Just Salesmanship

To properly understand advertising or to learn even its rudiments one
must start with the right conception. Advertising is salesmanship. Its
principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in
both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question
should be answered by the salesman’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 to keep your name before the
people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen.

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

The difference is only in degree. Advertising is multiplied
salesmanship. It may appeal to thousands while the salesman talks to
one. It involves a corresponding cost. Some people spend $10 per word on
an average advertisement. Therefore every ad should be a super-salesman.

A salesman’s mistake may cost little. An advertising mistake may cost a
thousand times as much. Be more cautious, more exacting, therefore.

A mediocre salesman may affect a small part of your trade. Mediocre
advertising affects all of your trade.

Many think of advertising as ad-writing. Literary qualifications have no
more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship.

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

That is so in personal salesmanship as in salesmanship-in-print. Fine
talkers are rarely good salesmen. They inspire buyers with the fear of
over-influence. They create the suspicion that an effort is made to sell
them on other lines than merit.

Successful salesmen are rarely good speech makers. They have few
oratorical graces. They are plain and sincere men who know their
customers and know their lines. So it is in ad-writing.

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 and right way to answer many advertising questions.
Ask yourself, “Would this help a salesman sell the goods?” “Would it
help me sell them if I met the 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, some like clever conceits. Would you use them in
personal salesmanship? Can you imagine a customer whom such things would
impress? If not, don’t rely on them for selling in print.

Some say, “Be very brief. People will read but little.” Would you say
that to a salesman? With a prospect standing before him, would you
confine him to any certain number of words? That would be an unthinkable
handicap.

So 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 for information. Give them
enough to get 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.
Folks are accustomed to it. Anything larger is like loud conversation.
It gains no attention worth while. It may not be offensive, but it is
useless and wasteful. It multiplies the cost of your story. And to many
it seems loud and blatant.

Others look for something queer and unusual. They want ads distinctive
in style or illustration. Would you want that in a salesman? Do not men
who act and dress in normal ways make a far better impression?

Some insist on dressy ads. That is all right to a certain degree, but it
is quite unimportant. Some poorly dressed ads, like 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.

That is one of the greatest advertising faults. Ad-writers abandon their
parts. They forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead
of sales, they seek applause.

When you plan and prepare an advertisement, keep before you a typical
buyer. Your subject, your headline has gained his or her attention. Then
in everything be guided by what you would do if you met the buyer
face-to-face. If you are a normal man and a good salesman you will then
do your level best.

Don’t think of people in the mass. That gives 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 salesman should do with a half-sold person before him.

Some advertising men go out in person and sell to people before they
plan or write an ad. One of the ablest of them has spent weeks on one
article, selling from house to house. In this way they learn the
reactions from different forms of argument and approach. They learn what
possible buyers want and the factors which don’t appeal. It is quite
customary to interview hundreds of possible customers.

Others send out questionnaires to learn the attitude of 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 consumers. His interests are not their interests.

The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in
the position of the buyer. His success largely depends on doing that to
the exclusion of everything else.

This book will contain no more important chapter than this one on
salesmanship. The reason for most of the non-successes in advertising is
trying to sell people what they do not want. But next to that comes the
lack of true salesmanship.

Ads are planned and written with some utterly wrong conception. They are
written to please the seller. The interests of the buyer are forgotten.
One can never sell goods profitably, in person or in print, when that
attitude exists.

Thanks for reading chapter one of Scientific Adverting,

John Martin

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