By Claude C. Hopkins and Troy S. Laughren

© 2005 Troy S. Laughren All Rights Reserved
No part of this 2005 version May be reproduced in any form.

To properly understand advertising or to learn even its fundamentals one must start with the right state of mind.  Advertising is salesmanship.  Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both are due to like causes.  Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesperson's standards.

Let us emphasize that point.  The only purpose of advertising is to make sales.  It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.

It is not for general effect.  It is not for branding, to keep your name before the people.  It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen.

Treat it as a salesperson.  Force it to justify its existence.  Compare it with other salesmen.  Figure its cost and result.  Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make.  Then and only then will you not go wrong.

The difference between sales people and advertising is only a fraction of a degree.  Advertising is multiplied salesmanship.  It may appeal to thousands while the salesperson talks to one.  It involves a corresponding cost.  Some people spend $50 per word on an average advertisement.  Therefore every ad should be a high performance salesperson. A salesperson whose sales pitch is so well perfected that it leaves no room for guesswork or theory, a sales pitch that leaves no words, no pictures no headlines to the winds of chance.

A salesperson's mistake may cost little but an advertiser’s mistake may cost a thousand times as much.  Be more cautious, more exacting.

A mediocre salesperson may affect a small part of your business. Mediocre advertising however, affects all of your business.

Many think of advertising as literary writing.  Literary qualifications have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship. Advertising is salesmanship in print.

One must be able to express himself briefly, clearly and convincingly, just as a salesperson must.  Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage.  So is unique literary style.  They take attention from the subject and reveal the hook.  Any studied attempt to sell, if apparent, creates sales resistance.

That is so in both personal salesmanship as well as salesmanship-in-print.  Fine talkers are rarely good salespeople. They attempt to inspire buyers by way of fear, of manipulation, of pressure.  They create the suspicion that an effort is made to sell them on matters other than merit.

Successful salesmen are rarely good speech makers.  They have few oratorical graces.  They are plain and sincere people who know their customers and know their products.  So it is in writing advertising.

Many of the ablest men in advertising are graduate salesmen. The best we know have been house-to-house canvassers.  They may know little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric, but they know how to use words that convince.

There is one simple way to answer many advertising questions. Ask yourself, "Would it help a salesperson sell the goods?"  "Would it help me sell them if I met a buyer in person?"

A fair answer to those questions avoids countless mistakes. But when one tries to show off, or does things merely to please himself, he is little likely to strike a chord which leads people to spend money.

Some argue for slogans or catch phrases, some like clever conceits.  Would you use them in personal salesmanship? Can you imagine a customer being impressed? If not, don't rely on them for selling in print either.

Consider fast food giant Wendy’s catchy “Where’s the Beef?” phrase. Most of us, of the proper age, can quickly recall this advertising campaign, yet sales at this fast food chain dropped, and all the while the “Where’s the Beef?” phrase grew in public popularity.  Catchy phrases don’t sell, proven salesmanship does.

Some say "Be very brief.  People will not read many words."  Would you say that to a salesperson? With a prospect standing before him, would you attempt to confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable handicap.

So it is in advertising.  The only readers we get are people whom our subject interests.  No one reads ads for amusement, long or short.  Consider them as prospects standing before you, seeking information.  Give them enough to take action.

Some advocate large type and big headlines.  Yet they do not admire salesmen who talk in loud voices.  People read all they care to read in 8-point type.  Our magazines and newspapers are printed in that type.  We are accustomed to it.  Anything louder is like loud conversation.  It does not gain attention worth while.  It may not be offensive, but it is still useless and wasteful.  It multiplies the cost of your story.  And to many it seems loud and blatant.

Others look for something strange and unusual.  They want ads distinctive in style or illustration.  Would you want that in a salesperson? Do not men who act and dress in a normal, professional way make a far better impression?

Some insist on dressy ads.  That is all right to a certain degree, but is quite unimportant.  Some poorly-dressed men prove to be excellent salesmen.  Over dress in either is a fault.

So with countless questions; measure them by salesmen's standards, not by amusement standards.  Ads are not written to entertain.  When they do, those entertainment seekers are little likely to be the people whom you want anyway.

That is one of the greatest advertising faults.  Ad writers forgot who they are and what they are trying to accomplish.  They forget they are salesmen and attempt to become performers.  Instead of sales, they seek applause.

When you plan or prepare to draft an advertisement, keep within your mind a typical buyer.  Has your subject, your headline gained his or her attention.  Then as you create be guided by what you would do and say if you met that buyer face-to-face.

Don't think or write to people in the masses.  That will only give you a blurred view.  Think of a typical individual, man or woman, who is likely to want what you sell.  Don't try to be amusing.  Money spending is a serious matter.  Don't boast, for all people resent it.  Don't try to show off.  Do just what you think a good salesperson should do with a half-sold person before him.

Some advertising men even go out in person and sell to people before they write an ad.  One of the best of them spent weeks on one ad, selling from house to house.  In this way you learn reactions from different approaches you take.  You learn what buyers want and what factors don't appeal to them.   It is quite useful to interview hundreds of possible customers.

Others send out questionnaires to learn the attitude of the buyers.  In some way all must learn how to strike responsive chords.  Guesswork is very expensive.

The maker of an advertised article knows the manufacturing side and probably the dealer's side.  But this very knowledge often leads him astray in respect to customers.  His interests are not in their interests.

The advertising person must study the consumer.  He must try to place himself in the position of that buyer.  Success largely depends on doing that to the exclusion of everything else.

This chapter on salesmanship is the most important.  Always remember “what’s in it for me, me the customer not me the salesperson or me the company. The main reason for non-success in advertising is attempting to sell people what they do not want, secondly its lack of true salesmanship.

Too often ads are planned and written within the utterly wrong frame of mind.  They are written to please the seller and the interests of the buyer are forgotten.  One can never sell goods profitably, either in person or in print when that attitude exists. Never forget the self serving benefit of the customer and you will always be miles ahead of your competition.