There are well established patterns for the development of technical society papers, editorial publicity material, business paper advertising, and displays at engineering expositions—as used to support and stimulate industrial selling. But there is precious little pattern—and certainly no industry-wide pattern—to the development of that most common and essential of all sales aids, the company's sales literature. This paper, therefore, will undertake to offer an analytical approach to the development of sales literature—for the technical firm selling technical products to technical buyers—which the uninitiated can follow and the veteran can compare with the approaches his company uses and considers to be “established practice.”