You need to know the answers to the following before you start marketing:

• Who will be your customers?

• What are their characteristics, likes and dislikes, and buying habits?

• Do they presently purchase the products or services you offer?

• How often, where and how?

• Are they brand-loyal?

• What product or service features will induce them to switch?

• How much will they pay?

• Which promotional programs will have the greatest appeal?

• Which product names, slogans and packaging do they prefer?

• Where do they learn about products and services like yours?

You can find some of this information at the library, chamber of commerce and trade associations to name a few.

Advertising is salesmanship multiplied. The purpose of a copywriter’s job is to sell. Advertising job is to increase consumer’s awareness in the long term. It is not used just to spike sales.

The selling is achieved 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 because of like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman's standards.

“Let us stress that point. The purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its sales.“It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before 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 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 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. A mediocre salesman may affect less of your trade. Mediocre advertising affects all your trade.”These points are as true today as 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 continually test. 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 is 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.

Crafting an ad that speaks directly to a person performs better than addressing the masses. It makes little sense to start testing with the assumption that it does not. This is common sense.