Understand and use the concepts of successful advertising
Whether you are considering a career in advertising or trying to find the best way to market your product, start with Hopkins and then move onto the rest.
In this powerful book he explains the process to get (and measure) results from your advertising.
Claude Hopkins wrote 'Scientific Advertising' in 1923, but his insight into consumer behaviour still holds. The aim was to explain the rules of advertising and what makes consumers buy, so that advertising returns would become a certainty and not a guess. Learn how to use his techniques to write adverts which sell with certainty.
Hopkins clearly shows how to write copy, provides methods for testing it and shows how evidence based advertising gets results in a measurable and cost effective way.
A must read if you are in business, sales or advertising. Hopkins shows what makes us buy and how you can make it happen.
This edition also includes examples of adverts produced by Claude Hopkins through his career.
Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times. It changed the course of my life. David Ogilvy
Within this book Hopkins shows a variety of tested techniques which he had used through his successful career in advertising, including:
- How advertising laws are established - What the professionals in advertising already know and how we can use this knowledge to develop better ads.
- Just salesmanship - What is advertising and how is it best used?
- Offer service - The best ways to offer service to increase sales.
- Mail order advertising - What it teaches us and how we can apply it to our own adverts.
- Headlines -A lot of headlines get a poor response in email marketing, websites and adverts. Learn how to increase your response rate.
- Psychology - Use Hopkins experience to direct people to buy and use your product.
- Being specific - Are you being specific enough in your advertising? Hopkins shows that by using specific facts you can increase sales and out perform your competitors.
- Tell your full story - How telling your story is important and why some advertisers make the mistake of missing out on this.
- Art in advertising - Should we use bespoke artwork or tried and tested visuals?
- Things too costly - What strategies are too costly to attempt in advertising.
- Information - How to give the consumer the best information to help them buy.
- Strategy - Rules for directing a campaign.
- Use of samples - How getting samples into peoples hands can increase sales.
- Getting distribution - Hopkins lays out how to get national distribution by starting small.
- Test campaigns - How to test different campaigns on the same audience.
- Leaning on dealers - Ways to get dealers to help your campaign
- Individuality - Set yourself apart from competitors and what your tone should be.
- Negative advertising - Will it help your sales?
- Letter writing - Hopkins shows how to write a sales letter.
- A name that helps - How does a product name impact sales?
- Good business - See how good business impacts on consumer behaviour.
Excerpts from the book
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales.
I never ask people to buy. The ads all offer service, perhaps a free sample. They sound altruistic. But they get a reading and action. No selfish appeal can do that.
I set down these findings solely for the purpose of aiding others to start far up the heights I scaled.
Claude C. Hopkins (1866–1932) was one of the great advertising pioneers. He believed advertising existed only to sell something and should be measurable and justify the results that it produced. He worked for various advertisers, including Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company, Swift & Company and Dr. Shoop's patent medicine company. At the age of 41, he was hired by Albert Lasker owner of Lord & Thomas advertising in 1907 at a salary of $185,000 a year, Hopkins insisted copywriters researched their client products and produce "reason-why" copy. He believed that a good product was often its own best salesperson, and as such he was a great believer in sampling. To track the results of his advertising, he used key coded coupons and then tested headlines, offers and propositions against one another. He used the analysis of these measurements to continually improve his ad results, driving responses and the cost effectiveness of his clients advertising spend. His classic book, "Scientific Advertising," was published in 1923, following his retirement from Lord & Thomas, where he finished his career as president and chairman. He died in 1932. Charles Duhigg credits Hopkins with popularizing tooth brushing, as a result of Hopkins' campaigns for Pepsodent.
