How To Write A Good Advertisement: A Short Course In Copywriting
Product ID: 105887837
GET 44 YEARS OF ADVERTISING WRITING EXPERIENCE IN THE TIME IT TAKES TO READ THIS BOOK! You can learn to write compelling advertisements that will make people notice them, read them, and act upon them. In fact, you can learn to write such powerful advertisements that people actually go out and demand the product advertised and no other. How can you do this? By using the same elements that have made top copywriters like Victor O. Schwab excel at their craft. How to Write a Good Advertisement is a short course in writing powerful, hard-hitting copy that can help you make your products and services irresistible to potential customers. This remarkable book has turned many novice mail order entrepreneurs into expert copywriters and many experienced copywriters into masters of their trade. Whether you are new to the craft or have been writing copy for years, your knowledge and practice of advertising fundamentals will determine the extent of your success. How to Write a Good Advertisement presents these fundamentals from the perspective of a 44-year veteran in the copywriting business. Following these proven techniques and tips, anyone can write professional advertisements that create a memorable image, pull in mailboxes full of orders, or attract new customers to their service. LEARN HOW TO: Grab reader attention immediately Write compelling copy that holds attention Write a call to action that's difficult to refuse Design winning layouts Increase the number of orders Convert more inquiries to orders GET ANSWERS TO IMPORTANT TECHNICAL QUESTIONS: Effective advertisement length...use of color...smart media placement...and much more. Review: 4 lessons this book taught me about writing advertisements as an amateur - How much do you know about advertisement? Before reading this book, my understanding of advertisement was from what I learned watching Mad Men. Don Draper tells us in a pitch to a cigarette client: “Advertisement is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams, with reassurance, that whatever you’re doing, is OK. You are OK.” Wow. Mad Men made me feel like an advertisement expert. But, if you sat me down at a desk and told me to create an advertisement for a new brand of sportswear made of hemp, I wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe I’d try to make something that tells the audience that hemp sportswear will make them happy, that wearing it will make them feel like whatever they’re doing is OK. But I wouldn’t know where to start in making that happen. Or what a completed ad looks like. After reading this book, I know what steps to take, and which rules to follow to write a good ad. I don’t work in advertising. I just want to be able to publish my own content that grabs peoples attention and persuades them to take action on my content. This book offers exactly what I needed to learn. Here are the 4 main lessons it taught me: 1. There are 5 basic elements of a good advertisement: get attention, show people an advantage, prove it, persuade people to grasp the advantage, and ask for action. He breaks each element down in its own chapter, providing concrete examples as well as abstract concepts. He adds quizzes at the end of each chapter to make sure you know the important parts. 2. How to write a good headline. I couldn’t believe this book was originally published in 1962. The headlines and advice he offers could easily be used for teaching a masterclass on writing youtube clickbait titles in 2018. At the beginning of the book, he provides 100 successful headlines with comments on why they work, and several sections on effective themes you see throughout the headlines. The way he provides these real examples with immediate feedback on why they work is the most effective way to learn, not employed enough in books. It will also be a resource I use for when I need to get inspired for writing headlines or titles in the future. I used the advice in creating this headline (did it get your attention?). 3. People make decisions based on feelings or emotional appeal they want to experience or avoid, but facts are needed to rationalize the decision to go after or avoid that feeling or emotion. Moreover, the stronger and more effective your emotional appeal is presented, the more readily your facts will be believed. When presenting facts, start with the easy ones you know the reader already agree with, leaving the unfamiliar ones at the end after he or she has already started accepting your facts as true. 4. How to be a better writer. He offers lots of advice on how to write clearly and keep the reader engaged to the end. This is important in copy. The longer your ad holds the readers attention, the more persuasive it is. At one point in the book, he offers 22 ways to hold interest longer. I already wrote them down in a personal notebook to review whenever I write something in the future. This book is worth it for anyone interested in learning about advertisement or how to sell things online. Its well written, timeless, and provides tons of examples and chapter quizzes to make sure you understand the key points it offers. I wrote down so many notes and highlights that I’ll using for reference years to come. Review: Classic - This book was first published in 1962. But the lessons are still as valuable and as valid today as when first published. This is a great manual on how to write advertisement. Schwab is considered one on the legends in print advertising. He writing is easy to read, well organized and simple to understand. This is a how to manual. Mr. Schwab starts with the importance of the headline - if you can't get people to read your ad it has no chance of getting people to buy the product. He gives you step by step instruction for writing good headlines. From headlines, he goes on to teach about attention getting layout, showing people the advantages of your product, proving your claims, social proof and asking for action. Schwab talks about the copy length, subheads and AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). At the end of each chapter is a quiz on the material presented. If you want an excellent book on advertising and marketing, this is certainly one. If you have absolutely no experience, you will learn all the basics and concepts from this one book. If you consider yourself knowledgable, this is a great refresher course. Well worth reading if your job involves advertising and marketing.
