Copywriter Michel Fortin recently published a post titled “Customers Won’t Discount Your Dishonesty”. It’s about the marketing tactic of making an “Exit Offer” at a discounted price as a last ditch effort to squeeze some revenue from the traffic.

Now, there is a “wrong way” and a “right way” to make this kind of offer.  Briefly, simply offering a discount is likely to result in all sorts of problems.  If you offer a discount there needs to be a credible “Reason why”.  Usually, it involves a “Downsell” or offering a more limited version of the product at a reduced price.  Read the whole post for more details.

However, even if you do things the “right way” there’s still a risk with this tactic.  Let me illustrate with a personal example.

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Welcome to Part 2 of this series “Scientific Advertising In The 21st Century”.

Hopkins begins the second chapter (“Just Salesmanship”) as follows…

“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.  Success and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman’s standards.”

Hopkins goes on to say that the book will contain no chapter that is more important.  Everything, to Hopkins, came down to the question of advancing the sale.

Now, Hopkins did not come up with the description of advertising as “Salesmanship In Print” (in some sources “Salesmanship-On-Paper”) – that was John E. Kennedy.  But he has probably done more to popularise the idea and he extended it by also describing advertising as “Multiplied Salesmanship”.

In other words, the principles Hopkins put forward apply not just to the classic long form print ad but to all media.  Even today (perhaps especially today) in the internet era the same principles apply.

So, when planning and writing an advertisement, Hopkins’ advice was to approach it in the same way as if you had in front of you a typical buyer.

He talks a lot about face to face selling and the parallels between what a salesman needs to do and what an advertisement needs to achieve.

And always when faced with a decision about an advertisement or piece of copy, the question to ask is…

“Would it help me sell them if I met the buyer in person?”

It’s the answers to that question on which Hopkins bases his guidelines for writing and copywriters.

For example, how long should the copy be?

Answer: “Give them enough to take action”.

Use a “clever” slogan?

Answer: “Can you imagine a customer whom such things would impress? If not, don’t rely on them for selling in print.”

And so on with every decision the copywriter or advertiser must make.

There’s a telling section that all copywriters (especially I’d suggest those who think of themselves as “creative” types!) should heed…

“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.”

Finally, Hopkins talks about the vital importance of studying the consumer and finding out what they want and what will make them buy.  He mentions a number of different ways to do this (such as surveys) and he emphasises the importance of accurate information.  He makes the point that “Guesswork is very expensive”.

He finishes the chapter by returning to the theme of salesmanship and mentions what is perhaps the single most important factor in successful selling…

“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.”

This is the reason behind the apparent stubbornness of great copywriters like John Carlton and Clayton Makepeace who don’t back down when clients ask for changes to copy that are more to do with the client’s vanity rather than advancing the sale.

Much of the above might seem like “conventional wisdom” to many copywriters.  But remember, this is the source where that wisdom came from originally.

Next up in Chapter 3, something that’s often overlooked but that can produce big returns.