Are you a serious student of marketing, advertising, copywriting, and direct response?
If you are, you’ve probably read Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins at least once.
If you don’t have it yet, I offer a free download of the Scientific Advertising audiobook plus ebook here.
I also strongly recommend having your own physical copy of the book. I recommend this version from Amazon, which also includes the more autobiographical and story-driven My Life in Advertising.
Either way, you should absolutely, positively, unequivocally turn yourself into a student of Claude Hopkins.
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Editor’s note: On Friday, I’m doing a live members-only webinar for BTMSinsiders members where I break down the 21 principles Claude Hopkins taught in Scientific Advertising — and how to use them today, in the 21st century. Click here for more info and to register…
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Nearly every great marketer and copywriter since has studied Claude Hopkins…
Here’s a sampling of what they’ve said…
David Ogilvy said, “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.”
Before it was brought back into print, Jay Abraham used to read it from the stage at seminars attendees paid upwards of $25,000 to attend. Jay says, “I’ve read it over 50 times.”
The legendary Gary Halbert, the “Prince of Print,” was often asked the best way to learn effective, profit-pulling direct response copy. His response was, “The first thing I’d ask you to do is give yourself a basic education in valid advertising principles. To begin with, I’d want you to read everything listed below.” He listed nine books, and the very top one was Scientific Advertising. Even above his own work.
Gary Bencivenga called Claude Hopkins “The Aristotle of Advertising.”
Clayton Makepeace said that new copywriters should NOT buy his own training, and instead said, “The first thing you should do is read Claude Hopkins…”
Me, I actually recorded myself reading it so I could listen to it over and over and over again, and actually keep a copy of the audiobook on my phone at all times.
This one book laid the foundation for the entire approach to marketing and advertising that we now know as direct response…
Claude Hopkins was one of the very first — if not THE first — who taught that all marketing results should be measured.
His was the first major book to publish the principle learned from his colleague John E. Kennedy that advertising is “Salesmanship in print.”
Hopkins was probably the world’s highest paid advertising copywriters of this time — because he understood how to persuade and move buyers to action with his words.
And he meticulously broke down his methods and what made him successful, and saved it for posterity in his book.
The great news for readers of this old book: the principles are even more powerful today…
Listen, this book was first published in 1923. That’s 95 years ago.
It’s nearly a century old.
Most hip, modern advertisers would think it has nothing to do with the advertising world of today, where more than 50% of advertising spend is online. Heck, even as Scientific Advertising was being established, radio wasn’t even a viable mass medium. Much less TV or other modern media. The internet? Nope! Social media? Ha!
And yet, I just read an article the other day that was talking about how many advertisers are still struggling to make social media work. Because they’re measuring THE WRONG THING — engagement. It cited United Airlines as having the most engaged-with social media post of 2017, which should be a measure of success (by these advertisers’ metric). But because it was NEGATIVE, this stalwart of social media effectiveness measurement was doing the opposite of what it was supposed to do.
Any serious student of Claude Hopkins would know better.
“Uncle Claude,” as my friend Perry Marshall has called him in all his best-selling books on Google advertising, would run circles around most online marketers, without ever having seen a computer in his lifetime.
Because today’s media only amplifies the power and effectiveness of the 21 principles taught in Scientific Advertising.
Those who know hold massive power…
I don’t know a single successful direct response marketer today who hasn’t seriously internalized the principles in Scientific Advertising.
It should practically be the first book you pick up, if you’re hoping to make it as a copywriter.
And yet, I’ll admit…
Some of it can feel old and stodgy. Some of it can feel antiquated.
Not just the language. But the way media is referred to. And all sorts of other things.
Its lessons and core principles are given new life when they are related to modern marketing.
And so I’m going back through. Breaking down the 21 principles. Taking notes on what Hopkins taught. And then interpreting it through the lens of my experience, to share how you can apply it today.
If you’re a BTMSinsiders member, you can register now and join me for a live webinar on Friday, November 16, at 11:30 AM Central. You’ll also get the recording added to the members area within 7 days after.
If you’re not a BTMSinsiders member, you can join now and join us on the webinar on Friday.
Yours for bigger breakthroughs,
Roy Furr
