Breakthrough Advertising

Posted on July 1, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News |

How to Write Ads That Shatter Traditions and Sales Records

For almost 12 years now I’ve been lucky to have obtained two copies of one of the most amazing books ever printed on the subject of advertising and marketing. So amazing in fact that two years ago when I considered selling a copy on ebay the going price at that point was about $900 per copy. I quickly realized that maybe it would be a good idea to put one in a safe deposit box “just in case”.

Well, this morning while going through my library of books, I dusted off the cover of my treasure and looked on Amazon.com to see what the current price range was; I was amazed to see that the book still fetches $350 on average with some poor quality and used copies as low as $200.

The book I’m referring to is one called “Breakthrough Advertising” and its written by direct marketing mail order genius Eugene Schwartz. This book has made more mail order millionaires than any other book of its type. Its sold more copies than any TV Get Rich Guru junk and is more coveted by professionals than any classic of its genera. The book, originally published in the 60’s features principles and wisdom that are as fresh and accurate today as they were almost 50 years ago. Why? because fundamentals never die and Eugene Schwartz did an amazing job of taking the wisdom of professionals and actual successes and outlines fundamental so simple that the bold and arrogant, more often than not educated ivy league types generally disregard the wisdom recklessly.

But is the book all hype and moot. When you consider that many books have been written that have been full of hype and just as equally full of crap it begs the question. Take the mega successful book titled “The Secret” for example. Here is a book filled with more garbage and deception than any other self help book of its type. After going through the book I always felt that a punch line was about to show up that said “you believe this crap don’t you, GOTCHA!” Still, it was easy to notice that every single page is filled with content so generalized that if you did succeed by following its useless suggestions, you could easily attribute your success to the books pseudo wisdoms. But then again if you frequently bet 50/50 on anything for your decision making in life then you can really only expect happenstance results that are more coincidence than science. You could bet the same fate on garnering wisdom from a comic book with equal results.

Unlike “The Secret”, Breakthrough Advertising isn’t just another book packed with generalizations and unfounded science and theories. Although any book can be made suspect in light of exuberant bold claims of wealth and riches, Breakthrough Advertising is one that is profound yet simple enough that not many can make real bottom line results claims like those being portrayed about it. Its so profound that its worthy of some serious blog posts in my opinion. Because of this, I’ve dusted off the cover of this well preserved classic and have added a few post subjects to my list for further exploration. But how to approach it from a designers, Real Estate, internet business perspective?

Fearful of projecting the GRQ (Get Rich Quick) mindset so often played out in online products that claim to foster great success, the approach in writing about this book and its subjects must be handled intelligently. Following the conventional wisdom of professional guru’s like Jay Abraham or David Bendah (Lion Publishing), I’m motivated to write a weekly post on marketing websites and internet products because so much can be clarified by these authors. Please stay tuned.

So what makes this book so valuable

Well, fundamentals for one! The wisdom in Breakthrough Advertising is such that when long time professional mail order marketer Bob Stone and Michael Senoff suggest it as a must read, it quckly takes on compounding value. Both of these experts among many others all agree that no single book is as profound in principle as this one for the mail order or direct advertising marketer.

The book is so valuable because its very hard to find, in high enough demand by professionals that want results and its so easy to follow that a 10 year old could apply its principles. Thats why its so valuable. If you ever wanted to just start selling your products now, without all the trial and error, this book becomes very valuable then. I mean seriously, how much is a costly advertising campaign really worth to you if it fails? Certainly more than the value of this book.

But enough about how great the book is. I’ll simply say that this post serves as an introduction to future posts as I examine, adapt and write about principles in my blog on a per chapter basis.

Effective Inspirational Motivating Copy Writing

Its the direction I’m going in future posts. Appearance is golden but content is “king”! No truer words could ever be said. Search engines don’t index sites based on the beauty factor they do so based in part from content. If you could learn how to write well articulated and effective content, would that be of value to you? Consider before you answer, if web sites are indexed, linked to, discussed, and used, its because of your content and not you or your site. Its bold arrogance to believe anyone cares about you, your design and your websites features if it doesn’t provide people what they are after.

People could care less for the most part how your site looks. Although that sounds like a self contradiction considering the business I’m in; I’m fully capable of keeping it real as I convey to people with frequency that design is very important only after…..? After “Content”, because its content that gives sites their utility value, all the rest is window dressing and presentation.

So if its interesting to you to read about copywriting, I’m going to explore many of the fundamentals in good copy writing by simply sharing conventional wisdom and tried and true fundamentals in future posts. Breakthrough Advertising will be foundation in my writings on the subject.

Until then….

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