Copywriting

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 1 - How advertising laws are established - The time has come when advertising has in some hands reached the status of a science. It is based on fixed principles and is reasonably exact. The causes and effects have been analyzed until they are well understood. The correct method of procedure have been proved and established. We know what is most effective, and we act on basic law.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 2 - Just salesmanship - Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman's standards. continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 3 - Offer service - Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising. Ads say in effect, "Buy my brand. Give me the trade you give to others. Let me have the money." That is not a popular appeal.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 4 - Mail order advertising, What it teaches - The severest test of an advertising man is in selling goods by mail. But that is a school from which he must graduate before he can hope for success. There cost and result are immediately apparent. False theories melt away like snowflakes in the sun. The advertising is profitable or it is not, clearly on the face of returns. Figures which do not lie tell one at once the merits of an ad.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 5 - Headlines - Perhaps a blind headline or some clever conceit will attract many times as many. But they may consist of mostly impossible subjects for what you have to offer. And the people you are after may never realize that the ad refers to something they may want. continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 6 - Psychology - The competent advertising man must understand psychology. The more he knows about it the better. He must learn that certain effects lead to certain reactions, and use that knowledge to increase results and avoid mistakes. Human nature is perpetual. In most respects it is the same today as in the time of Caesar. So the principles of psychology are fixed and enduring. You will never need to unlearn what you learn about them. continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 7 - Being specific - Platitudes and generalities roll off the human understanding like water from a duck. They leave no impression whatever. To say, "Best in the world," "Lowest price in existence," etc. are at best simply claiming the expected. But superlatives of that sort are usually damaging.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 8 - Tell your full story - People are not apt to read successive advertisements on any single line. No more than you read a news item twice, or a story. In one reading of an advertisement one decides for or against a proposition. And that operates against a second reading. So present to the reader, when once you get him, every important claim you have. The best advertisers do that.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 9 - Art in advertising - Pictures in advertising are very expensive. Not in cost of good art work alone, but in the cost of space. From one-third to one-half of an advertising campaign is often staked on the power of the pictures. Anything expensive must be effective, else it involves much waste. So art in advertising is a study of paramount importance. Pictures should not be used merely because they are interesting.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 10 - Things too costly - Changing peoples habits is very expensive. A project which involves that must be seriously considered. To sell shaving soap to the peasants of Russia one would first need to change their beard wearing habits. The cost would be excessive. Yet countless advertisers try to do things almost as impossible. Just because questions are not ably considered, and results are traced but unknown.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 11 - Information - An ad-writer, to have a chance at success, must gain full information on his subject. The library of an ad agency should have books on every line that calls for research. A painstaking advertising man will often read for weeks on some problem which comes up. Perhaps in many volumes he will find few facts to use. But some one fact may be the keystone of success.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 12 - Strategy - Advertising is much like war, minus the venom. Or much, if you prefer, like a game of chess. We are usually out to capture others' citadels or garner others' trade. We must have skill and knowledge. We must have training and experience, also right equipment. We must have proper ammunition, and enough. We dare not underestimate.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 13 - Use of samples - A sample gets action. The reader of your ad may not be convinced to the point of buying. But he is ready to learn more about the product that you offer. So he cuts out a coupon, lays it aside, and later mails it or presents it. Without that coupon he would soon forget. Then you have the name and address of an interested prospect. You can start him using your product.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 14 - Getting distribution - Most advertisers are confronted with the problem of getting distribution. National advertising is unthinkable without that. A venture cannot be profitable if nine in ten of the converts fail to find the goods.To force dealers to stock by bringing repeated demands may be enormously expensive. To cover the country with a.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 15 - Test campaigns - On every new project there comes up the question of selling that article profitably. You and your friends may like it, but the majority may not. Some rival product may be better liked or cheaper. It may be strongly entrenched. The users won away from it may cost too much to get.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 16 - Leaning on dealers - We cannot depend much in most lines on the active help of jobbers or of dealers. They are busy. They have many lines to consider. The profit on advertised lines is not generally large. And an advertised article is apt to be sold at cut prices.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 17 - Individuality - A person who desires to make an impression must stand out in some way from the masses and in a pleasing way. Being eccentric, being abnormal is not distinction to covet. But doing admirable things in a different way gives one a great advantage. So with salesmen, in person or in print. There is uniqueness which belittles and. continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 18 - Negative advertising - To attack a rival is never good advertising. Don't point out others' faults. It is not permitted in the best mediums. It is never good policy. The selfish purpose is apparent. It looks unfair, not sporty. Show a bright side, the happy and attractive side, not the dark and uninviting side of things.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 19 - Letter writing - This is another phase of advertising which all of us have to consider. It enters, or should enter, into all campaigns. Every business man receives a large number of circular letters. Most of them go direct to the waste basket. But he acts on others, and others are filed for reference. Analyze those letters. The ones you act on or the ones you keep have a headline which attracted your.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 20 - A name that helps - There is great advantage in a name that tells a story. The name is usually prominently displayed. To justify the space it occupies, it should aid the advertising. Some such names are almost complete advertisements in themselves. May Breath is such a name. Cream of Wheat is another. That name alone has been worth a fortune. Other examples are.  continue

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins - Chapter 21 - Good Business - A rapid stream ran by the writers boyhood home. The stream turned a wooden wheel and the wheel ran a mill. Under that primitive method, all but a fraction of the streams potentiality went to waste.  continue