What is advertising?

Is it something to be regarded as a work of beauty or art? Is it clever

slogans or amusing prose? Is it workmanship to be judged for an

award or recognition?

It’s none of the above.

Advertising is

 

salesmanship multiplied.

Nothing more.

And advertising copy, or copywriting, is

 

salesmanship in print.

The purpose of a copywriter’s job is to sell. Period.

The selling is accomplished by persuasion with the written word,

much like a television commercial sells (if done properly) by

persuading with visuals and audio.

As Claude Hopkins wrote in his timeless classic,

 

Scientific Advertising:

“

 

 

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 advertiser’s mistake may cost a

thousand times that 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

”

These points are as true today as they were when they were written

nearly one hundred years ago!

So the goal then becomes:

 

 

 

how can we make our advertising as

effective as possible.

The answer is to test. Test again. And then test some more.

If ad “A” receives a two percent response rate, and ad “B” receives

three percent, then we can deduce that ad “B” will continue to

outperform ad “A” on a larger scale.

Testing takes time, however, and can be expensive if not kept in

check. Therefore, it’s ideal to start with some proven tested known

ideas and work from there.

For example, if testing has shown for decades or more that targeted

advertising significantly outperforms untargeted advertising (and it

does), then we can start with that assumption and go from there.

If we know based on test results that crafting an ad that speaks

directly to an individual performs better than addressing the masses

(again, it does), then it makes little sense to start testing with the

assumption that it does not. This is common sense.

So it stands to reason that knowing some basic rules or techniques

about writing effective copy is in order. Test results will always trump

everything, but it’s better to have a starting point before you test.

So this starting point is the essence of this book.

The ten tips expressed here have been generally time-tested and

known to be effective.

But I can’t emphasize enough that when using these

techniques, you should always test them before rolling out a

large (and expensive) campaign.

Sometimes a little tweak here or there is all that is needed to

increase response rates dramatically.

And with that, let’s move onward…

Focus on Them, Not You

When a prospect reads your ad, letter, brochure, etc., the one thing

he will be wondering from the start is: “what’s in it for me?”

And if your copy doesn’t tell him, it’ll land in the trash faster than he

can read the headline or lead.

A lot of advertisers make this mistake. They focus on them as a

company. How long they’ve been in business, who their biggest

customers are, how they’ve spent ten years of research and millions

of dollars on developing this product, blah, blah.

Actually, those points are important. But they should be expressed in

a way that matters to your potential customer. Remember, once he’s

thrown it in the garbage, the sale is lost!

When writing your copy, it helps to think of it as writing a letter to an

old friend. In fact, I often picture a friend of mine who most closely

fits my prospect’s profile. What would I say to convince this friend to

try my product? How would I target my friend’s objections and

beliefs to help

 

 

my cause?

When you’re writing to a friend, you’ll use the pronouns “I” and

“you.” When trying to convince your friend, you might say: “Look, I

know you think you’ve tried every widget out there. But you should

know that…”

And it goes beyond just writing in the second person. That is,

addressing your prospect as “you” within the copy. The fact of the

matter is there are many successful ads that

 

weren’t written in the

second person. Some are written in the first person perspective,

where the writer uses “I.” Other times the third person is used, with

“she,” “he,” and “them.”

And even if you

 

do write in the second person, it doesn’t necessarily

mean your copy is about them.

For example:

“As a real estate agent, you can take comfort in the fact that

I’ve sold over 10,000 homes and mastered the tricks of the

trade”

Although you’re writing in the second person, you’re really still

focusing on yourself.

So how

 

can you focus on them? Glad you asked. One way is to…

Emphasize Benefits, Not Features

What are features? They are descriptions of what qualities a product

possesses.

•

 

The XYZ car delivers 55 miles per gallon in the city.

•

 

Our ladder’s frame is made from a lightweight durable steel

alloy.

•

 

Our glue is protected by a patent.

•

 

This database has a built-in data-mining system.

And what are benefits? They are what those features mean to your

prospects.

•

 

You’ll save money on gas and cut down on environmental

pollutants when you use our energy saving high-performance

hybrid car. Plus, you’ll feel the extra

 

oomph when you’re

passing cars, courtesy of the efficient electric motor, which

 

they

don’t have!

•

 

Lightweight durable steel-alloy frame means you’ll be able to

take it with you with ease, and use it in places most other

ladders can’t go, while still supporting up to 800 pounds. No

more backaches lugging around that heavy ladder. And it’ll last

for 150 years, so you’ll never need to buy another ladder again!

