sell, it shows. It'll show
in your lack of commitment to your marketing, in poor
advertising, in poor service, or in other ways. As I
mention in my book, The Seven Lost Secrets of Success,
sincerity is one of the "lost secrets" to
success. Robinson had sincerity. While his movement
made tons of money, Robinson accepted only $9,000 a
year as his salary. Whether you call him a crackpot
or a savior, he believed in his product. He knew he
had something people wanted. In fact,
Robinson sold his religious lessons with a money-back
guarantee.
2. He advertised relentlessly. If you don't tell people
that you exist, they won't know it. The reason you aren't
aware of Robinson or his movement today is because he's
dead. (He died in 1948). No one is advertising his message.
Without consistent and persistent advertising to educate
the public, the world won't know of your business.
3. He tracked his results. Robinson believed in the
spiritual world, but he also knew he lived on the earth
plane where numbers matter. He tracked responses from
his ads to know what worked and what didn't. For example,
astrology magazines brought him an 18% response to his
ads while national weekly papers brought 3%. Knowing
that, Robinson could invest more money in larger ads
in the better pulling magazines. Find out where your
business comes from and focus more advertising in that
area.
4. He continued to create products. Robinson knew once
people tasted his goods, they would want more. He wrote
28 books during his short lifetime. These, along with
his correspondence courses, gave him a deep product
line. Your current satisfied customers will always be
your goldmine. Create more for them to buy.
5. He remained optimistic. Despite the harsh reality
of the Great Depression years, and despite competition
from religious institutions that had been around for
centuries, Robinson flourished. He didn't believe anyone
or anything could stop him. When you have that strong
of an inner conviction, nothing CAN stop you. If you
think you have competition with a similar business in
the same town, consider what it must have been like
for Robinson to have such empires as the Catholic Church,
the US government, and famous ministers and politicians
trying to close him down!
Whatever you may think of Robinson or "Psychiana,"
you have to admit he knew how to advertise his business.
"After all, it's the results in human lives that
count," he wrote in his 1941 book, The Strange
Autobiography of Frank B. Robinson. "Talk is cheap."
What are you going to do now to increase your business?
Remember, talk is cheap!
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Joe Vitale is widely recognized by many as the greatest
copywriter in America.
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