Advertising Was Once Just a Gamble, But Not Anymore… (Part 2)

In the last part, we went over the history of advertising and how it has evolved since.

For the next few weeks, we’ll review some of the most important concepts essential to understanding advertising on a fundamental level. 

So, ask yourself: Will you keep making the same mistakes as others, or will you take the smarter path?

The smarter way is to start with the right conception to ensure we don’t make mistakes.

Advertising is Salesmanship 

The purpose of advertising is to make sales. This is the basic premise of it. 

It is often called multiplied salesmanship. This means that if a salesman makes a mistake it may cost little but an advertiser's mistakes may cost a thousand times as much.

Many think of advertising as ad writing, but literary skills have no more to do with it than oratory has with salesmanship. 

It is seen that fine talkers are rarely good salesmen. They inspire buyers with the fear of influence but they end up creating the suspicion that an effort is made to sell them.

Successful salesmen are plain and sincere men who know their customers and their lines. 

To succeed in advertising one must be able to express himself briefly, clearly, and convincingly, just as a salesman must.

The best we know have been door-to-door salesmen. They may know little of grammar, nothing of rhetoric but they know how to use words that convince people. 

One of the simple ways we can do this is to 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. 

We have forgotten the fact that ads are not written to entertain when they do, those entertainment seekers are not people whom you want. Measure them by salesman standards, not by amusement standards. 

That is one of the greatest advertising faults. 

They forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.

When you plan an advertisement, keep a typical buyer before you. 

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. 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.

Your subject and your headline have gained his or her attention. Then in everything be guided by what you would do if you met the buyer face-to-face. 

“Guesswork is very expensive.”

The advertising man studies the consumer. He tries to place himself in the position of the buyer. 

Learns what potential buyers want and the factors that don’t appeal. We all must learn how to strike responsive chords. Success largely depends on doing just that.

There is no more important concept than this one on salesmanship. 

Ads are written to please the seller. The interest of the buyer is often forgotten. We can never sell goods profitably, in person or print, when that attitude exists.

The reason for most of the non-success in advertising is trying to sell people what they do not want, but next to that comes a lack of true salesmanship.

Offer Service 

Remember that the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interest or your profit. 

They seek service for themselves, and ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising. 

The best ads ask no one to buy.

These ads are based entirely on service. They offer wanted information. They list advantages to users. Perhaps they offer a sample, ask to buy their first package, or send something on approval, so the customer may opt-in without any cost or risk. 

Some of these ads may seem unselfish. But they are based on a knowledge of human nature. The writers know how people are led to buy. 

Here again is salesmanship. The good salesman does not merely cry a name, “Buy my article”. He pictures the customer’s side of his service until the natural result is to buy. 

These are all common principles of salesmanship. The most ignorant peddler uses them.

Yet the salesman-in-print very often forgets them. He talks about his interests. He blazons a name, as though that was of any importance. 

People can be gently persuaded but not be driven. Whatever they do they do to please themselves.

Approach it with this in mind.

Mail order advertising

A study of mail-order advertising reveals many things worth learning. It is a prime subject to study. 

Whether advertising is profitable or not, it is based on returns. Figures do not lie.

The success of an ad can be measured through clear metrics like engagement, conversions, or sales. This puts men on their mettle. 

All guesswork is eliminated. Every mistake is visible. One quickly loses his pride by learning how often his judgment errs.

Only then will one learn that advertising must be done on a scientific basis to have any fair chance at success. And he learns how every wasted dollar adds to the cost.

Then, and only then, is he apt to apply the same principles to all advertising.

The probability is that the mail-order ads have resulted from many traced comparisons. It is therefore the best advertising yet discovered.

Study those ads with respect. It will not deceive you. 

Here are some of the principles mail-order advertising teaches us:

1. Ads are always set in small type.

Remember that when you double the size of your type you also double your space. The ad may still be profitable. But returns have proved that you are paying a double price for sales.

There is no waste of space, essentially every line is utilised. Borders are rarely used. Keep this in mind when you are tempted to leave valuable space unoccupied.

There is no unnecessary elaboration. There is no boasting. There is no useless talk. There is no attempt at entertainment. There is nothing to amuse. 

2. These ads usually contain a coupon that gets some action from the converts partly made. It is there to cut out as a reminder of something the reader has decided to do. 

Mail-order advertisers know that readers forget. A large percentage of people who read an ad and decide to act will forget the decision in five minutes. 

To prevent this, they include a cut-out reminder in the ad, so the reader has it when they’re ready to act.

(This idea is similar to what we know as CTA + retargeting. The only difference is its digitization.) 

3. The pictures used in these ads are always to the point. 

They are salesmen in themselves. They earn the space they occupy. They are gauged by their importance. A picture of a dress one is trying to sell may occupy a lot of space, compared to others. Less important things get smaller spaces.

4. Mail-order advertising tells a complete story.

If the purpose is to make an immediate sale. There are no limitations there on the amount of copy. 

The Moto there is. “The more you tell the more sell.” And it has never failed to prove so.

Those were some of the principles.

With any other mail order ad which has long continued. Every feature, every word and picture teaches advertising at its best. You may not like them, you may say they are unattractive, crowded, hard to read anything you will. 

But the test of results has proved those ads the best salesman lines have yet discovered. And they certainly pay.

Mail-order ads are models. They are selling goods profitably in a difficult way. It is hard to sell goods that can’t be seen. And those that do are excellent examples of what advertising should be.

We cannot often follow all principles of mail-order advertising, though we know we should. The advertiser forces a compromise. But every departure from those principles adds to our selling cost.

We can at least know what we pay. We can make comparisons, one ad with another. Whenever we do, we invariably find the nearer we get to a proven mail-order copy the more customers we get for our money. 

What real difference is there between inducing a customer to order by mail or ordering from his dealer? Why should the methods of salesman differ? 

They should not. When they do, it is for one of two reasons. 

Either the advertiser does not know what the mail-order advertiser knows, he is advertising blindly or he is deliberately sacrificing a percentage of his returns to gratify some desire.

Make sure you don’t fall into the same traps, review these concepts carefully and implement them in your business.

We’ll be diving deeper into more of these principles in the next parts.

Talk soon,