•

 

Patent-protected glue ensures you can use it on wood, plastic,

metal, ceramic, glass, and tile…without messy cleanup and

without ever having to re-glue it again—guaranteed!

•

 

You can instantly see the “big picture” hidden in your data, and

pull the most arcane statistics on demand. Watch your business

do a “180” in no time flat, when you instantly know why it’s

failing in the first place! It’s all done with our built-in datamining

system that’s so easy to use, my twelve year-old son

used it successfully

 

right out of the box.

I just made up those examples, but I think you understand my point.

By the way, did you notice in the list of features where I wrote “steel

alloy?” But in the benefits I wrote “steel-alloy” (with a hyphen). Not

sure off-hand which one is correct, but I know which one I’d use.

Here’s why:

 

 

you are not writing to impress your English teacher or

win any awards. The only award you’re after is your copy beating the

control (control being the best-selling copy so far), so take some

liberty in grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. You want it

to be read and acted upon, not read and admired!

But—back to benefits…

 

 

 

If you were selling an expensive watch, you wouldn’t tell your reader

that the face is 2 inches in diameter and the band is made of leather.

You

 

 

show

him how the extra-large face will tell him the time at a

glance. No sir! He won’t have to squint and look foolish to everyone

around him trying to read this magnificent timepiece. And how about

the way he’ll project success and charisma when he wears the

beautiful gold watch with its handcrafted custom leather band? How

his lover will find him irresistible when he’s all dressed up to go out,

wearing the watch. Or how the watch’s status and beauty will attract

the ladies.

Incidentally, did you notice how I brought up

 

 

not squinting

as a

benefit? Does that sound like a silly benefit? Not if you are selling to

affluent baby boomers suffering from degrading vision. They

probably hate it when someone they’re trying to impress sees them

squint in order to read something. It’s all part of their inner desire,

which you need to discover. And which even

 

 

they

may not know

about. That is, until you show them a better way.

The point is to address the benefits of the product, not its features.

And when you do that, you’re focusing on your reader and his

interests, his desires. The trick is to highlight those specific benefits

(and word them correctly) that push your reader’s emotional hot

buttons.

How do you do that? Read on!

Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons

This is where research really pays off. Because in order to push those

buttons, you need to first know what they are.

Listen to this story first, and I’ll tell you what I mean: Once upon a

time a young man walked into a Chevrolet dealer’s showroom to

check out a Chevy Camaro. He had the money, and he was ready to

make a buying decision. But he couldn’t decide if he wanted to buy

the Camaro or the Ford Mustang up the road at the Ford dealer.

 

 

 

 

A salesman approached him and soon discovered the man’s dilemma.

“Tell me what you like best about the Camaro,” said the salesman.

“It’s a fast car. I like it for its speed.”

After some more discussion, the salesman learned the man had just

started dating a cute college cheerleader. So what did the salesman

do?

Simple. He changed his pitch accordingly, to push the hot buttons he

knew would help advance the sale. He told the man about how

impressed his new girlfriend would be

 

 

when he came home with this

car!

 

 

He placed the mental image in the man’s mind of he and his

girlfriend cruising to the beach in the Camaro. How all of his friends

will be envious when they see him riding around with a beautiful girl

in a beautiful car.

And suddenly the man saw it. He got it. And the salesman recognized

this and piled it on even more. Before you know it, the man wrote a

nice fat check to the Chevy dealership, because he was

 

 

sold!

The salesman found those hot buttons and pushed them like never

before until the man realized he wanted the Camaro more than he

wanted his money.

I know what you’re thinking…the man said he liked the car because it

was fast, didn’t he?

Yes, he did. But subconsciously, what he really desired was a car that

would impress his girlfriend, his friends, and in his mind make them

love him more! In his mind he equated speed with thrill. Not because

he wanted an endless supply of speeding tickets, but because he

thought that thrill would make him more attractive, more likeable.

Perhaps the man didn’t even realize this fact himself. But the

salesman sure did. And he knew which emotional hot buttons to

press to get the sale.

Now, where does the research pay off?

Well, a good salesman knows how to ask the kinds of questions that

will tell him which buttons to press on the fly. When you’re writing

copy, you don’t have that luxury. It’s therefore very important to

know upfront the wants, needs, and desires of your prospects for

that very reason. If you haven’t done your homework, your prospect

is going to decide that he’d rather keep his money than buy your

product. Remember, copywriting is

 

 

salesmanship in print!

It’s been said many times: People don’t like to be sold.

But they do like to buy.

And they buy based on emotion first and foremost. Then they justify

their decision with logic,

 

 

even after they are already sold emotionally

.