by Claude Hopkins
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Product Description
Gain a lifetime of experience from the inventor of test marketing and coupon sampling -- Claude C. Hopkins. Here, you'll get two landmark works in one easy-to-carry volume and discover his fixed principles and basic fundamentals that still prevail today.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Classic - full of knowledge - a must read, 2008-10-13
There are two very valuable books here.
These books were first published over 80 years ago. But that does not in any way mean they are less important today than they were when first written. The fact that they have withstood the test of time and are still considered highly valuable works today validates the importance of the message.
The third paragraph of Scientific Advertising gives a preview of the lessons to be learned. "Therefore this book deals, not with theories and opinions, but with well-proved principles and facts. It is written as a text book for students and a safe guide for advertisers." They are both based on well proven facts.
Both books contain very valuable lessons learned by Claude Hopkins during his amazing career in advertising. He gives a very solid philosophy of advertising and then backs it with many actual examples of advertising in action.
If your business conducts any form of advertising, you would do well to read these two books. As Hopkins points out, "The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself."
A recurring theme of both books is all advertising must have a means to measure the results. "In no other way can real service reveal its advantage. Doing anything blindly is folly."
Most businessmen today believe they know their market. Hopkins has some strong words for those who rely on their opinion rather than testing the market. He says, "Sometimes those who judge the world by themselves, succeeded. Four times in five they failed. I know of nothing more ridiculous than gray-haired boards of directors deciding on what housewives want." "Only the obstinate bone-headed, will venture far on personal opinion."
Claude gives some great lessons in selling. "And every effort to sell creates corresponding resistance." Don't engage in selling. Interest those people who want what you have. Clearly show them the benefits of your product. But don't try to sell them. It will backfire. "Changing people's habits is very expensive." "People will do much to cure a trouble, but in general do little to prevent it." So don't try to sell prevention. Sell the cure.
There is some overlap between the two books. Some examples are cited in both books. But it is very interesting reading, learning how Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice were marketed. There are countless other examples of how appropriate marketing created demand and distribution.
It is easy to say that times have changes and what worked in the early 1900's will not work today. There is no doubt that a lot has changed. But not basic human behavior. So the principles are still the same. Your job is to learn the principles and figure out how to apply them to your product or service.
The two greatest lessons from these books are to measure your return and to get rid of your own opinion about what the customer wants. Learn to ask them. Find out what they want. Trying to sell what you think the market wants can be very costly.
Delightful and easy to read. Full of knowledge you can put to use in your business right away.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Dense With Profound Understanding Of Human Nature, 2008-05-26
This is the seed book on advertising and copywriting.
It's a short book. The ideas in it are so tersely stated
it's easy to miss their profundity.
Very concise. Very well illustrated by examples from
Hopkins' advertising career. The incidents described
occurred in a different time though - so they might
at first inapplicable to today's marketing environment.
Housewives no longer become excited by canned Baked Beans
and mail-order corsetry. When this book was written
products were described with words and a drawing at
best. The demands of the marketplace today are different
and customers have been split-up into almost infinite
niche markets today.
Still, timeless wisdom about what gets people to buy.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
This is the one!! Probably the best!, 2007-11-18
I have read marketing books by several of the most famous marketers who are still alive and this book is much better than all of them. This book lets you really understand marketing in a practical way, whereas other books make marketing seem more difficult, confusing, theoretical, and vague. Other books are much less helpful than this one. I think Claude had many times more experience and major successes than any living marketer. I think he knew what he was talking about much more than any others. That's why he explains things much better. I think he was also much smarter and talented as well. He was truly a marketing genius. It doesn't matter that this book is old, because people haven't changed and the scientific principles underlying marketing have not changed at all. If it is true that few people read this book, then I am glad! I would be afraid if all my competition read this book!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
It's not just about the money, 2007-04-19
Hopkins's career began at the dawn of advertising and copywriting. As his career progressed so did advertising and he gives us a behind the scenes look at many advertising campaigns from the late 1800's-1920's. Hopkins almost single-handedly helped take copywriting out of its "swaddling clothes."
Of equal interest is his personal history. He was raised in a strict religious home and expected to become a minister. But at age 17 he delivered a sermon that revealed his true beliefs, which were more liberal than his mother's, and he said it was the defining moment of his life. Not once, however, does he criticize his parents or his upbringing and he credits his mother for his advertising and copywriting skills.
Hopkins launched his career in Grand Rapids, Michigan and eventually moved to Chicago, and other cities, for bigger and better jobs. Yet he says that he wondered if remaining in Grand Rapids and living a quiet life wouldn't have been the better choice. He remained connected to normal, real people even after becoming affluent and said he learned much about contentment from them. Hopkins's attitude is very different from most authors of modern business and personal finance books, where it's all about the money.
Scientific Advertising is, as you already know, must reading for advertisers and copywriters. The chapters are short and address very specific topics: headlines, letters, individuality, telling a full story, and, my favorite, service. "The good salesman does not merely cry a name...He pictures the customer's side of his service until the natural result is to buy."
In this book you will not only learn about advertising but you will encounter a humble man who remained detached from the trappings that advertising can sometimes present.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
This is the "Bible" for direct marketing., 2007-02-23
If you are going to be successful in direct marketing you need to the buy this book and read it until you can quote from it. Study this book and it will pay off.
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