| Best Sellers Rank | #594,124 in Kindle Store ( See Top 100 in Kindle Store ) #34 in Writing Skills in Advertising #111 in Direct Marketing (Kindle Store) #138 in Business Writing Skills (Kindle Store) |
E**D
4 lessons this book taught me about writing advertisements as an amateur
How much do you know about advertisement? Before reading this book, my understanding of advertisement was from what I learned watching Mad Men. Don Draper tells us in a pitch to a cigarette client: “Advertisement is based on one thing: happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams, with reassurance, that whatever you’re doing, is OK. You are OK.” Wow. Mad Men made me feel like an advertisement expert. But, if you sat me down at a desk and told me to create an advertisement for a new brand of sportswear made of hemp, I wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe I’d try to make something that tells the audience that hemp sportswear will make them happy, that wearing it will make them feel like whatever they’re doing is OK. But I wouldn’t know where to start in making that happen. Or what a completed ad looks like. After reading this book, I know what steps to take, and which rules to follow to write a good ad. I don’t work in advertising. I just want to be able to publish my own content that grabs peoples attention and persuades them to take action on my content. This book offers exactly what I needed to learn. Here are the 4 main lessons it taught me: 1. There are 5 basic elements of a good advertisement: get attention, show people an advantage, prove it, persuade people to grasp the advantage, and ask for action. He breaks each element down in its own chapter, providing concrete examples as well as abstract concepts. He adds quizzes at the end of each chapter to make sure you know the important parts. 2. How to write a good headline. I couldn’t believe this book was originally published in 1962. The headlines and advice he offers could easily be used for teaching a masterclass on writing youtube clickbait titles in 2018. At the beginning of the book, he provides 100 successful headlines with comments on why they work, and several sections on effective themes you see throughout the headlines. The way he provides these real examples with immediate feedback on why they work is the most effective way to learn, not employed enough in books. It will also be a resource I use for when I need to get inspired for writing headlines or titles in the future. I used the advice in creating this headline (did it get your attention?). 3. People make decisions based on feelings or emotional appeal they want to experience or avoid, but facts are needed to rationalize the decision to go after or avoid that feeling or emotion. Moreover, the stronger and more effective your emotional appeal is presented, the more readily your facts will be believed. When presenting facts, start with the easy ones you know the reader already agree with, leaving the unfamiliar ones at the end after he or she has already started accepting your facts as true. 4. How to be a better writer. He offers lots of advice on how to write clearly and keep the reader engaged to the end. This is important in copy. The longer your ad holds the readers attention, the more persuasive it is. At one point in the book, he offers 22 ways to hold interest longer. I already wrote them down in a personal notebook to review whenever I write something in the future. This book is worth it for anyone interested in learning about advertisement or how to sell things online. Its well written, timeless, and provides tons of examples and chapter quizzes to make sure you understand the key points it offers. I wrote down so many notes and highlights that I’ll using for reference years to come.
J**R
Classic
This book was first published in 1962. But the lessons are still as valuable and as valid today as when first published. This is a great manual on how to write advertisement. Schwab is considered one on the legends in print advertising. He writing is easy to read, well organized and simple to understand. This is a how to manual. Mr. Schwab starts with the importance of the headline - if you can't get people to read your ad it has no chance of getting people to buy the product. He gives you step by step instruction for writing good headlines. From headlines, he goes on to teach about attention getting layout, showing people the advantages of your product, proving your claims, social proof and asking for action. Schwab talks about the copy length, subheads and AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action). At the end of each chapter is a quiz on the material presented. If you want an excellent book on advertising and marketing, this is certainly one. If you have absolutely no experience, you will learn all the basics and concepts from this one book. If you consider yourself knowledgable, this is a great refresher course. Well worth reading if your job involves advertising and marketing.
