After a Decade, Here's New Breakthroughs From Leading-edge Copywriting Research.
Working to understand Eugene Schwartz' masterwork, Breakthrough Advertising, can be a life-long commitment.
Where do you start? Fortunately, he left clues within his work that tells us the roots of his own expertise.
Schwartz himself studied the earlier masters. You'll find these mentioned in his epilogue as recommended books. And that's our starting point.
In that masterwork, Claude Hopkins was mentioned five times, Robert Collier four, J. K. Lasker twice. Other books are mentioned only once in that epilogue itself.
A further hint was also buried at the book's beginning.
In 1984, Schwartz was asked to republish his text for Boardroom. and restudied his own work to see what had made it successful. Hidden in that Preface was the simple explanation:
"And I have also made an equally important discovery upon reviewing this book since it was first published. The examples in its pages have grown slightly older, but the principles that these examples manifest are timeless."
Schwartz, built his success by "standing on the shoulders of giants". He thoroughly studied the texts of those who went before him. And what he absorbed and based his own work on were the principles that were repeated over and over by those who went before.
It was these timeless principles, and their devices, which made the later great copywriters able to achieve their greatness.
With the advent of the Internet, a new observation was made about the oldest and most expensive method of advertising - word of mouth. Research found studies and their popular texts that explain what made memorable and remarkable copy that went "viral". These principles are also included.
And so this then becomes a necessary text for any copywriter. For without mastering principles, they become simply also-ran copycats, relying on "swipe files". They do not perform due analysis to tailor their copy to pinpoint and exploit both the maturity of the market and the prospect.
Authors Reviewed Within:
Eugene M. Schwartz, Albert D. Lasker, John F. Kennedy, Claude C. Hopkins, Robert Collier, Victor O. Schwab, Robert Cialdini, Abraham Mazlow, Lester Levenson, Walter S. Campbell, Malcom Gladwell, Chip and Dan Heath, Jonah Berger, Carmine Gallo
The Educational Journey
Where this book goes is to train ad writers to become autodidactic copywriters. This "third leg" of writing is the most exacting one - where all you've learned in non-fiction and fiction writing come together to make your entrepreneurial writing business succeed.
You'll now learn not only from the classic authors of master-copywriting, but also start learning from every advertisement you see, read, or hear - from this moment on.
Just as you've learned to dissect the books you read on a near-automatic basis - to find the techniques and devices those copywriters employed to persuade and close their own audience.
Basics are basic. Truly evergreen principles continue unchanged through the years.
And this one text you'll refer to, dog-ear, tab, highlight, and underline as you refer back to these principles over and over - to improve any and all of your copywriting.