L**E
A must read for writers of advertising
Beneath the humble text of this book is deep insight into human nature and what causes people to buy. This is not the only book of which I would say: "If you can only have one copywriting book, get this one," but it is on the short list of such books. Superbly educational. It makes you think. It seems like a simple course on the surface - perhaps that was Schwab's gift. At the end of each chapter he features an essay on a topic pertaining to the life of a copywriter. The book is 8.5" x 11". It has enormous margins in which you could take notes. It would be a good textbook for a beginning copywriting class and I think that is why it was written. Clyde Bedell's "How To Write Advertising That Sells" was an inspiration for this text and worth reading as well - though more obscure these days due to being out of print for many years.
I**L
A Classic with badly outdated examples
No one interested in writing DM or doing copywriting should think that one book tells it all, but instead should collect a library of must-read books. This is one of them. The advice is as true as the day it was written, in 1962. It constitutes one of the small handful of true classics on writing DM and advertising. Victor Schwab is right up there with the likes of Ogilvy, Bob Bly and Dan Kennedy. Buy this Book! But...this book hasn't been revised since 1962, and many of the examples date from the 1920s and 1930s . Language has changed and moved on since then. Arm twisting , formulaic headlines and catch copy have also lost some (but maybe not all) of their ability to sell. When this book was written, there was no Internet,email,iPod, Amazon, Google or Facebook. The basic assumption behind this book is the power of the printed word, which means it has to be treated with caution at times. But this book is as fundamental a part of any copywriters toolkit as a hammer is to a carpenter. Be aware of its failings. It won't explicitly teach you to write for the Internet, and you may be puzzled by some of the quaint examples. But, if you read it and make sure to pass the tests at the end of each chapter, you're going to take giant steps towards becoming a better copywriter. The reason for four stars is the dated examples. Otherwise a five start Must Buy Book
R**R
Underrated Copywriting "Classic"
While it's author & the book itself is not as lauded as some of the other classics, this book gets straight to the essence of exactly how to write a good advertisement. Perfect for beginners (either small business owners, or aspiring copywriters) to get a solid head start. Considering everything that has changes since it was published, it has aged quite well, and you can easily apply it to the digital world. For seasoned copywriters it might not be groundbreaking, but it is a welcome reminder that we shouldn't expect books to single-handedly revolutionize our ad-writing skills either. It reminds us of solid fundamentals, and sends us to work, doubling down on them & improving through testing & continuous learning & growing.
M**S
A great book for your advertising collection
This book, though it seems a little bit old in writing style, is very good value. It starts with a list of the 100 best headlines ever written and explains why they were so. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book! This book goes into "why" not just "how" so you can learn how to do it yourself. You'll find chapters on understanding the emotional triggers, using facts, using proof, getting people to take action and much more. The examples are incredible, all the way through the whole book. Every point made comes with an example that proves the point. Its not quite a Tested Advertising Book however as a book to put on your shelf that you'll open and read many times I recommend it.
L**A
I wish I had found this book earlier.
As a new marketer, I spent a lot of time not knowing what I was doing. This book was recommended by in a copywriting workshop I attended. Lots & lots of gold nuggets. I started implementing what I was reading before even finishing the book, and I there is an increase in open rates. I love love it.
S**A
no pictures in the kindle version
Very good book, but there are no pictures which i assume are missing in the kindle version.. 5 stars for the paperback version
B**A
Great!
The section on headlines really hit home
P**T
The best advice you will get on this subject from a master of the art
More proof that the Internet is no substitute for real books, whether they be in printed or electronic form. This is an old book, but it relates to human nature which hasn't changed for thousands of years. I had performed many searches on-line looking for information about the subject matter in this book, but there is nothing as comprehensive, in-depth, or well written. It is an excellent book and the proof of the pudding was that after learning certain things and changing the wording on advertisements on my own website I saw an immediate jump in CTR. Highly recommended.
K**T
Too much theory
The headlines were great, but the rest... so boring. Only theory. I expected the same thing with the copy. 80% waste of time.
C**O
Excelentes ideas y muy fácil de leer
Me encanta la forma en que está escrito este libro, con un lenguaje agradable, fácil de leer y además cargado de tips. Lo compré porque lo recomienda John Carlton en su curso de Simple Writing System para la selección de Headlines. Hay una sección de este libro donde te muestran varias headlines y porque funcionan, esta única sección hace que valga la pena leerlo. Es una aproximación muy interesante a escribir anuncios por lo que si quieres aprender más, te lo recomiendo. Cumple la promesa del título.
Y**N
Alta qualidade
Livro perfeitamente embalado e ainda ganhei um marca páginas. Obrigada ! 😊
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